Montana Minister visits Kosovo says Media (and Clinton)lie - Interview from 1998

Center for Peace in the Balkans ^ | Nov. 23, 1998 | Bill Dorich

[vooch]

Back Phoney Refugee Camps Found in Kosovo By William Dorich Note: Rev. Bigler made numerous attempts to meet with Albanian officials in Kosovo but Albanians thwarted these attempts. He took video footage of his entire visit and numerous photographs. November 23, 1998-The week before NATO was prepared to bomb the Kosovo Serbs, I had a lengthy conversation with Rev. Robert Bigler, a pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Butte, Montana. He had read some of my recent articles about Kosovo including my attack against Pastor Craig Barnes, National President of the Presbyterian Church who used their Washington DC cathedral for a Bosnian Task Force Symposium on December 6th, 1997, in which Serbs were ostracized and vilified from inside the sanctuary of this Christian church. That presentation was nationally televised on C-Span. "The truth," said Rev. Bigler, "seems to be going down a black hole-just like it did in Vietnam." At the beginning of my interview, Pastor Bigler said he wanted to clear the air that he did not go to Kosovo in the interest of the Serbian people of Butte or for any side. "Besides, Bigler added, I am the interim pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Butte, I am from Idaho Falls, Idaho, and I have only been in Butte since February 9th of this year-I barely know these Butte people. Rev. Bigler is a former Army chaplain and medical specialist who served this country in Vietnam. He is no stranger to warfare and its victims, nor is he distracted by those who manipulate the facts in war to serve a political agenda. "For the sake of the integrity of my own church, I went to Kosovo to investigate the truth personally. I stopped relying on the nightly news and the media driven version of Kosovo, remember, I had firsthand experience in Vietnam, and when I read about some of the battles I witnessed with my own eyes, the news accounts were pure fiction, why should Bosnia or Kosovo be any different?" I told Rev. Bigler that I, too, was interested in what he discovered in Kosovo, regardless if it went against my belief system and the Serbs whom I have defended for several years. I assured him that regardless of his findings, I would print his story in the American Srbobran. I am not happy that the news he brings back from Kosovo confirms my worst fears, that this is a Jihad, a religious war to create a Muslim state in Europe, regardless of how small, or at what human sacrifice. I was granted this interview, three weeks after Rev. Bigler returned from Kosovo. I discovered an all together different Presbyterian minister than the one I had previously spoken with a month earlier. He had become a man with a cause who discovered the truth and was then victimized by the news media as we Serbs have been victimized for the past 6 years. He now refused to let the media mock what he knows to be the truth. His own local newspaper, The Montana Standard, conducted a two hour interview, promising the pastor front page headlines and a truthful presentation of what he had discovered in the Balkans. However, the article was postponed for two weeks, obviously until after the public interest in the Kosovo story had diminish and disappeared from the front pages of America's newspapers. The article written by Lorie Hutson, was an opinion piece about Kosovo peppered with enough of Bigler's remarks that it could technically qualify as an interview. Q: What was your initial impression of Kosovo? A: "I saw people in the fields harvesting their fall crops. I did not see refugees, homeless people, starving children, or wounded victims, the usual human suffering associated with war. Instead, I witnessed a building boom unseen in Idaho or Montana in 4 decades. This Kosovo building boom was not a few hundred Albanian homes being rebuilt because of war, these were thousands of expensive houses unseen in this part of the world. Homes costing $125,000 to $150,000 to build in what the world is being told is the poorest region of Europe and the poorest in the Balkans mocked the truth of what is really going on in Kosovo. It struck me of how successfully the American public has been hoodwinked by the media and special interest groups." Bigler went on to disclose, "All of these structures were Albanian in architecture with high walls surrounding them-not out in the open like the houses of the Serbs and other ethnic minorities in Kosovo. In Pristina, a city of about 400,000, nearly all of the apartments in the 10-12 story range had satellite dishes pointing toward Albania. Where is the money coming for all of this I asked myself?" Bigler also discovered another revelation, "By contrast, I did not find any building whatsoever taking place in the Serbian areas I had passed through or visited. In fact, Richard Holbrooke was staying at the Hyatt Hotel in Belgrade. Nearby the Hyatt are four unfinished hotels contemplated to be as large as the Hyatt, stopped in mid-construction by American sponsored sanctions, unemployment in Serbia is rampant with nearly 75% of the population out of work. How in God's name do you create peace under such deplorable conditions?" What Rev. Bigler discovered is that the money for this building boom in Kosovo is coming from illegal activities-gun running, drugs, prostitution and the sale of arsenals stolen from the