Byzantine Blog

Kosovo Province, Europe’s Shame: Beatings, Torture and Terror With UNMIK Ruecker’s Blessing

The Coordinating Center for Kosovo-Metohija reported on Wednesday that Kosovo Albanian police and KFOR arrested this morning representative of Serbian forestry company “Srbijasume” Milan Mirkovic from Strbac.

According to the Coordinating Center report, at 4 a.m. members of the ethnic Albanian special police and KFOR stormed the home of Milan Mirkovic, the head of the Serbia Forests company in Strpce, and conducted a search in a brutal, heavy handed and destructive manner. Following two hours of harassment and beatings, during which Milan and his sons Nikola and Jovan were kept tied up, Milan was arrested.

“Mirkovic’s sons bear the marks of torture and beatings by the brutal Albanian police who carried out the ethnically-motivated torture over the Serbs before the eyes of KFOR members and who completely demolished the Mirkovic house after finding legally owned, licensed hunting guns,” the statement said.

According to Forest company director’s lawyer, Dragan Veljkovic, Mr. Mirkovic was again brutally beaten by the Albanians in the Urosevac police station where he was taken “for questioning.” He was kept in prison for the next 72 hours, after he gave a statement, reports Tanjug.

“Mirkovic was brought to the Urosevac police station bleeding, with visible head wounds,” said Veljkovic, confirming that his client was beaten in the police station again for half an hour, by the four or five Albanians who were calling him “chetnik” and a “paramilitary.”

KFOR Silently Permits Abuse

According to the lawyer, the abuse and beatings were witnessed by the two international policemen, a Pakistani and an American, to whom the lawyer complained, saying it’s an utter disgrace to beat a helpless elderly man who wasn’t resisting arrest.

The entire action was conducted by the special Kosovo Albanian police unit “Rosa,” comprised exclusively of members of terrorist KLA/UCK, recently deployed through remaining Serbian enclaves with the UN Mission in Kosovo — UNMIK’s — blessing, despite the Serbian protests. Residents of Serbian Strpce municipality today again requested from Joachim Ruecker, UNMIK’s chief, to suspend the activities of Albanian KLA unit in their enclave.

Coordinating Center’s press service strongly condemned “the unacceptable conduct of the ethnic Albanian policemen that are openly torturing the Serbian population.”

“The nurturing of ethnic discrimination and the intimidation of the Serbian population by the ethnic Albanian police is unacceptable, as its aim is to complete the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs from the territory of Serbia’s southern province,” the statement said. Coordinating Center warned that everything taking place before the eyes of the international community is alarming, because part of the international community obviously does not want to hear and see that its representative in Kosovo-Metohija province, Joachim Ruecker, is “openly and brutally trying to create the independent Kosovo by practically instigating the extremists to speedily complete the ethnic cleansing.”

Ruecker “is no longer even trying to conceal this, but is openly advocating and claiming that Kosovo will be independent,” Coordinating Center’s statement said, stressing that “Ruecker’s path, and that of the ethnic Albanian extremists, is a back road that will lead us into the hinterlands from where we will need much more strength and will to emerge.”

Serbian Government: Brutal Terror as the Continuation of Ethnic Cleansing

Director of the Serbian government’s Office of Media Relations Srdjan Djuric said today that the Serbian government condemns the beating of the Mirkovic family and demolition of their house in Strbac, describing this as an act of most brutal terror in Kosovo-Metohija.

Djuric told news agency Tanjug that just before the arrival of the UN Security Council’s mission, the most brutal terror against Serbs continues with a clear message “that not only must the return of Serbs be prevented by any means, but others should be expelled too.”

The Serbian government most severely condemns the flagrant aggression against the Mirkovic family and the demolition of their house and demands that those who order and instigate the action of systematic expulsion of Serbs from Kosovo-Metohija be punished, Djuric said.