www.ereniku.net
DID YOU KNOW THAT...!


... Did you know?
..... the Illyrians fought, in fact, for a long time against the Romans, who eventually conquered the whole of Illyria in A.D. 9. Many Illyrian soldiers, who susbsequently served in the Roman army rose to high positions. Some became emperors and viceroys: Claudius II, Aurelian, Probus, Diocletian, Maximilian, Constantius, Valens, and Valentinian. Mention should also be made of Saint Jerome, one of the greatest scholars of his time. The Illyrians gave to Byzantium three of its greatest emperors: Constantine, who officially accepted Christianity; Justinius, who built Saint Sophia; and Justinianus, famous for his Code of Laws. The philologist Paul Kretschmer went so far as to maintain that the Illyrians actually founded Byzantium. /http:www.illyrians.org/

Nov. 27 2005
(The Albanians did not fight for autonomy but for independece  and surely not to remain under Yugoslav suzerainty.” (Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy?,New York, 2001, p.270).
“The United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same human values and principles ... Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values." (Senator Joe Lieberman, ‘The Washington Post,' April 28, 1999).
Nov. 18 2005

Letter To: Ereniku
An American Soldier In Kosovo
Nov. 18 2005
-I will identify myself as a native Puerto-Rican born soldier who serves in the U.S. Army as a Military Policeman.
-On January 2001, I was informed that my military unit was being mobilized on a Peace Keeping Mission in Kosovo along with other Nato Forces.
-The training for this mission took three months and was very physically demanding, exhausting and full of combat related training.
-We trained for the worse because we did not know what to expect. Every time we go to a foreign country, we train as we are going to combat and have the mentality that we will not be welcomed.
-We got to Kosovo; The adrenaline was high, with weapons handy expecting to be shot upon. Arrived at Camp Bondstill in Ferizaj and prepared to start routine Patrol around town.
-Again; we prepaired for the worse, expecting people to shoot at us, throw rocks or try to harm us in any way.
-Surprise! We were received with a smile and signs of gratitude. - Every day that we went to patrol the streets, we met with new people and were approached by youngsters trying to communicate with us the best they could.
-Driving through the mountains of Kosovo reminded me the mountains of my beloved Puerto Rico.

-The time to leave came, but part of me stayed in Kosovo. I will always admire the way people help each other, trying to built a better future for their families; keep that strength and you will be compensated.

God Bless You All!
Efrain Feliciano
11 08 2005


Albania's Ismail Kadare Wins First Man Booker International

   June 3 2005(Bloomberg) -- The Albanian author Ismail Kadare won the inaugural Man Booker International Prize, worth 60,000 pounds ($109,000), beating off competition from such renowned fiction writers as Philip Roth, Margaret Atwood and Gunther Grass.

Informed of the news after the winner was announced last night, Kadare said, ``I am a writer from the Balkan Fringe, a part of Europe which has long been notorious exclusively for news of human wickedness -- armed conflicts, civil wars, ethnic cleansing, and so on.

``My firm hope is that European and world opinion may henceforth realize that this region, to which my country, Albania, belongs, can also give rise to other kinds of news and be the home of other kinds of achievement, in the field of the arts, literature and civilization,'' he said.

Born in 1936 in the mountain town of Gjirokaster, near the Greek border, he witnessed Albania's occupation by fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, while still a child.

He studied at the University of Tirana and later at Moscow's Gorky Institute of World Literature, first breaking into print in the 1950s as a poet. Collections with titles such as ``Youthful Inspiration'' (1954) and ``Dreams'' (1957) captured the nation's mood under the Stalinist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha.

Kadare's first novel, ``The General of the Dead Army'' was published in 1963. A portrait of postwar Albania, it remains one of his best known works abroad.

Banned Books

Turning increasingly to prose, he deployed allegories to attack the totalitarian regime, yet despite their subtlety, six of his books were banned in Albania. Among them was ``The Palace of Dreams'' (1981), which is set in the Ottoman Empire and focuses on a character whose job it is to spy on people's nocturnal imaginings. In both its subject matter and its magic- realist style, it epitomizes Kadare's darkly glimmering work.

His work was translated into French after an editor at Editions Fayard traveled to Albania to smuggle it out in 1986. Since then, his novels, short stories and verse have been published in more than 40 countries.

