Re: [Marxism] Provisional Government of Kosova statement on killings of Serbians in Lipjan

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

> I am starting a separate thread on the true
> nature of the Provisional Government of Kosova
> and its military arm, the Kosova Liberation Army.
>
> The document presented below published in 1999
> and others I will post will conclusively show
> that the KLA as presented to this list by Louis
> and others defenders of the Milosevic regime is a
> fiction.  As stated in this document the KLA from
> the beginning opposed attacks on civilians of all
> nationalities.
>
>                        Les Evenchick
>                        New Orleans

The most poignant condemnation of the Albanians' reverse ethnic cleansing
of Kosovo's Serb minority has come from the Albanian newspaper editor Veton
Surroi, who participated in the Rambouillet negotiations and remained in
hiding in Pristina throughout the NATO bombardment. Recounting Albanian
atrocities against Serb civilians, Surroi wrote in August: "I cannot hide
my shame to discover that . . . we the Albanians of Kosovo are also capable
of carrying out such monstrous acts."

Implicitly accusing Hashim Thaci's Kosovo Liberation Army, Surroi insisted
that the revenge killings were more than a simple emotional reaction.

"This is organised, systematic intimidation of all Serbs, simply because
they are Serbs and are therefore held collectively responsible for
everything that happened in Kosovo."

The number of murders is declining, because there are fewer Serbs left to
murder. But, Surroi warned, "those who think the violence will end as soon
as the last Serb is chased out are fooling themselves. The violence will
simply be directed against other Albanians. Is that really what we fought for?"

In response, the KLA's press agency called Albanians who criticise violence
against Serbs "Serb spies" and "men who stink like Slavs".

Seven months after the bombardment of Yugoslavia, it has become apparent
that while NATO achieved its military goal, and while the West labours away
at Balkan reconstruction, it is failing politically. Milosevic's Serbia has
been relegated to the deep freeze, for want of a better solution. And the
fundamental question of Kosovo's status has not been addressed.

The Irish Times, December 29, 1999

===

Of the Serbs, meanwhile, there is little trace. During the summer, KFOR and
the United Nations turned a blind eye as all non-Albanians were
systematically chased out of Kosovo, thereby flouting the very principle
invoked to legitimize the NATO war in the first place. Whereas during the
NATO bombing tens of thousands of Albanians were able to remain in Kosovo
unmolested by the Serb police, any Serbs who have been foolish enough to
venture out since KFOR entered the province have been beaten to death or
shot in the street. In towns where previously tens of thousands of Serbs
used to live, now not a single family remains. Their houses have been
looted and burned.

The specifically ethnic nature of these attacks is emphasized by the
systematic bombing campaign that the Albanians have waged against Serb
churches. Since June, some 80 churches, including some of the greatest
jewels of medieval Christendom, have been desecrated or professionally
dynamited. Unlike the mosques, all Orthodox churches in Kosovo are now
either destroyed or under heavily armed guard. As the patriarch of the
Serbian Orthodox Church has written: ''These acts of vandalism cannot be
called acts of individual and blind revenge. It is becoming increasingly
evident that there is a systematic strategy in the background to annihilate
once and for ever all traces of Serb and Christian culture in Kosovo.''

The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec), December 18, 1999, Saturday, FINAL

===

A total of 27 people have been murdered in the past 12 days. Just more than
half were Albanians. The last was a Serb farmer gunned down by unknown
assailants as he worked in his fields. The understrength United Nations
police force numbers only 1700 men and women in an area the size of Devon
and its clear-up rate for serious crime is, unsurprisingly, negligible.

The officers face a wall of silence which would do justice to the Sicilian
mafia's vow of omerta - death before disclosure. Few civilians are prepared
to talk to the authorities. And, increasingly, the UN is coming to be
regarded as an occupation force rather than an enlightened benefactor.

The clan-based Kosovar mafias, trained and armed by the former Kosovo
Liberation Army, are again extending control over gun-running and the
movement of illegal immigrants. Both activities were always staple
components of the local "black" economy.