Albanian government last year, being resold to Albanian terrorists. Rev. Bigler also discovered that the 3% tax imposed by the illegal (shadow) government of Kosovo headquartered in Ulm, Germany, was no state secret. Those same Albanians in Kosovo refuse to pay their share of taxes to the Serbian government of whose nation they are citizens. Q: Could you confirm the alleged oppression of Albanians by the Serbian government? A: "What oppression? Serbian state owned printing companies print Albanian language, newspapers, who is oppressing whom?" ... "I heard numerous radio stations in the Albanian language the week I was in Kosovo. Some of the hostile language that I heard directed at Serbs indicates that free speech is also alive and well in Kosovo. I saw Albanian children going to school and being instructed in their own Albanian language. People were dressed in clean clothes and were freshly bathed. The Serbs and Albanians with whom I spoke seemed to be equally concerned about the safety and welfare of their neighbors-I wondered aloud why Americans are being fed a daily diet of disinformation about Kosovo and why?" Q: Did you read the Albanian newspapers in Kosovo? A: "Indeed, and in one of those articles the week I was there, it openly stated the Albanian plan for a Jihad, (holy war) to take Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia and then finally northern Greece. I was particularly surprised that one of those Albanian newspapers had a weather map openly entitled 'Greater Albania.' The map encompassed Kosovo territory. I thought to myself, imagine how Serbs, Greeks and Macedonian citizens of Kosovo must feel when their Albanian neighbors are so blatantly open about creating a 'Greater Albania.' I remembered how the Serbs were demonized in the international press for allegedly harboring thoughts of a 'Greater Serbia' as the cause of the Bosnian war and I saw for myself why the Serbs are so outraged at our American double standards." Q: Could you confirm that Albanians represent 1.8 million in Kosovo? A: "This is an arrogant media deception. The gypsy population is as apparent in Kosovo as is the Albanian. There were far more Greeks, Macedonian and Turkish people than I expected, I remembered it made an impression on me. After all, I went to Kosovo believing that Albanians are 90% of the population. That simply is not true. Coming from such small cities as Idaho Falls or Butte I did not get a sense that there were 2 million people in Kosovo as Americans have been led to believe. I kept asking myself, why the distortions? Pristina seemed no more populated than down town Butte on a busy Saturday. I am curious why the facts are withheld from the American taxpayers, why our officials never mention these details and why the media continues to omit these facts from every article?" Q: Did you stop people at random and speak with them? A: "Yes, and what I discovered was that both Serbs and Albanians knew exactly what was going on. My reaction was that these people are not as oppressed and frightened by the Belgrade government, as they are of Albanian terrorists. I asked several people what they thought of President Clinton, a number of them replied, 'the best president money can buy, and it's no different in Belgrade, Zagreb or Sarajevo.'" Q: Are the Serbs in Kosovo suffering in this war? A: "Yes, they are the silent victims that the international community simply ignores. I was surprised to see many Serbian homes selectively burned. I asked why only Serbian houses were burned in some of these villages and I was told, 'Albanian terrorists burned out Serb families to provoke a Serb military response.' It was not until the Serbian army came to these villages and began ridding them of Albanian terrorists that CNN found these events newsworthy." Q: Did the Serbian government give you complete access to the people of Kosovo? A: "Absolutely, they also provided me with six body guards and two cars and told me I could go wherever I wished, talk with whomever I wanted and to ask people any questions I felt compelled to ask. I believe I am astute enough to know when things are being staged for me, or not, and there was no attempt to do that whatsoever. I had the same kind of protection in Zurich, Switzerland where the Counsel General supplied me with body guards. With the large illegal Albanian population in that city he was concerned for my safety, too." Q: Tell me about the phoney refugee camps. A: "While in Pristina, I spoke to several foreign journalists staying at the Grand Hotel who told me that refugee camps were being staged for the media, especially for CNN cameras. Several of the journalists confirmed that on numerous occasions, they actually saw villagers being brought into the forest where these fictitious refugee camps were set up. Once the photographs and interviews were over the villagers went back to their homes. I was told by Serbian army officials that helicopter units had photographed villagers going in and out of the forest for television interviews. This leads me to believe that several foreign journalists were accomplices to this fraud as many of them have been in Kosovo for weeks at a time." Q: Was there an apparent shortage of food? A: "No, in fact, food was everywhere. In Pristina I met with international humanitarian aid workers who shared with me their lists of recipients. The vast majority of names on these lists were Albanian names. According to these aid