At the end of October 1990, just two months before the Hoxha regime collapsed, Kadare applied for asylum in France, where has lived ever since, receiving a clutch of prizes and honors including membership of the Academie Francaise.

``Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible,'' he has said. ``The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship.''

`Universal Writer'

Kadare triumphed over a highly inclusive shortlist that read like a who's who of contemporary literature. The chairman of the jury, Professor John Carey, said, ``Ismail Kadare is a writer who maps a whole culture -- its history, its passion, its folklore, its politics, its disasters. He is a universal writer in a tradition of storytelling that goes back to Homer.''

The other jury members were the writer, novelist and editor Alberto Manguel and the writer and academic Azar Nafisi.

A sibling of the U.K.'s long-established Man Booker Prize, this new award will be presented every two years in acknowledgement of a writer's contribution to world literature. It is open to fiction writers of any nationality, as long as their work is available in English.

Under the rules of a recently announced separate prize for translation, Kadare can now choose a translator or translator of his work into English to receive a prize of 15,000 pounds.

The author will get his prize and a trophy at a dinner to be held in Edinburgh at the end of the month.

---------------

Ismail Kadare wins first Man Booker International

By Robert MacPherson

June 3, 2005 LONDON: Ismail Kadare, Albania's best-known poet and novelist, was named today as the winner of the Man Booker International Prize, a brand-new laurel for the world's finest writers.
Kadare, 69, was honoured for the full body of his work, including such novels as Broken April, Spring Flowers, Spring Frost and The General of the Dead Army.

His prize-winning 1988 book The Concert was set against the backdrop of communist Albania's break with long-time patron China, while The Pyramid was set in ancient Egypt.

He reflected on his native Balkans in Elegy for Kosovo, published in 2000, a year after NATO went to war against Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia to end Serbian repression in the predominantly ethnic Albanian province.

"Ismail Kadare is a writer who maps a whole culture – its history, its passion, its folklore, its politics, its disasters," said John Carey, the British literary critic who led the panel of three judges.

"He is a universal writer in a tradition of story-telling that goes back to Homer."

In a statement released in London by the Man Booker organisers, Kadare – who fled to France in 1990 as a refugee before the collapse of dictator Enver Hoxha's communist regime – said: "I feel deeply honoured."

"I am a writer from the Balkan fringe, a part of Europe which has long been notorious exclusively for news of human wickedness – armed conflicts, civil wars, ethnic cleansing, and so on," he said.

"My firm hope is that European and world opinion may henceforth realise that this region, to which my country, Albania, belongs, can also give rise to other kinds of news and be the home of other kinds of achievement, in the field of the arts, literature and civilisation."

"I would like to take the prize that I have been awarded as confirmation that my confidence and my hopes have not been misplaced."

The Man Booker International Prize, awarded for the first time this year, seeks to recognise a living author from anywhere in the world "who has contributed significantly to world literature".

It is a spin-off from the Man Booker Prize that is awarded every October for the best work of fiction by a British, Irish or Commonwealth author, won this year by Alan Hollinghurst for The Line of Beauty.

Kadare is to receive his prize of £60,000 ($A145,400) plus a trophy at a ceremony in Scotland's capital Edinburgh on June 27, with an extra £15,000 ($A36,350) for a translator of his choice.

Eighteen other authors were shortlisted for the honour, including the late Saul Bellow, Germany's Gunter Grass, Czech-born Milan Kundera, Egypt's Naguib Mahfouz, US writers Philip Roth and John Updike, and Canada's Margaret Atwood.

Kadare, who now divides his time between France and Albania, has two books forthcoming – The Successor, due out in January next year, and Agamemnon's Daughter, with a publication date yet to be announced.


Friday, march 10, 2005

        An open letter to the Hague Tribunal from representatives of Kosova civil society

        The Hague Tribunal does not need Mr Haradinaj, KOSOVA DOES! 

       The ICTY is a respected institution within the Kosovar society. The people of Kosova are especially grateful for efforts to prosecute the former-leadership of the Republic of Serbia, who have been the chief instigators and/or executors of the most brutal and despicable crimes humanity has ever witnessed committed here in Kosova and other parts of former Yugoslavia.

