Hjemkommet fra ferie og etter gjennomlesning av de siste Klassekamper synes
jeg den er blitt påfallende taus om kosovo-albansk terror i det siste.
Stavanger Aftenblad har hatt bedre dekning. Interesserer ikke
kosovo-albansk terror like mye som Nato-terror eller har jeg oversett ting
i avisa?
Da serbiske bander gikk berserk etter 24. mars, ble det tatt for gitt
(antakelig korrekt) at de var styrt av Milosevic. Nå unnskyldes
kosovo-albansk terror med at morderbandene er utenfor KLAs kontroll. Men
det etnisk rene Kosovo skapes foran øynene på og dermed ved hjelp av NATO,
men renheten er albansk og ikke serbisk.
I mine øyne er Albrights yndling Hacim Thaqi ikke et hår bedre enn
Milosevic. Som journalisten i Observer sier: " .. the attacks on the
surviving members of the Serb population are tacitly accepted by a
considerable proportion of the ethnic Albanian community, happy to see the
Serbs thrown out and complicit in their wider persecution." Antakelig
gjelder dette ikke alle kosovoalbanere, men i allefall KLAs leder og ganske
sikkert den USA-utdannete militære leder Agim Ceku.
Jornalisten bemerker: "It is an issue that has cause deep discomfort for
senior figures in the former rebel army who, when challenged over why they
cannot police their own community, avoid the question."
Videre: "After three months of Nato bombs to stop this kind of killing and
expulsions" (KRs anm: her er journalisten helt på jordet, bombingen satte
nettopp denne aktiviteten i gang) ", many are now asking whether the war
with Yugoslavia happened simply to allow the ethnic Albanians to turn from
victim into victimiser in pursuit of independence."
De serbiske terroristene hadde krigførende KLA og NATO mot seg, de
kosovo-albanske kan nå operere uten militær motstand overhodet.
NATO-offiserer på bakken klør seg i hodet og arresterer noen nå og da.
Vollebæk og OSSE proklamerte for en tid tilbake at de skulle etablere et
rettssystem i Kosovo. Hvor er det blitt av, og de sivile maktstrukturer?
Vi hører ingenting fra Clinton, Albright, Blair, Walker, Vollebæk osv om
f.eks. "crimes against humanity", så utviklingen er nok slett ikke uønsket.
35 000 NATO-tropper på bakken greier ikke å stagge kosovo-albanske
terrorister, men NATO talsmenn som Vollebæk og Bondevik greidde for noen
måneder siden å innbille verden at bombing fra 5000 meters høyde i
mars/april virkelig hadde som mål å stanse den etniske rensingen utført av
de serbiske MUPstyrkene (Stavanger Aftenblads lederskribent fastholder
denne myten ennå). Og andre hadde stor tro den gang på at bakkestyrker
ville klare jobben mye bedre og rådet NATO til slik innsats. Bombing eller
bakkestyrker mot serbiske terrorister: det var rammen for debatten den gang.
The Independent skriver i dag at KLA eksportere våpen til Storbritannia.
Sikkerhetsrådets resolusjon var at KLA skulle demilitariseres og levere inn
våpnene til NATO. (Se
http://www.independent.co.uk/atp/INDEPENDENT/FOREIGN_NEWS/P3S1.html).
Refrenget er imidlertid: Thaqi og Ceku vet ingen ting og ville sikkert ikke
godta slikt. "Mafia", "ukontrollerbare elementer" og "kriminelle gjenger"
er åpenbart svært så nyttige.
Her er hele artikkelen fra the Observer tatt fra
http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/Print/0,3858,3892597,00.html
Knut Rognes
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Is Kosovo peace crumbling?
Two months after Nato troops entered Pristina, Peter Beaumont returns to
find the mafia, KLA and police engaged in a murderous struggle for power
Sunday August 15, 1999
The Observer
The bombers of Lipljan are children. The makeshift jail, in a battered
police station now home to the British Army's Royal Military Police, was
once a stronghold for President Slobodan Milosevic's special forces. Now
its cells hold two 15-year-old girls, detained in connection with a series
of grenade attacks that terrorised the town's remaining Serbs.