There is growing evidence that the KLA, officially disbanded and then
reinvented as the less militaristic Kosovo Protection Corps, may have
changed its title, but not its spots. Its members are suspected of
co-ordinating a campaign of terror across the province to drive out the
last of the stay -behind Serb inhabitants and bring their own
democratically-minded brethren to heel.

The Herald (Glasgow), December 14, 1999

===

Many of the crimes were committed by free-lancers, and the Kosovo
Liberation Army has declared itself against all such acts. But this
declaration is perhaps not as convincing as it might be. The report lists
many murders and other crimes committed by men wearing KLA uniforms or
badges. It is clear that the violence aimed against non-Albanians in Kosovo
is to a real degree directed by elements of the KLA.

It is also clear that the violence is intended not merely to inflict
revenge but to purge Kosovo of its non-Albanians. There is much in the
patterns of ethnic cleansing that is familiar here: execution-style murders
that serve to frighten the target populations into flight; campaigns of
house-burnings and beatings and intimidation; the systematic expulsions
from jobs and denials of jobs to members of the target populations. At any
rate, the effect has been to cleanse Kosovo of almost all but Albanians.
Large numbers of Serbs and Roma people have fled Kosovo since June; the
Yugoslav Red Cross listed 234,000 refugees in Serbia and Montenegro as of
October.

The Washington Post, December 8, 1999

===

HUMAN RIGHTS are still being abused in Kosovo every day, despite the
presence of Nato-led peace-keepers, United Nations administrators and
scores of Western aid organisations, according to the most authoritative
survey carried out so far.

A report from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE), released yesterday, paints a dispiriting picture of Serbian
brutality before and during the Nato bombing campaign, followed by Albanian
retribution. While revenge attacks on Serbs since the peace-keepers arrived
do not compare with the planning and co -ordination of the Serbian "ethnic
cleansing" drive, OSCE clearly identifies the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
as being responsible for much of the current violence.

OSCE has had human rights observers in Kosovo since October last year. They
withdrew during the Nato bombing, but the compilers of the report have had
more experience of the territory than any other international officials,
and they are critical of Nato and the UN as well as President Slobodan
Milosevic's regime.

Drawing on hundreds of reports from its own officials as well as more than
2,700 interviews with refugees, the OSCE monitors make it clear that there
was nothing haphazard about the expulsions, beatings, rapes and killings
carried out by Serbian forces between March and June this year.

"Everywhere, the attacks on communities appear to have been dictated by
strategy, not by breakdown in command and control," the report says. The
campaign was "planned, instigated and ordered from the highest levels". The
worst atrocities took place in rural areas formerly dominated by the KLA
and along probable invasion routes, the monitors said. Wealthier Albanians
and those thought to be KLA sympathisers were singled out.

Despite its meticulous compilation of evidence of atrocities from all 29
districts of Kosovo, OSCE admits that the chances of the perpetrators being
brought to justice are small, in part because of the failings of the
present administration. "The capacity to investigate violations and enforce
the law has been sorely lacking," says the report. "Impunity has reigned
instead of justice."

The most controversial section, however, is likely to be that on the
law-and -order situation since Nato and the UN took control of the
province. The desire for revenge on the part of Kosovo's Albanians, the
report says, "has created a climate in which the vast majority of human
rights violations have taken place". There has been an "assumption of
collective guilt", so that "the entire remaining Kosovo Serb population was
seen as a target".

The "intolerance" that has emerged within the Kosovo Albanian community is
blamed squarely on the KLA, which is aware, according to some observers,
that it would be unlikely to win elections in the province and is moving to
establish control by other means. OSCE says it has numerous witness
statements attesting to the KLA's involvement in intimidation, harassment
and "an underlying intention to expel" non-Albanians from Kosovo.

"It is clear," the report says, "that the KLA stepped in to fill a
law-and-order void, but this 'policing' role is unrestrained by law and
without legitimacy."

The Independent (London), December 7, 1999









Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org


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