 

      We are, however, shocked with the ICTY decision to indict our Prime Minister, Ramush Haradinaj, who is, among other things, also a very reliable and trusted partner of civil society in Kosova. This, not because we believe justice should be applied selectively, but because of our conviction that justice is being harmed if it is driven by motivations other than to satisfy the sense of justice and the letter of the law. There is probably only one reason to indict more people from Kosova, that being to show equality of guilt for all the parties in the Balkan conflicts. Beside the fact that that is profoundly untrue, it is also insulting to the thousands of innocent victims.

 

      We in Kosova are in the process for the first time in history of building a democratic society and rule of law. We need all the support we can get. In this perspective the timing of this indictment is very unfortunate as all the layers of Kosovar society, under the energetic and effective leadership of the government led by Mr. Haradinaj and supported by UNMIK, have made substantial progress towards fulfilling the standards that the international community has put forth for us.

 

     On the other hand, if one of the main goals ICTY has committed itself to, is to “contribute to the restoration of peace by promoting reconciliation”, this purpose is not served with Mr. Haradinaj indictment. This action might be seriously undermining our fragile peace and quest for democracy and rule of law. This indictment will not be understood by the vast majority of Kosovar society for many reasons and will put all our achievements and efforts at a great risk. This action will galvanize radical and less radical forces that may as well turn the clock backwards. Whatever motivations, we will pay the price.

 

     Regardless of the motivations for the indictment we demand that Mr Haradinaj be allowed to defend himself in freedom and be allowed to continue his most successful work as prime minister. The Hague Tribunal does not need Mr Haradinaj, KOSOVA DOES!

 

    At the same time, we call upon all fellow Kosovars and our political leaders to respond to these difficult time with civility, political maturity, peaceful and democratic means. Mr. Haradinaj’s political carrier and his response today to the indictment has set the example.

    Shqipe Breznica
Program Officer
Hope Fellowships Program
National Albanian American Council
Tel: ++381 38 234 300
Mobile: ++377 44 202 838


Little-Known Facts about Albania and Albanians

To help celebrate Albanianism, consider the following facts about Albania. Did you know that...

The following are new additions. (added 8 - 17 - 99)

-that Ismail Qemal Vlora (of Albanian origin) while a member of the Turkish Chamber of Deputies, was one of the first people to protest the genocide of the Armenians by the Turkish government? And that he proclaimed the independence of Albania from the Ottoman Empire in the Albanian seacoast town of Vlora in1912?

-that when Ismail Qemal Vlora, a Muslim, assumed the presidency of the provisional Albanian government in 1912, he appointed as his Vice President, Monsignor Nicholas Kachou, the Catholic Prelate of Durres?

-that it is strongly believed by some historians that Master SINAN, the leader in the creation of the highest periods of Turkish architecture in the 16th centrury, was an Albanian?

-that, in 1850, Clement C. Moore, who wrote the much-beloved Yuletide classic "Twas the Night Before Christmas..." also wrote a history about Albania's great, 15th century folkhero titled "George Castriot Surnamed Scanderbeg?

-that the name of one of the Albanian commanders who fought so valiantly in he war for Greek Independence against the Ottoman Turks in 1820 was Bubalina, a female Admiral? And that other Albanian leaders in that same war against the Turks were Kanari, Çavella, and Boçari?

-that the reigning Khedivial Dynasty of Egypt which began at the time of Napolean and survived down to King Farouk in 1952 was founded by an Albanian, Mehmet Ali Pasha (1769-1849)?


PEACEFUL RALLY

Thursday, January 22, 2004
The 23-rd of September is an insignificant date for most of us. Yet, to an Albanian family and to all of those who call themselves real Albanians, is a mourning day.  This is the day when the young Albanian man, VULLNET BYTYCI, was murdered from a Greek soldier on the Albanian-Greek border.

Although ‘armed’ with only the dream for a better life, he was shot mercilessly by the racist soldier, as he was trying to flee.  This is not the first case where Albanians are being murdered and ill-treated by Greeks; and this will not be the last, if we do not take any immediate measures and / or actions to bring assassin/s to justice.

Although, this incident, as many others, has been strongly condemned by several international organizations and human rights advocacy groups, the murderer has been set free from the Greek Government.   This fact proves that Albanians, a European people are being discriminated and treated as third-class citizens in Greece.