Their alleged crime is a dark mirror to methods of the Serb Police and
paramilitaries during their reign of terror in the 15 months before Nato
forces arrived in Kosovo in June. The only difference this time on the
roundabout of Balkan violence is that the bombers of Lipljan are ethnic
Albanians. But their mission had a chillingly familiar ring - to drive the
remaining families from the other side of the sectarian divide out of the
town, and Kosovo, for good.
The age of the members of the gang so far arrested has shocked the British
military police involved. Of the 16 they detained in connection with a
spate of more than 20 'fraggings' of Serb businesses and homes in barely
three weeks, 12 were aged 19 or under. Last week, the bombings reached
their peak with seven grenade attacks in a single day before military
police moved in to break up the gang.
But for all their youth, the attacks in Lipljan were carefully planned, not
by the children who committed them but by the gangsters who convinced the
teenagers to perpetrate them. Persuaded by figures in the ethnic Albanian
mafia that they had been recruited to cleanse their 'country' and create an
ethnically pure Kosovo rid of its Serbs, the girls agreed to be used as
couriers to transport grenades from the Albanian border to the little town
just south of Kosovo's de facto capital Pristina. The girls would carry
them into the town in handbags - aware that the British soldiers would not
search them - or gave them to even younger children to transport.
There the grenades were stored by 'quartermasters' until needed in attacks
against the remaining 4,000 Serbs, in a town where Serbians once made up
more than 80 per cent of the population and now make up barely half. Most
sinister of all, however, is how the attacks were carried out: with the
teenagers sent out in pairs masquerading as promenading lovers - the first
pair to make sure the coast was clear of British troops from the K-For
peacekeeping force, while the other hurled the grenades. When Nato troops
arrived the bombers would suddenly appear beside the soldiers, presenting
themselves as distraught witnesses of yet another atrocity in the Balkan
cycle.
But the truth behind this series of attacks in Lipljan, and elsewhere in
the province, is more cynical than simply an upsurge in the sectarian
attacks by young hotheads on a minority population that - as the Balkan
wheel has turned again - has suddenly found itself the vulnerable one.
Instead, investigators believe, the Albanian mafia, posing as freedom
fighters, have turned the 'ethnic cleansing' of Kosovo into a lucrative
business. 'These kids believed that they were working for figures in the
Kosovo Liberation Army, and were engaged in revenge attacks on Serbs,' said
one source familiar with the bombings.
'They were young and impressionable. They were all fired up. But the truth
is that they were being manipulated by the mafia for a housing scam with
access to the vacant properties being sold on to homeless ethnic Albanians
for 400 deutschmarks a time.'
The sinister pattern of violence against the remaining Serb population has
created an atmosphere of febrile crisis for the international community
whose policing of Kosovo's imperfect peace has come under the spotlight.
After three months of Nato bombs to stop this kind of killing and
expulsions, many are now asking whether the war with Yugoslavia happened
simply to allow the ethnic Albanians to turn from victim into victimiser in
pursuit of independence.
The violence has sickened many who thought the province had offered up all
that it could from the well of inhumanity. But recent weeks have seen new
atrocities that - if not equal to the fury of the Serb ethnic cleansing in
March and April - are strikingly familiar. Most shocking of all has been a
series of murders of elderly Serb women, shot through their doors in
Pristina, strangled, even drowned in their own baths, if they refused to
leave and give up their homes to men describing themselves as
representatives of the KLA.
'The truth,' said one aid worker, 'is that we are in the key period for the
survival for the last remnants of the Serb community. There are probably
less than 2,000 left in Pristina, and more are leaving every day. People
are trying to keep it quiet, but we are aware that daily the Serb community
is organising transports out of the city of up to 50 people a day.
'With only 2,000 left at most out of 30,000 before the war it doesn't take
a lot to work out that soon the city could be empty of its Serbs. And when
Pristina is ethnically clean of its Serbs, that sends a powerful message to
the other Serb enclaves trying to hang on.'
With only 22,000 remaining of the 200,000 Serbs who once made the province
their home, the question that many aid workers, military and diplomats are
privately asking is whether there will be any Serbs left in 12 months time.