workers and Ms. Anka Knezevic from a Serbian humanitarian organization, nearly half of the food going into Kosovo to help Albanians was provided by the Serbian government, a fact that is never disclosed in the international press. So if we are to believe the stories about ethnic cleansing in Kosovo we are no doubt manipulated into believing that the Serbian government is both the 'aggressor' and the hand of mercy. An absurd concept considering the brutality of Balkan wars in this century. Bosnia and Kosovo were no exceptions." Q: We hear about the KLA walking around with weapons, what can you tell us about this? A: "Weapons are everywhere, you can buy a hand grenade for the equivalent of 60 cents. Kalashnikov rifles for $80 dollars and anti-tank rocket launchers for a few hundred dollars. This very weekend Reuter has reported 3 Serb police and their car were attacked with a rocket launcher in Kosovo. Interesting isn't it, how silent Gen. Wesley Clarke has been? I also saw autopsy reports of how non-Albanians were killed. Many were killed with German and American-made weapons. I was told by foreign journalists that mercenaries in Pristina were from such countries as Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Turkey, it is obvious that Kosovo has been internationalized as an Islamic crusade." Q: Did you feel safe? A: "The only time I was scared was when my driver took me from the Serbian Monastery of Pec to Pristina. We drove over 100 miles per hour. Keep in mind these are not Montana highways as you and I know them. The reason given was that it is much more difficult for snipers to get a good shot when you are traveling at such a high rate of speed. Notice that none of the media stories dwell on the number of Serb and Albanian victims that were killed by snipers." Q: I understand that you were on Belgrade television? A: "Yes, several times. People stopped me in the street to thank me for coming and for doing independent investigations. They were grateful that I was a Christian minister. On one occasion, we were having dinner with a group of humanitarian aid workers and the owner of the Serbian restaurant recognized me from the television interviews and refused to present my table with a final bill, it was his way of thanking me. I found the Serbian people to be warm and loving, just as I have found them in Butte. Much to my surprise, they were not as bitter toward Americans as I expected, however they were quite vocal at how their allies in two world wars have again betrayed them just as they betrayed them to communism fifty years ago. They are insulted that the international media has succeeded in demonizing all Serbs for the alleged crimes of a few." Q: Did you meet with the Serbian Patriarch? A: "Yes, and what a rich experience. He reminded me that 'Abel had a right to defend himself against Kane.' He also reminded me that the Serbian people have a right to defend their nation against terrorists. He is dismayed that the diplomatic community has ignored and isolated the Serbian Orthodox church, much like Tito did under communism. He does not understand why the major powers have failed to include him in important decisions when the Pope has been given ample access to express his views on Balkan matters. I also discovered that Patriarch Paul led the first and many demonstrations through the streets of Belgrade to protest against the Milosevich government. He also reminded me that in 1989 when he was the Bishop of Kosovo, he was a victim of a beating by Albanian youths." Q: Who in the Serbian government did you meet? A: "On my arrival on October 8th, I had a meeting with the Director of the Public Relations Department of the MFA, Mr. Rade Drobac. That same day I met with the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Fr. of Yugoslavia, Zivadin Jovanovic. Later that day I met with a high-ranking officer of the Yugoslav Army, Col. Milan Petkovic. The following day I met with Counselor and Head of the Cabinet of the Minister for Religious Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, Mr. Dragan Novakovic and Minister of Religions, Milovan Radovanovic. Later that morning I met with Dr. Milorad Ekmedzic, academician and professor of history. This was prior to my departure to Kosovo. While in Pristina I also met with Radovan Urosevic, director of the Pristina Media Center at the Grand Hotel." When I arrived in Kosovo I had a meeting with high governmental officials in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija, Zoran Andjelovic, President of the Provisional Executive Council of Kosovo and members of the provincial council which consisted of two Albanians and one Turkish representative, I apologize for not remembering their names, most of the people I met gave me business cards. I also had meetings with Veljko Odalovic, head of the district of Kosovo and Metohija and Bosko Drobnjak, Provincial Information Secretary. On my return to Belgrade I met with Dr. Miroljub Jeftic, eminent expert in the field of Islam at the faculty of Political Sciences followed by a meeting with the Minister for National Minority Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, Mr. Ivan Sedlak. I also met with Tatjana Lenard, Chief Editor for Foreign Affairs for Radio/Television, Serbia, Belgrade. An interesting side note, on my return to Butte from Kosovo I was greeted with a telephone call from the Lasiewicz Foundation of Los Angeles who then sent me 17 pages on my fax machine