Byzantine Blog

Before leaving for Vienna to take part in negotiations over Kosovo and Metohija status, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has summed up the opinion of every single Serb regarding the insolent proposal to forfeit part of Serbian territory:

The sooner the audacious idea of establishing some new state on the territory of Serbia is forgotten, the better. This is not simply the issue that pertains to the Serbian interest, but crucial for the stability of the entire region. Serbia was not formed yesterday and it evaluates its state and national interests with the long-term view. What we need to agree upon is the optimal measure of autonomy for Kosovo and Metohija within Serbian borders.

The vice-president of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and the member of the Serbian National Council (SNC) for northern Kosovo, Dr. Marko Jaksic doesn't expect much from the negotiations presided over by the Albanian lobbyist Marti Ahtisaari. Based on the record of the representatives of the International Community assigned to force Serbia to give its land up, Dr. Jaksic is convinced Serbia shouldn't pay much attention to the so-called International Community:

Serbia intends to preserve its territorial integrity. At present, this is the most important issue for Serbs. As for the Albanians, they should finally come to their senses and realize they cannot form another Albanian state on someone else's territory. The sooner they understand this, the better.

During renewed attempts to reach an acceptable compromise through negotiations in Vienna, it is interesting to take a look back and remember what led to this point where amputation of Serbian land and a proposition to form Albania No.2 on the territory of Serbia is fantasized about.

In 2004, Professor Vojin Joksimovich published a book Kosovo Crisis: A Study in Foreign Policy Mismanagement, which represents the most thorough analysis so far that catalogues all the factors, foreign and domestic, that led to Albanian terrorists' illusory attempts to hijack Serbian Kosovo. The number of Serbs that were killed, expelled and abducted, as well as the material damage done to Serbian Orthodox Church and Serbian property in Kosovo and Metohija has, unfortunately, grown in the past two years, but the basic facts and the history itself hasn't changed.

The Biggest Propaganda Lie

Some might recall that President Clinton characterized the naked aggression on a sovereign country, in violation of a host of international laws, as “American finest hour since WWII.” This claim amounts to the most blatant disinformation and propaganda lie since the Soviet Union imploded. U.S./NATO delivered a victory to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), linked to the Albanian mafia supplying 40% of world heroin to Western Europe and the East Coast. Subsequently, NATO/KFOR has effectively ceded control of the province to the KLA. The only superpower in the world has become nothing more than the pawn for a narco-terrorist organization.

Instead of the finest hour it amounted to the darkest hour. Nuremberg War Crimes Prosecutor, Walter J. Rockler, wrote:

The attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked Poland to prevent 'Polish atrocities' against Germans.

The war was unnecessary, it amounted to military humiliation including committing war crimes and the loss of the U.S. influence in the world, as human suffering was vastly enhanced rather than diminished.

Unprecedented Destruction

The UN Resolution #1244, which terminated the war, was breached many times. It called for creation of a multi-ethnic society. On NATO's watch, the KLA has ethnically cleansed 350,000 Serbs, Montenegrins, Roma, Slavic Muslims, Turks, Egyptians, Gorani, Croats and Jews, thus creating a mono-ethnic society instead. Virtually all Kosovo cities have become mono-ethnic. 1200 Serbs have been murdered, while 1000 are listed as kidnapped and are presumed dead. Not even the dead were spared. More than 100 Serbian graveyards have been dug out or demolished. An exodus of an entire civilization has taken place as 150 Serbian monasteries and churches have been leveled to the ground; many of them dating from medieval Christian period. Such destruction of Christian heritage at the time of “peace” is unprecedented in the modern history of Europe.

How It Started

The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), or Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves (UCK) in Albanian was radicalized in 1993. For the purpose of arming and financing, the KLA members approached their relatives, migrant workers in Western Europe. Many of them had already been involved in various illicit activities, drug trafficking in particular. A firm link with the 1.8 million strong Albanian diaspora and the leaders of organized crime was established in order to advance the pan-Albanian ideal of Greater Albania.

Not long ago, the Washington Post published an article about an Albanian roofing contractor in Brooklyn, Florin Krasniqi, who collected $30 million to fund the KLA aggression. The KLA attacks on Serbian police began in 1995.

Al Qaeda Involvement

While the Islamist terror network was maturing in Bosnia and being exported to the Western Europe and later on to North America, Al Qaeda was looking for other opportunities in the Balkans. In 1994, Al Qaeda established an operation in Albania. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's #2, was charged with establishing a terrorist and intelligence infrastructure for infiltration into Kosovo and Macedonia.

In 1995 Osama bin Laden visited Albania as a guest of Sali Berisha, then president of Albania. Logistic and financial support for the Al Qaeda operation in Albania was set up with cells in Kosovo. Hashim Thaqi, the KLA political leader, later to become protege of U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and currently leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (DPK); and Ramush Haradinaj, a principal KLA commander and currently leader of the Alliance for Future for Kosovo (AAFK), attended the meeting. Tropoje, Berisha's hometown in Northern Albania, became a staging area both for Al Qaeda and the KLA.