As many of our family members, who are already experiencing this type of prejudice as well as the ones who look forward to migrate to Greece to ensure a better and more prosperous life, it our obligation to make known to the American and International public, the ill-treatment, discrimination, and humiliation that we, Albanians face in one of the European Union member nations in the 21-st Century.

          The Albanian young man Vullnet Bytyci could have been our brother, father, cousin, husband, whose soul will never find peace, and will haunt us forever if we do let this (his) case be forgotten. Therefore, we ask all the Albanians to join THE NEW ALBANIAN GENERATION Organization in a peaceful rally in front of the UNITED NATIONS on January 23, 2004, from 10:00 am to 12pm.

The address: DAG HAMMARSKJOLD PLAZA 47st. / 1ave

The fate of many Albanian immigrants highly depends from your participation in this rally.   Please do not forget we are the same first - or second-generation immigrants, but just with a better fortune.

 

ANALYSIS

THE KOSOVA PROTECTION CORPS(KPC) IS NOT A PRIVATE FIRM OF COVIC & Co. OF THE SERBIAN AND MONTENEGRIN UNION

Prof.Dr.Mehdi HYSENI

In view of the fact that the virus of the Serb regime of Slobodan Milosevic is being regenerated of late to fight the vital interests of the Albanians and Kosova, the existence and fate of the Kosova Protection Corps (KPC) cannot be called in question not only by the Serbian and Montenegrin Union of Nebojsa Covic and Rada Trajkovic, but by the UNMIK chief administrator and some other association of an international(government or non-government) character either, because KPC is a legitimate and legal institution on the basis of domestic and international public law under which it waged a national liberation and anti-colonial war against the foreign Serbian-Montenegrin occupiers in the 1998-1999 period.

It is necessary to remind both the Union of Serbia and Montenegro and the titular heads of the relevant international institutions (NATO, UNO,OSCE, EU) that KPC is by no means a phantom that has arisen from the ashes of some alien phoenix or a by-product of some joint private-public firm of the Zemun clan “Red Berets”. Nor is it property that Belgrade’s state apparatus owns. KPC is a natural military product of the people, grown out of the ranks of the Albanian people at the most crucial moment of the history of their struggle to defend their existence and Kosova against Serbia’s barbaric hordes, which were bent on genocide and occupation. Therefore, neither Serbia nor any “uninstructed” and biased representatives of the international community, who are trying to rehabilitate Serbia’s genocidal policy at the expense of the national liberation war of KLA = KPC against the Great Serbian colonialist occupiers, can play fast and loose with its fate and existence. Nobody but the Albanian people of Kosova can determine KPC’s fate at present and in the future. This sovereign right belongs only to the Albanian people and not to the spokesmen for the Serbian-Montenegrin ultranationalist policies and propaganda in Podgorica or Belgrade. Vowed ultranationalists such as Nebojsa Covic and Rada Trajkovic (direct or indirect representatives of the Serbian-Montenegrin government), deceive themselves if they reckon that the Albanians and KPC have forgotten the decades-long Serbian state terror and genocide against the Albanian people and Kosova. They delude themselves into thinking that now, because of repeated, paranoid, collective demands and concocted anti-Albanian accusations spread through Slobodan Milosevic’s Great Serbian political machine of extermination and the Serbian Orthodox Church, “willingly” and succumbing to the dictate of Serbia and some of its allies, the Albanian people and KPC will “agree” to leave their own fate and that of Kosova again in the hands of the Serbian and Montenegrin criminal military, paramilitary and police gangs. The “scorched earth” strategy and “horseshoe” combat operations through which Serbia and Slobodan Milosevic (1998-1999) transformed Kosova into an Albanian mass grave and a territory deserted by Albanians, can in no way be repeated either in Kosova or in other Albanian-inhabited territories outside of Kosova because they will be defended by the devoted members of the former Kosova Liberation Army(KLA), today known as Kosova Protection Corps(KPC).