in an attempt to convince me that what I saw with my own eyes in Kosovo was a mirage and therefore I was encouraged to believe her propaganda. Thank you, Mr. Dorich, for informing me that she has never been to Bosnia or Kosovo and that what little humanitarian aid her foundation gave to Bosnian victims went only to non-Serbs. I believe I sensed that from her need to belittle Serbs in our conversation. I have now come to realize that the forces of Islam and the enormous resources being spent in media manipulation is behind this farce to rob the Serbian nation and her people of what is rightfully theirs." Q: Did you meet with any foreign diplomats? A: "Yes, and one of the most impressive was a high-ranking official from India. He told me 'there are one billion Indians and 2 billion Chinese which accounts for two-thirds of the world's population, and that all of them, plus the Russians, are totally against what NATO and the major powers are doing in Serbia.' I asked this high ranking diplomat, who I am sure would not appreciate being identified, if India would respond to a bombing of Serbia, he said, 'you can count on it.!'" Q: Now that you have been to Kosovo what do you think is behind this NATO driven policy? A: "What I discovered on this trip was that the coal reserves in the Kosovo region are considered one of the largest in Europe. Recent findings indicate that the oil reserves under Kosovo could be potentially as big as those in the Caspian Sea. This does not include the other minerals that permeate this region, estimated at some $3 trillion. I am convinced that multi-national corporations in a marriage with the military are behind this drive to totally destroy the Serbian nation, even if it means violating the Helsinki Accords on the sovereignty of Serbia. Richard Holbrooke last week boasted on international television that NATO was victorious over Kosovo proving NATO's superiority over the sovereignty of nations when the allies' interest is at stake. Even Gen. Wesley Clarke recently said, 'Serbian sovereignty be damned" indicating what little respect we have for the international treaties we sign in our quest for what we openly redefine as our interest. Such arrogance will surely lead us into another World War. In my opinion, we seem determined to decided for the Serbian people who is qualified to run their government, then shove that decision down their throats. After we have succeeded in destroying their economy we now offer them IMF loans as the carrot at the end of our stick, knowing full well the Serbian people are no longer capable of repaying such loans in this life time or the next. Then, like we are currently doing in Brazil, we will ride in on our white horse and help them survive by buying as many of their national assets as we can get our hands on ... at 20 cents on the dollar, of course. This is truly the tail wagging the dog in our foreign policy. We have allowed the media and special interest groups to distort the truth and to portray the Serbian people as Nazis in order to steal their natural resources. I do not support the Milosevich regime, but, I am totally against achieving political goals by starving a nation of people into submission while denying them medicine and food. That, Mr. Dorich, is genocide by sanctions, and it's just as ugly as anything that was done in this war. The Serbian government has nearly a billion dollars in frozen assets outside of their country, $600 million in the United States. My goal is to unfreeze these assets and allow the people of Serbia the human dignity of proper medical care. Before this war, Yugoslavia ranked 3rd in medical care in Europe, today they rank at the level of a 3rd world country. Serbian children have died from a simple lack of antibiotics while our elected officials preached self-determination and democracy. For the last seven years, 95% of the Serbian people have received no medical care whatsoever. As a medical specialist, I can assure you that the Serbian people suffer from the same percentage per capita of cancer, heart disease and diabetes in their population as the population in the United States. Withholding medicine and medical care from this population for seven years has increased the rate of death from these diseases in Serbia by as much as 20%. Those who have died have suffered inconceivable deaths without traditional pain-killing drugs. This is inhuman, unacceptable and damned unchristian. Serbian children have already been doomed to a shortened life span that may not be reversible. It is therefore my goal to organize humanitarian aid through the Presbyterian church and through other organizations to distribute aid directly into Belgrade if I have to fly the airplanes myself. I was told by numerous people in the medical system in Serbia that the limited assistance that was attempted to reach the Serbian people during the Bosnian war was pilfered at Serbia's borders by Serbia's neighbors as the United Nations and world looked away. As a Christian minister I refuse to allow people to become complacent or silence, or worse, to seek vengeance believing that Serbs deserve this kind of punishment. No society, especially the American society, can subvert our dedication to human rights by a willful lack of conscience." Note: Rev. Bigler made numerous attempts to meet with Albanian officials in Kosovo but Albanians thwarted these attempts. He took video footage of his entire visit and numerous photographs.