Iranian and Saudi Jihadists

In 1997 the KLA received vast amount of weapons looted from Albanian army arsenals. The crisis in Albania led Iran to move in to fill the vacuum.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards began to train the KLA members. In late 1998, the Islamist network expanded. The senior supervisor of these activities was engineer Muhammad al-Zawahiri, Ayman's brother, who became the KLA's principal military instructor and partner in narco-trafficking. Like in Bosnia, a number of Saudi and Al Qaeda funded NGO's operated in Albania and Kosovo in order to provide financing.

KLA ‘Unquestionably Terrorist’

In the 1993-1998 period, the KLA committed some 2000 terrorist acts with the following three objectives: (1) Assassination of Albanians who do not cooperate; (2) Assassination of Serbian police; and (3) Reign of terror against Orthodox Christians. At the end of 1998, 300 civilians, police officers and soldiers had been killed, 500 wounded and 280 abducted.

Whenever the Serbian government responded with tough measures, the U.S./NATO accused them of repression and threatened with sanctions and the military intervention. The American public was shocked and rightly outraged at the despicable and barbaric beheadings of Americans by jihadists in Iraq and Saudi Arabia respectively. However, the Americans were completely unaware that the media has concealed from the public the pictures of the Serbs beheaded by jihadists in Bosnia and Kosovo.

President Clinton's special envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, had little difficulty in condemning the KLA: “We condemn very strongly terrorist actions in Kosovo. The UCK (KLA) is without any question a terrorist group.” Gelbard's characterization of the KLA did not prevent several congressional leaders and members of the Clinton administration from comparing Albanian terrorists with freedom fighters. Washington saw an opportunity for a marriage of convenience with the KLA to breakup rump Yugoslavia.

Hypocrisy Beyond Pale

The KLA's strategy was to escalate the level of violence to the point where outside intervention would become inevitable. Clinton delivered victory to terrorists/gangsters linked to Al Qaeda that deal in drugs, prostitution, white slavery and extortion, whose objective has been to ethnically cleanse the last Serb from the land of their forefathers.

The KLA was formally demilitarized in October 1999. It was bad enough for the U.S./NATO to use the KLA as a war ally, but deputizing its leaders to carry out UN responsibilities has been absolutely beyond pale. The UN paycheck and uniform did not change the behavior or goals of a terrorist organization committed to an ethnically pure Albanian state. Creation of institutions, which operate via repression, discrimination and terrorism, has amounted to legalization of Albanian terrorism.

Exporting and Continuing Terror

In late 1999 Albanian terrorism was exported, using Kosovo as a sanctuary, into Southern Serbia proper and Western Macedonia by virtue of establishing the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (LAPMB) and the National Liberation Army (NLA) respectively. The only people who have used these new acronyms were NATO and the Western media. UCK (KLA) continued to be painted on walls and elsewhere. The message delivered to the Kosovo Albanian terrorists was that secessionist terrorism was legitimate.

The Serbian Government report contains 156 names, with short bios, incomplete list of crimes committed, including murder with the names of victims identified, and linkage to different types of organized crime. Among the listed terrorists/criminals are the Kosovo Albanian political and military leaders including Hashim Thaqi, Ramush Haradinaj and Agim Ceku. On March 17, 2004, just like in the 1930s, an orchestrated prearranged Albanian ethnic-cleansing plan of remaining Serbs was put into effect. It has been characterized by some as the Kosovo Kristallnacht. The pogrom resulted in 19 deaths, 1030 injuries including KFOR and UN personnel, ethnic cleansing of another 4,000 Serbs, 930 houses burned down and destruction of additional 35 Serbian churches.

Pressing On

It should not come as a surprise that a ruthless Islamo-fascist organization such as Albanian Al Qaeda, KLA, continues to devour Serbia and lay claims on neighboring states, while openly declaring their lofty goal: to form a new state on someone else's sovereign territory. But, for Serbs, this is where the buck stops.

No Serb will ever accept the prospect of losing Kosovo. The expectation of Albanian terrorists and their employees among the representatives of the “International Community” to find Serbs willing to sign Kosovo and Metohija off to this bunch of thugs and butchers is no more than a wet dream.

Albanians should finally do something to heal their collective psyche, so they stop looking for things and land to steal. They already have their state, right next door to Serbia. It's called Albania and it is, reportedly, the emptiest state in the world, so Albanians who wish to live surrounded by their cousins and goats alone should pack up and go home already.

Over there, they don't even have to bother with blowing up priceless churches, monasteries and World Treasure -- except for bunkers styled by the Stalin's personal Gulag-designer and tons of barbed wire from the time of Cold War, there's nothing there anyway! Regardless of what they think about Serbs (who cares?!), one thing is guaranteed: not a single Serb will follow them there.