Byzantine Blog

ICG Fanaticism

From the latest report by American Council for Kosovo

A fanatic has been defined as someone who, having lost sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts. Fanaticism would indeed be an apt description of the December 20 recommendations of the International Crisis Group (ICG), which, even as prospects for the forcible and illegal detachment of Kosovo from Serbia continue to recede, desperately called for stepped-up efforts to that end.

In specific, the ICG report calls for renewed international support for the efforts of the by-now thoroughly discredited U.N. mediator Martti Ahtisaari, who also happens to be Chairman Emeritus of ICG -- even while conceding that more and more countries, especially in Europe, are moving toward the Serbian position.

Amazingly, the ICG recommendations allude to the increasingly violent atmosphere in Kosovo not as reason for rethinking their whole dogged approach to Kosovo but for closing their eyes and plunging forward: A botched status process that fails to consolidate the prospect of a Kosovo state within its present borders and limits the support the EU and other multilateral bodies can provide would seed new destructive processes. A sense of grievance would become ingrained among Albanians throughout the region, strengthening a pan-Albanian ideology corrosive of existing borders and possibly even enriching the soil for radical Islam. “Pan-Albanian ideology”? “Radical Islam”? In Kosovo -- and “among Albanians throughout the region”? Really?

Indeed, it is precisely these “destructive” forces we at the American Council for Kosovo have sought to show have been the sources of the crisis from the beginning. And worse, they are exactly the forces that would triumph if ICG’s misguided recommendations were followed.

Albanian Muslim Terrorism

On the same day ICG released its report warning of “destructive processes” should Muslim Albanians fail in their effort to coerce independence from the international community through violence and intimidation, Kosovo government officials were arrested transporting a large weapons cache.

On December 21, Reuters reported:

Two officials of Kosovo’s governing coalition have been arrested after police found a minibus packed with heavy weapons and ammunition. A police source said the haul included a 12.7 mm anti-aircraft gun and more than 100 rocket-propelled grenades. Local media reports said the find, made late on Wednesday in the Drenica region of central Kosovo, was the largest in Kosovo since the war and the deployment of NATO peacekeepers.

Three men were arrested, including a senior adviser to the Kosovo labor minister and a member of the governing Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), which emerged from the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army. The find sharpened fears of unrest in the U.N.-run province, where major powers have delayed a decision on the demand of 2 million ethnic Albanians for independence from Serbia.

The Associated Press reported:

NATO peacekeepers and police seized a large weapons cache during a raid in Kosovo and arrested three suspects, a police official said Thursday. Police raided locations in the village of Stutica, in central Kosovo, after receiving information on weapons smuggling late Tuesday, said police spokesman Veton Elshani.

The weapons, which were being examined by NATO-led peacekeepers, included rockets and ammunition…Two suspects were arrested at the scene and police also arrested a suspect in eastern Kosovo, Elshani said. Local media identified one of the suspects as a member of the Alliance for Future of Kosovo, part of the province’s ruling coalition government, and the other as an adviser to the Ministry of Social Welfare.

Violence against non-Albanians continues unimpeded, as always. RTS SAT TV reported on December 10:

Another incident has occurred in Kosovo-Metohija, fortunately, without any victims. A bus on the Belgrade-Strpce line carrying 30 Serb passengers was stoned yesterday in Doganovic, near Stprce [southern Kosovo].

On December 9, B92 reported:

Kosovo Police Service have confirmed that an explosion damaged the railway tracks near Vučitrn yesterday. Serb sources in Kosovo said that the explosion occurred only a few minutes before a train carrying Serbs from Prilužje and Plementin villages was scheduled to pass that section of the railway.

Serbian and Other Non-Albanian Victims

In a December 13, 2006 speech to the UN Security Council, President of the Coordinating Centre for Kosovo-Metohija for the Government of Serbia, Dr. Sanda Raskovic-Ivic stated:

I must regrettably inform the Council about the cruel reality in Kosovo and Metohija, which testifies to the lack of freedom and security there.

From 15 August to 1 December 2006, 75 ethnically motivated attacks were committed, in which 23 persons of Serb nationality were injured. The extremists also targeted members of other communities. The house of Zecir Zurapi, a member of the ethnic Gorany community in the village of Gornja Rapca , was blown up on 1 October 2006. The perpetrators of that terrorist act, like so many others in the past, have not been identified. It is significant, however, that immediately before the attack, Zurapi was involved in plans to have the Gorany students educated in line with the Serbian curriculum. As a result, more than 1,000 students in three schools were not able to attend classes for more than 30 days.