[Banat]

In Serbia, we sometimes refer to ourselves by our geographical origin. I'm a Banachanin, for example (being from Banat myself). Shumadinats is a person from Shumadia (central Serbia). Machvanats is someone from Machva (the wider area around the city of Shabats). Sremats is someone from Srem. Kosovats is a Serb from Kosovo.

Just like is case with other Serbian names (Kosovo="Kosova", Metohia=non-existent, Pech="Peja", etc.), the Albanians have taken this one and bastardized it. Kosovats [sp. Kosovac] (a Serb from Kosovo) thus became "Kosovar" ("Kosovo Albanian", we're led to believe). The term has been launched onto the world stage and everybody's using it even though they have no idea what it really means.

[getoffmylawn]

I would like to ask you one very specific question and I'd like a very specific answer.

Why did a higher percentage of Serbs flee Kosovo during NATO's "bombing for humanity" than Albanians?

The Numbers

[ABrit]

Another Brit speaks.

See, its not just me.

[ABrit]

"Why did a higher percentage of Serbs flee Kosovo during NATO's "bombing for humanity" than Albanians?"

And you actually take these people to be independent?

[getoffmylawn]

You've convinced me that you're hopless. I asked you one specific question so as not to over burden you and you couldn't even answer that.

Did you even read the article? You don't consider Michel Chossudovsky's sources to be credible? Which of his sources don't you feel are credible?

The OSCE report?
The Kosovo Albanian sources?
The UNHCR sources?
Yugoslavia's 1991 census?

On second thought, nevermind. If you're not bright enough consider the sources that are named in the article when you're asked one specific question, there's no way you'll be able to make intelligent commentary on the nature of the sources.

Now get back to picking out a dress for your goat. Prom is coming up.

[getoffmylawn]

Nice link. Sheesh.

[Great Dane]

Oh my, you actually believe what the international war crimes tribunal says, they were bought and paid for by Clinton and NATO.

You are more naive than I thought possible.

[Great Dane]

That does not make the court legitimate, it's a kangaroo court, and that is what it was meant to be.

[Great Dane]

Very big accusations for a little person to make. I would love for you to say such a thing to my face. Is that the best that you can do in the way of 'argument'? New Labour type accusations? It doesn't work against facts, especially nowadays.

Kate, ABrit is just showing a lack of debating points, my daughter if put in that position would simply say......"Whatever," to avoid looking completely silly.

[ABrit]

I would like to ask you one very specific question and I'd like a very specific answer.

Why did a higher percentage of Serbs flee Kosovo during NATO's "bombing for humanity" than Albanians?

You've convinced me that you're hopless. I asked you one specific question so as not to over burden you and you couldn't even answer that.

Did you even read the article? You don't consider Michel Chossudovsky's sources to be credible? Which of his sources don't you feel are credible?

The OSCE report?

The Kosovo Albanian sources?

The UNHCR sources?