Only the Albanian legitimate army will defend the Albanian people and Kosova

In spite of the list of “desires” of the Great Serbian colonialist policy makers to include Kosova and the Albanians in the vice of their hegemonic domination by eliminating the Albanian military factor called KPC from the political and military scene at all costs, their strategy and tactics cannot be translated into reality. However, this goal of  the chieftains of the government of the Serbia and Montenegro Union should by no means be overlooked. The Albanian side should take it most seriously because its rear line is out-and-out anti-Albanian and it can be equated with the objectives and aims of the rapacious and genocidal policy of the military, police regime of dictator Slobodan Milosevic. 

Both directly and indirectly, all the attacks and accusations Serbian-Montenegrin official policy makers and their propaganda machine level at KPC are aimed at downplaying the start of negotiations with official Prishtina as Belgrade considers Kosova its own internal issue and not an international issue with a neighbor. To achieve this aim, Serbian official policy has played a role in imposing itself on the international factor in Kosova. This is also clearly proved by the limitations, primarily “the standards,” put forward by the UNMIK administration. In such circumstances, nobody knows when (10, 20 or 30 years later) the debate on the final status of Kosova will be put in the order of the day. Because of the pressure exerted by the irrational policy of Belgrade, demands are made of the Albanian politicians and UNMIK to implement the decentralization of the Albanian “state power” ?! 

What kind of decentralization of the so-called dominant Albanian power of government can be talked about at a time when representatives of the Serbian-Montenegrin and other minorities in Kosova participate in all government institutions and the parliament of Kosova or, in other words, when all standards relating to political, economic and cultural integration, security and other standards for a common multiethnic pluralist society have been implemented in a matter of four years. This is what is said at least in the reports and official opinions of titular heads of the international UNMIK and KFOR structures in Kosova.

It stands to reason that if we really want to resolve problems in thespirit of objectivity and the criteria of the process of integration,the principles of democracy, pluralism and the legal norms ofinter-ethnic co-existence in Kosova as well as in compliance with theuniversal standards and values of the international legal system and international law and with what the peace agenda of the New International Order calls for, then, there is no doubt that it is necessary to decentralize, namely, immediately dissolve all the Serbian-Montenegrin parallel institutions in Kosova (the ethnically pure University in Mitrovica, the assemblies at commune level and some associations of a police and paramilitary character in Mitrovica, Gracanica, Kamenica, etc. Whether the Serbian-Montenegrin extremists and ultranationalists in Prishtina and Belgrade like it or not, such a phenomenon leads to the segregation and apartheid of the multiethnic society in Kosova. Furthermore, these institutions are illegal and run counter to the legal system and the legitimacy of the legal institutions and organs of the multiethnic government of Kosova. They are in flagrant contravention of the provisions of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244.

Therefore, this Serbian-Montenegrin phenomenon aimed at disintegration and destabilization, and indicative of failure to do away with the stereotypes and indoctrination of the moribund genocidal policy of Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia, is one of the most serious problems that jeopardizes the process of construction of a free and democratic society in Kosova. Not only is this Serbian-Montenegrin phenomenon of disintegration ridiculous but it is also absurd and unlawful since its essence consists of two elements, which are unacceptable to the political orientation and interests of the Albanian majority, which constitutes more than 90 percent of the population, as well as to the international policy for peace in Kosova. First, it implies “decentralization” of power horizontally and vertically and not on the basis of representation relying on the percentage of the Serbian-Montenegrin minority but according to the criteria of an abstract key, the so-called “defense of Serbian national and state interest in Kosova.” This “principle” can be applicable and acceptable in Serbia only where the Serbs are the majority but in no way can it be applied in Kosova where the Albanians constitute the overwhelming majority. It is natural that in Kosova all the fundamental rights and freedoms of all minorities, who live there, will equally be protected, but the defense of Kosova’s national and state interest will inevitably be the responsibility of the overwhelming majority of  the population only, namely, the Albanian people, who are the only ones entitled to ensure the defense of the national and state interests of Kosova according to law and historical right. Second, according to heretofore tradition of the Serbian colonialist policy, though constituting a minority, by eventually “decentralizing” the legal and democratic system of the local and international administration in Kosova, the Serbs seek to create real conditions for a comeback of the Serbian-Montenegrin criminal army and police so that Kosova and the Albanian majority that makes up more than 90 percent of the population, are transformed into a vassal minority of the Serbian-Montenegrin 5 percent minority. This is the main aim of the “dissatisfaction” of the representatives and leaders of the Serb minority in Kosova and Belgrade’s official policy makers.