It is a message that has been rammed home by Ron Redmond, senior spokesman
in Pristina for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who last
week said the elderly remnants of the Serb population in Pristina, which
once numbered almost 40,000, were the victims of sustained attacks,
killings and intimidation.
'Conditions for those who have remained have noticeably worsened over the
last few weeks. A disturbing pattern has arisen against Serbs still in the
city,' said Redmond. That pattern is described by Ruma Mandal, a protection
officer with the UNHCR, who has been studying the method of the killing and
expulsions.
'We are aware of concerted efforts to remove remaining Serb individuals and
whole families from the apartment blocks in which they live,' said Mandal.
'Typically, they first receive a letter telling them to go, followed by a
personal visit setting a deadline. In some cases this is repeated
throughout the entire block.'
Mandal and other officers working in the city and elsewhere have recently
become aware of a new dimension of the expulsions - quasi-legal documents
posted under doors of those being warned to leave. One - seen by The
Observer - describes itself as an 'Internal Tenancy Agreement' including a
licence number and spaces for witnesses to sign. It is effectively a piece
of paper inviting the Serbs to give up their homes. 'We have seen a number
of these,' says Ruma Mandal. 'We are aware that in some cases these have
been sent to all the Serb occupants of a block. It is simply another form
of intimidation.'
But despite the way that those intimidating the Serb occupants have
described themselves as belonging to the KLA, even appearing in uniform on
visits to their victims and scrawling the letters 'UCK' (the Albanian
acronym for KLA) on the door of their victims, senior K-For officers -
including military police - are sceptical that the KLA is organising the
attacks.
'It is a complete and utter sham,' said one senior British military
policeman. 'The point that we want to make - that we have learned from our
investigations - is that these are acts of utter criminality. These people
are gangsters who are using the cover of the KLA to operate. We have found
no formal links with the real KLA.'
It is a version of events that is contradicted by other sources who claim
that, of 15 ethnic Albanians arrested for intimidation last week, 11 were
carrying cards identifying themselves as members of the PU, the KLA's
military police.
In Lipljan too, the same identity cards have been uncovered, although local
commanders claim no knowledge of those arrested. 'The problem,' said one
Western diplomat, 'is that we simply don't know if these people are KLA or
not, even whether the cards are genuine. Certainly the intimidation is
being organised, by whom and at what level we simply do not know.'
But the KLA's version of events - that criminals are abusing its good name
- does have support from the unlikeliest of sources. Bishop Artimiye of the
Serbian Orthodox Church is not convinced the KLA is responsible but blames
the organisation for not stamping down on renegades and criminals using its
name.
It is an issue that has cause deep discomfort for senior figures in the
former rebel army who, when challenged over why they cannot police their
own community, avoid the question.
For the truth is that, whoever is behind the intimidation, the attacks on
the surviving members of the Serb population are tacitly accepted by a
considerable proportion of the ethnic Albanian community, happy to see the
Serbs thrown out and complicit in their wider persecution. While the
military police can intervene in areas of crime, they are powerless against
the wider discrimination that has rapidly emerged into Kosovo's vacuum of
power.
Most Serbs feel too frightened now to venture out of their homes or the
fresh-minted Serb ghettos. Indeed, in some areas of the capital the problem
has become so acute that UNHCR has had to start delivering food to Serbs at
home to prevent starvation.
Among them is book keeper Stanka Lalic, who gave up the fight to stay in
Pristina last week, fleeing to a relative's house in Lipljan. But even
there, in the heart of the Serbian community, she does not feel safe. Now
she is contemplating escaping Kosovo to join her daughters in Serbia proper.
'I feel like crying when I see what has happened to my life,' she says. 'We
were told to leave our flat, and when I tried to go to work the security
men would not even let me through the gate. I cried for 10 days after Nato
came and then gave up.'
..........................
Kosovo's post-war cycle of violence
11 June
Pristina: 200 Russian troops enter airport, creating a tense stand-off with
surprised Nato. Direct confrontation avoided when Lieutenant General Mike
Jackson tells General Wesley Clark: 'I am not going to start Third World
War for you.'
12 June
Serb forces begin leaving Kosovo as Nato troops enter the province after
end of 78-day bombing campaign.