Yugoslavia's 1991 census?

On second thought, nevermind. If you're not bright enough consider the sources that are named in the article when you're asked one specific question, there's no way you'll be able to make intelligent commentary on the nature of the sources.

The whole of the article you quote is a bad joke. I’ll just start with his first paragraph:

"NATO's justification for bombing Yugoslavia on humanitarian grounds has been refuted by the Western alliance's own official figures and documentary evidence. The recently released OSCE report entitled "As Seen, As Told: Analysis of the Human Rights Findings of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission" suggests that the allegation of mass deportations is a fabrication."1

His cited reference for this is:

1. OSCE, Kosovo/ Kosova, As Seen, As Told, An analysis of the human rights findings of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission, October 1998 to June 1999, Warsaw, 1999.

Now read what the OSCE Report actually said:OSCE

I’ll quote some in case you’re too idle to use the link:

862,000 Kosovo Moslems were expelled, men, women and children. Internally displaced, 200,000-260,000.

Kosovo Albanians were clearly targeted for expulsion because of their ethnicity. Other ethnic and religious groups, such as Turks, Gorani and Muslim Slavs, were excluded from the expulsions. Serb houses were marked with the Serbian cross so that they would not be targeted.7 Those expelled by the Serbian forces included not only able-bodied Kosovo Albanian men and women, but also children and those elderly people who were too infirm to be mobile.

It might be possible to argue that the Serbian forces were essentially looking for UCK arms or supporters, a legitimate aim for a government seeking to bring a rebel movement under control. However, the way in which these operations were carried out indicates that the intention was clearly expulsion. Villagers were given minutes to leave and told that they should go and never come back and that Kosovo was Serbian land.8 Acts of brutality and violence were used to heighten the climate of fear, create chaos and a pervading fear for life. They formed part of a policy of terror designed to trigger "spontaneous" departure.

It might also be possible to maintain that the forced movement of Kosovo Albanians by Serbian forces was to prevent civilians from becoming caught in crossfire and fighting. Serbian forces which accompanied convoys or buses to the border could arguably be seen as providing protection (for instance, from paramilitaries or air attack) for those leaving.9

Indeed, this does appear on occasion to have been the case. However, the brutality and violence with which the IDPs were generally treated - with killings and beatings - and the failure to provide food or water - indeed, the systematic destruction of food supplies - suggest that the opposite of protection was intended.

The morning after NATO bombing, Serb forces (VJ, police, paramilitaries), heavily armed and with tanks and armoured vehicles, completely surrounded the city. They started shooting into the houses at 07:00 hours. We had to wake up our children and flee but we did not know where to go. All went very fast. We did not dare to go to the main street, we just had to climb from house to house. We could not take anything but the clothes we wore. The children had only pyjamas. We could hear shots in other houses and the crying of women and children and the shouting of paramilitaries. On the way out of the city we got to the cemetery via some side lanes and we could hear shooting, so we went down in a ditch and bullets were going over our heads. One 18-year-old girl was killed. One man was hit on the shoulder by a paramilitary with the back of a rifle and we heard that he was later executed. On that day they also started to burn the houses. We could see our own house on fire as we were leaving. The whole neighbourhood was on fire.10

Frequently a Kosovo Albanian would be intimidated, injured or killed in full public view to enforce the departure of the other villagers. Houses were also looted and set alight. Those who refused to leave were often killed. The combination of shelling, shooting, burning, intimidation and killing created chaos and panic, with villagers running in fear of their lives. As one refugee expelled from Vranic/Vraniq (Suva Reka) in early April explained, the "police threatened the population and killed some to encourage others to leave".11