The so-called discrimination against the Serbian-Montenegrin minority in Kosova has nothing to do with it as Belgrade’s Serbian-Montenegrin impudent political propaganda is making out. 

To materialize these amoral and anti-civilization goals at the expense of the Albanians and Kosova, the Serbian-Montenegrin propaganda machine is manipulating and deceiving the domestic and international opinion by alleging that the Albanians and Kosova have not been the victims of the state terrorism and genocide of Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia and that it is the Serbian minority in Kosova that “has fallen victim to Albanian terrorism.” This anti-Albanian thesis can go down with those who sympathized with and carried out genocide and helped perpetrate the war crimes of the Hitlerite and fascist machine as well as with the Serbian-Montenegrin ultranationalists (of yesterday and today, the right-hand men of Slobodan Milosevic’s regime of genocide),  Nebojsa Covic (head of the Coordination Center for the return of the Serbian-Montenegrin refugees to Kosova and deputy Prime Minister of the Serbian government) and Rada Trajkovic (deputy to Kosova’s multiethnic parliament and leader of “Povratak”) and others.

It is worth emphasizing that all the acts of boycott and blackmail against UNMIK’s and KFOR’s international policies have been the outcome of direct and indirect involvement of Belgrade’s Serbian government that has been working hand in glove with the extremist pair, Nebojsa Covic and Rada Trajkovic. The depth of their hatred for and lack of tolerance towards the Albanian population, native to its own land of Kosova, is also proved by most recent statements against the existence of KPC and the vital interests of the Albanians in Kosova.

How “open” and “sincere” the “democratized” Serbian and Montenegrin government is with regard to talks with the Albanian side on the settlement of the status of Kosova also has been demonstrated in a spectacular and clear manner, indicative of Great Serbian national chauvinism, by Nebojsa Covic, who has stressed that “KPC should pick up the shovel and don the overalls and refrain from becoming modernized in the military sense for the defense of Kosova.” ?! (Tanjug, May 5, 2003).

This “political” qualification by Nebojsa Covic of KPC – the Albanian military factor – is not backed up at all either by the stipulations of Resolution 1244, which the Great Serbian political factor interpretes from the angle of its colonialist view of Kosova, or by the international law. KLA was dissolved into KPC according to Resolution 1244. This stark truth is already known even to the song birds of the Russian steppes, let alone to the political opinion in Kosova and New York. KPC is the end result of a just national liberation war against aggression and genocide committed by Serbia. Its forerunner was the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA). Its status is based on its recognition by the international community on the basis of the international law and it was legalized by the Rambouillet Conference ( February, 1999), where it was signatory to the international agreement on the conclusion of the Kosova war. The recognition of the international juridical status of KLA – KPC as a national liberation movement by the United States of America and the international community complied with Resolution 2105/XX, endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly on December 20, 1965. Thus, nobody, neither the Serbia and Montenegro Union with its colonialist policies nor any shortsighted, present or erstwhile, supporter and sympathizer of it can deprive KPC of this justified and legitimate right.