UNMIK Doing its Best to Violate Serbia’s Sovereignty

Over the same period, in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, 17 transmitter stations belonging to the Serbian mobile operator Telekom Srbija were put out of operation. This is a virtual criminal act that is taking place before the very eyes of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) because, since 1997, Telekom Srbija has had a valid license to operate throughout the entire territory of Serbia, and has paid all of its taxes to UNMIK and the Kosovo Provisional Government. That act has further isolated the Serbian population.

It should also be pointed out that, in the context of all types of communications, UNMIK has consistently tried, to varying degrees, to extend its mandate, thus violating the sovereignty of Serbia. There are many examples of that in its activities related to the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Union of Railways, the International Committee for Railway Transport, the Universal Postal Union and the International Telecommunication Union. All of those activities are aimed at taking away attributes and symbols through international specialized organizations, thus prejudging the final status of Kosovo and Metohija. In that way, preconditions for cooperation and confidence are naturally further undermined.

Continued Ethnic Cleansing of Serbs

Furthermore, there have been drastic and selective electricity cuts. Such discrimination reached its apogee in the Serbian communities of central Kosovo and the municipality of Strpce , where one hour of power supply is followed by 10 to 20 hours of blackouts.

Add to that the fact that there have been 260 inter-ethnic incidents since 24 October 2005, in which all the victims were Serbs, and the trend becomes more than obvious. Let me add another sombre detail: even with the assistance of UNMIK, we have not been able to make the Albanian side agree — at least at a declaratory level — to the need to rebuild the houses of Serbs from Badovac village who were expelled in the riots of March 2004. At that time, Serbian houses all over Kosovo were set on fire and destroyed. People were expelled, and some were killed.

As for the return of expelled and internally displaced persons, I would like to recall that, from 1999 to date, as many as 250,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have not been in a position to return to Kosovo and Metohija. According to our data, 2 per cent have returned; according to UNMIK, the figure is 5 per cent.

Major demographic and migratory shifts have taken place in Kosovo and Metohija. The population in Pristina, the capital, has increased threefold, and it is currently estimated at 600,000. There are no more than some 100 Serbs in Pristina. Before 1999, there were about 40,000 Serbs in Pristina.

Uprooting Christianity Continues Unabated

As far as Serbian religious monuments, cultural heritage and religious freedoms are concerned, Albanians pay lip service to their protection. Serbian shrines are in fact looted and desecrated on a daily basis. The church of the Holy Shroud in the village of Babin Most near Obilic and the church of Saint Petka in Gojbulja, in the municipality of Vucitrn, were broken into and ransacked. The orchards of the Devic monastery, in the village of Lausa in the municipality of Srbica, were completely destroyed, even though they were guarded by KFOR and the Kosovo Protection Service police after having been set on fire in March 2004.

Illegal construction close to cultural sites within the proposed protected zones is rampant. At the end of September, large-scale construction was begun in the vicinity of the monument honoring the medieval Serbian Kosovo heroes in Gazimestan, near Pristina.

During the same period, in the neighborhood of the village of Velika Hoca — a village that has 13 churches dating from the twelfth to the fifteenth century — an industrial facility is being built. There are plans to build a large hotel close to Gorioc monastery. These so-called construction activities naturally give rise to serious concern, since they are being carried out in close proximity to religious and cultural sites, which, in the negotiations on the future status of the province, should be granted the status of protected zones where urbanization and industrial construction are not allowed. Those activities are obviously a deliberate attempt to prevent the preservation of the cultural and environmental integrity of the sites. The Government of Serbia and all the members of the Contact Group are insisting on that, making the negotiations on cultural heritage one of their priorities…

Mafia-Style Albanian Clans Flourishing

Anyone can see that organized crime, human trafficking and corruption are rampant in Kosovo and Metohija. The drug and arms trade and smuggling provide a lifeline for the criminal and terrorist business, before the very eyes of the international community, the police and the military.

Mafia-style Albanian clans are currently flourishing. The most recent and alarming incident occurred 10 days ago, when an Albanian terrorist paramilitary formation in Kosovo and Metohija began to intercept vehicles, asking for identification papers and intimidating passengers. Also, several days ago, on 8 December, barely a few minutes before a train was scheduled to arrive, unidentified terrorists blew up railway tracks in the vicinity of Mijalic village, in the municipality of Vucitrn. The only passengers in the train were Serbs, who travel regularly from Priluzje, Plemetine and Zvecan on this line. The blowing up of the tracks was yet another horrific terrorist attack against the Serbs.

Illustration by Alfredo Sabat