One interviewee described seeing a child, aged two or three, who had been impaled on a wooden pole on the road between Pristina/Prishtina and Kolic/Koliq. Written on the pole were the words, "This is Serbia. This is what we are going to do to all Albanians, because I am God and NATO means nothing to me."10 A 22-year-old man described how he saw a woman being stabbed by a Serbian police officer first in one arm and then in the other, so that the two-month-old baby that she held in her arms fell to the ground. As the baby fell the police officer shot it on the spot.11 As the Serb forces surrounded the village of Padaliste/Padalishte (Istok), they went into the house of a teacher, took three young children and told the teacher to cut off their heads. When he refused, the police cut their throats; they also killed the teacher.12 As police, VJ and paramilitaries expelled inhabitants from their homes in Kosovska Mitrovica in mid-April, an interviewee reported seeing one of them hit a six-month-old child with a hammer (the fate of the child is not reported).13 Another interviewee described how, in an IDP convoy outside Pec on the morning of 16 April 1999, Serb forces took a five-month-old baby from the arms of its mother and asked: "Do you want to come back to Kosovo?" As the baby - of course - did not answer, they told the mother: "This baby will never go back to Kosovo!" and they threw it on the ground and killed it.14

 

 

The reason lots of Serbs decided to go to Serbia is clear. They knew what was coming to them. It’s called retribution. And who could blame the Kosovo Muslims.

[JMS]

Next you'll be quoting the story of the Albanian girl who joined the KLA because Serbs killed her sister. Of course, it was later found out that the sister was alive and well and the whole thing was staged for the media. When you say Serbs deserve what they get perhaps you have the same feelings for the white farmers of Zimbabwe? Serbs have been ethnically cleansed from Kosovo since WWII with a dramatic escalation in the 80's as reported by the NY Times reporter David Binder. Search the web for his articles and learn a thing or two.

[Kate22]

"The reason lots of Serbs decided to go to Serbia is clear. They knew what was coming to them. It’s called retribution. And who could blame the Kosovo Muslims."

So as A'Brit' you wouldn't object to every single black African killing any British person they came across? Or, if you were, say, Albanian, it would now be okay for any Serbs to kill your family through 'retribution'? What a backward and uncivilised logic. How old are you?

A few pointers for you:
Kosovo is in Serbia - it's a province just like Yorkshire or Dorset (if you know Britain at all!);
Albanians migrated into other parts of Serbia from Kosovo as well (in 10s of 1,000s);
You should maybe try reading anything that people here have said;
Who are 'Kosovo Muslims'?? There are other nationalities of Muslims in Serbia apart from Albanians.

You clearly know absolutely nothing about this subject and are just wasting everyone's time. You're even still ranting on about genocide in Kosovo, when it's not even being charged by the UN!!

[ABrit]

Reply to post 111

Unfortunately for you I can actually find some of the articles you site.

I thought you said Yugoslavia was not communist?

Right from the start, Milosevic made it quite clear what he was going to do.

 

"Until September, the majority of the Serbian Communist Party leadership pursued a policy of seeking compromise with the Kosovo party hierarchy under its ethnic Albanian leader, Azem Vlasi.

But during a 30-hour session of the Serbian central committee in late September, the Serbian party secretary, Slobodan Milosevic, deposed Dragisa Pavlovic, as head of Belgrade's party organization, the country's largest. Mr. Milosevic accused Mr. Pavlovic of being an appeaser who was soft on Albanian radicals. Mr. Milosevic had courted the Serbian backlash vote with speeches in Kosovo itself calling for ''the policy of the hard hand.''

''We will go up against anti-Socialist forces, even if they call us Stalinists,'' Mr. Milosevic declared recently. That a Yugoslav politician would invite someone to call him a Stalinist even four decades after Tito's epochal break with Stalin, is a measure of the state into which Serbian politics have fallen. For the moment, Mr. Milosevic and his supporters appear to be staking their careers on a strategy of confrontation with the Kosovo ethnic Albanians.

Other Yugoslav politicians have expressed alarm. ''There is no doubt Kosovo is a problem of the whole country, a powder keg on which we all sit,'' said Milan Kucan, head of the Slovenian Communist Party.

Remzi Koljgeci, of the Kosovo party leadership, said in an interview in Pristina that ''relations are cold'' between the ethnic Albanians and Serbs of the province, that there were too many ''people without hope.''

But many of those interviewed agreed it was also a rare opportunity for Yugoslavia to take radical political and economic steps, as Tito did when he broke with the Soviet bloc in 1948.

Efforts are under way to strengthen central authority through amendments to the constitution. The League of Communists is planning an extraordinary party congress before March to address the country's grave problems.