15 June
Serb civilians start fleeing for fear of reprisals.
20 June
With all Serb forces gone, Kosovo is divided into five peacekeeping zones
but Russians not given their own sector.
21 June
Kosovska Mitrovica: City divides into Serb and Albanian sectors.
Pristina: Suspected Albanian arsonists arrested.
22 June
Pristina: Serbian refugees housed in a 78-unit complex are forcibly evicted
by ethnic Albanians.
25 June
Pristina: Three Serbs are bound, gagged and shot in the head in the
university.
26 June
Pristina: Hundreds of the Serb intellectual elite leave.
27 June
Pristina: Three Serbs are killed. Germans impose curfew in their sector of
Kosovo.
29 June
Sitinica: 12 houses are burnt under Nato's noses in village populated by
Roma Gypsies and ethnic Albanians.
3 July
Pristina: Inquiry begins after British paratroopers shoot dead two ethnic
Albanians as they celebrate.
Kosovska Mitrovica: French troops intervene in violent clashes between
ethnic Albanians and Serbs.
17 July
Vitine: A 24-year-old Serb farmer is shot dead by five Albanians. In the
next few days grenade attacks wound more than 40 people in this district.
19 July
Belo Polje: Three Serbs shot through the head by KLA forces. In Kosovo more
than 100 Serbs are reported missing in a month.
21 July
Prizren: Serb pensioners Marika Stamenkovic, 73, and Panta Filipovic, 63,
stabbed to death.
22 July
Roma Gypsies are targeted in revenge attacks as 2,000 flee to Italy.
23 July
Zac: Albanians shoot at Spanish troops who return fire and arrest five in
western Kosovo.
Kosovska Mitrovica: Three Serb houses set on fire in Albanian quarter.
24 July
Gracko: Fourteen Serb farmers shot dead while harvesting.
25 July
Orahovac, Prizren, Pec: Five murders, four abductions, one rape and 14
detentions.
26 July
K-For reports 237 prisoners in its custody, 86 per cent of them Albanians.
27 July
The peacekeeping force now numbers 35,000, including 1,500 Russians - still
short of 40,000 originally promised.
29 July
Since the start of the peacekeeping mission 840 cases of arson and 573 of
looting have been reported.
30 July
Only 150 international police have joined the Nato troops in Kosovo
although 3,000 were promised by member countries.
3 August
Zitinje: 350 Serbs flee the village as Albanians move in and burn it.
4 August
Dojnice: Serb village reduced to ashes with five bodies among the remains.
Pristina: Five Albanians arrested after a Serb abducted and killed. Two
others detained suspected of killing an elderly Serbian woman.
5 August
Human Rights Watch reports 198 murders since Nato's arrival.
7 August
Pristina: In the heaviest night of violence directed at Nato-led
peacekeepers since they arrived, a Russian soldier is wounded.
8 August
Kosovska Mitrovica: Albanians hurl stones and taunt French peacekeepers
preventing their entry into the Serbian quarter.
11 August
Dobrcane: Nine men arrested for an attack on Russian tank.
Kosovska Kamenica: Serb woman killed and her son injured.
Kosovska Mitrovica: Three Albanians beaten up in Serb quarter after Serbs
force their way into Albanian apartments telling residents to leave.
Grabovra (near Pec): Nine mortar rounds fired into Albanian community.
12 August
Pristina: UNHCR figures reveal that out of 40,000 Serb population, only
2,000 are left. Estimates that out of 180,000 to 200,000 Serbs, 170,000
have fled since Nato entered the province. K-For reports 78 arrests in the
past 24 hours.
Donja Vrnica: British soldiers patrolling a place where Serbs had been
warned to leave shoot and wound at least two men and detain two others
after a car chase.
Kosovska Kamenica: About 2,000 ethnic Albanians demonstrate to demand that
Russian peacekeepers be sent home.
13 August
Dobrcane: Ethnic Albanian protesters scuffle with Russian and US in
anti-Russian demonstration.
Kosovska Mitrovica: Ethnic Albanians repeatedly clash with French troops.
• Compiled by Nerma Jelacic
© Copyright Guardian Media Group plc. 1999
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