The hope is that something will be done then to exert the rule of law in Kosovo while drawing ethnic Albanians back into Yugoslavia's mainstream.

Copyright 1987 The New York Times Company "

[Kate22]

I never knew! I agree that in moments of need we should all gather round and protect our emotionally vulnerable and intensely evangelistic leader Saint Tony of the glottal stop. Did you see him in parliament yesterday giving his sermon? When his Blair Force One project was booted to touch they should have just got him a motorised pulpit.

[Kate22]

I never knew! I agree that in moments of need we should all gather round and protect our emotionally vulnerable and intensely evangelistic leader Saint Tony of the glottal stop. Did you see him in parliament yesterday giving his sermon? When his Blair Force One project was booted to touch they should have just got him a motorised pulpit.

[gunnedah]

The press in America is no different than the politicians and lawyers in this country.They are for sale to the highest bidder and cater to those with money and control.The press in South Carolina,my homestate sit on their lazy cans and are manipulated daily because they do not search for the truth.Most people in the press here would not know the truth if it hit them square in the face and could care less as long as they are handed something to print.I am speaking here of the mainstream big boy press now not your local small town venues.It all revolves around money ,power and control.I think that Americas "Mainstream Newspapers and Television are on the decline and I certainly hope and pray Americans are wise to the brainwashing that is going on in this country.In a segement the other night on FOX TV it was hard to find a person that could identify a photo of Donald Rumsfield.Some even thought he was Vice President Chaney.Does that say that Americans are stupid or does it show that they no longer are paying attention to the news media?Either way it is alarming.

[ABrit]

You are correct that genocide is not charge to Milosevic in Kosovo, or Croatia, only in Bosnia.

That still leaves these main headings for all areas, Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo.

GENOCIDE OR COMPLICITY IN GENOCIDE

PERSECUTIONS

EXTERMINATION, AND WILFUL

UNLAWFUL CONFINEMENT, IMPRISONMENT, , WILFULLY CAUSING GREAT SUFFERING, OTHER INHUMANE ACTS

DEPORTATION AND INHUMANE ACTS (FORCIBLE TRANSFERS)

WANTON DESTRUCTION, PLUNDER OF PUBLIC OR PRIVATE PROPERTY

By the way, if this is a kangaroo court, why don’t they just press all charges and find everyone guilty.

The answer is because its not a Kangaroo court.

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Previous post left out torture, as in

EXTERMINATION, AND WILFUL TORTURE

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Djindjic basks in withdrawal of Banovic indictment
15:52 BELGRADE, Thursday – Serbia’s prime minister has welcomed a motion filed by the Hague prosecution to withdraw the indictment against Nenad Banovic, as a “big score” for the Serbian authorities.

The Serbian authorities arrested the Bosnian Serb Banovic brothers in November last year, under an indictment accusing them of war crimes against Muslim prisoners in the Keraterm camp. Their subsequent extradition sparked weeks of protest by a special forces unit known as the “Red Berets.” The unit claimed it had been duped into arresting the brothers, unaware they would be handed over to the UN tribunal.

The prosecution at the tribunal filed a motion on March 27 for the indictment against Nenad Banovic to be withdrawn.

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic used the case to argue the merits of the tribunal and of extraditing war crimes suspects.

“His name was on the Hague list and it was our country’s obligation that he appeared before the court. The fact that the court decided there was not enough evidence, only goes to show that it really is a court and that the rights of suspects are protected,” Djindjic told reporters.

Banovic would have remained on the Hague list for the rest of his life had he not appeared before the court, added the premier. (Srna)

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Sainovic offers surrender, if protected from Milosevic
11:03

BELGRADE, Thursday ; Yugoslavia former deputy prime minister Nikola Sainovic has agreed to hand himself in to the Hague Tribunal on condition he does not run into Slobodan Milosevic, Belgrade daily Danas reports today.

Citing well-informed sources, the daily reports that Sainovic had negotiations this weekend with representatives of the Serbian government, during which he offered to surrender as long as was able to stay in one of the secured villas available to indictees.

Sainovic, indicted alongside Milosevic for crimes in Kosovo, said he did not wish to bump into his former president, reports Danas.

Use of the villas is financed by the indictees home country.