Nebojsa Covic, Momcilo Trajkovic, Rada Trajkovic, Oliver Ivanovic and the crowd of clerics of Serbian Orthodox fundamentalism in Kosova and Serbia must be clear that the genocide against the Albanians in Kosova in the years 1989-1999 was not committed by the Albanians or KPC against the Serbian-Montenegrin minority as the present-day post-Milosevic Serbian official policy makers are alleging. The genocide was the work of the Serbs and Serbia; it was inspired by aggressive religious funamentalism and extremism, aided and abetted with every possible means by the Serbian Orthodox Church and Serbia’s Academy of Sciences and Arts, and carried out by the various secret services of the police and the army of Serbia, all guided by Greater Serbia hegemonic programs drawn up by Ilia Garashanin (1844), Vasa Cubrilovic and Ivo Andric(1937), Vuk Karadzic (1847) and by the Vidovdan Constitution (1921), and so on and so forth. Turning the truth upside down will not be accepted either by the Albanians and KPC or the international community. The reality is the opposite because millions of Albanian, Croatian and Bosnian Muslim victims provide ample proof to the world that Slobodan Milosevic’s Hitlerite-inspired Serbia and not the Albanians of Kosova, the Croats of Croatia and the Bosnians of Bosnia, committed monstrous, anti-human and illegal crimes. Such being the case, despite the desire and diabolic and misleading tactics of the Great Serbian ultranationalists who are trying to pose themselves as “angels” and “victims” and not as the hangmen that they are, to the civilized world in order to hide their 20th century savagery, it is very unlikely in the legal sense that international justice and the civilized democratic world today can rehabilitate the military, paramilitary and police forces of Serbia, which perpetrated preposterous crimes, genocide and reprisals, punishable by international law, against the Albanian people and Kosova. By extension, nor can the Serbian and Montenegrin Union stand any legal chance of being rehabilitated by international justice and today’s civilized and democratic world. Those who attempt to rehabilitate the Serbs and Serbia and absolve them of their three campaigns of genocide against the Albanians, the Croatians and the Muslim Bosnians, are not part of the contemporary civilized world, nor do they belong to the positive international legal order. Instead, they are part and parcel of the slave-owning order of obscurantism, the European Byzantine chancelleries of the time of the Holy Alliance and the dictatorial colonialist order of the European metropolises in Africa and Asia prior to and after World War II.

According to international law, international penal acts of genocide cannot be prescribed in spite of the passage of time and the lamentable desire of Rada Trajkovic to return the criminal “VJ” [the Yugoslav Army]to Kosova. It is natural that this should not be construed as a personal desire of Rada Trajkovic (deputy to the Kosova parliament). It is a new collective battlefront of all the political, military, police and paramilitary subjects of Serbia and Montenegro, which poses a grave threat to the defense and general security of the Albanians not only in Kosova, but further afield, in the colonized Albanian “enclaves” of Serbia and Montenegro. 

KPC that fought for a free, independent and democratic Kosova, will also defend it as such

Although “unrestricted games” have been played recently at the expense of the fate of Kosova and the Albanians, which emanate from Serbia’s warmongering propaganda, Michael Steiner’s UNMIK administration and KFOR should not have legalized the claims of the propaganda of Serbia’s political circles and of its provocateurs such as Nebojsa Covic and Rada Trajkovic, “the spearhead,” who are the most extreme critics of the heretofore policy of the UNMIK administration and KFOR in Kosova. No positive result that these two peace institutions have achieved in Kosova are acceptable to the extremist leaders of the Serb minority and Serbian government in Belgrade. Serbs’ individual and collective pressures are brought to bear on Michael Steiner and other titular heads of UNMIK and KFOR in Kosova in an organized and systematic manner; they have been planned in the minutest detail to draw concessions from the injured Albanian party and the international community. 

The most drastic case of blackmail by the Serbian-Montenegrin nationalist leaders against the UNMIK chief administrator, Michael Steiner, is their insidious and provocative demand that he arbitrarily decide to restrict KPC’s rights and duties. Clear indication of it is also the following statement by Nebojsa Covic. “KPC’s further modernization must be put an end to by the international community, which has created it,” he has been quoted as saying. In a word, Covic has demanded that Michael Steiner exempt KPC from Kosova’s political and military system. If such an aim of the Serbian side, which is so keen on concocting slanders and accusations, namely, putting an end to KPC’s activities and modernization, is attained, the outcome will undoubtedly be political and military polarization as well as unpredicted inter-ethnic turn of events. Hence head-on collision between all-Albanian armed forces and the Serbian-Montenegrin forces. In such a scenario, everything would start from scratch in Kosova. This is “the apple of discord” Serbia with Nebojsa Covic and Rado Trajkovic in the lead are looking for. Likewise, this strategy of a new Albanian-Serbian war is also borne out by Northern Mitrovica’s current political, administrative and geopolitical status. So far, the Albanians have been cautious enough to avert the threat that official Belgrade has been preparing for four years now. The Albanians, who have proved themselves to be moderate even though they have been the injured party on different occasions, have taken such an approach for the sake of salvaging the process of building a stable peace and inter-ethnic trust in Kosova hoping at the same time that neighboring Serbia would make a public apology for all the massacres and ruins inflicted on the Albanians and Kosova in the 1998-1999 period. Unfortunately, although Albanians’ wise policy has given post-Milosevic Serbia the opportunity to normalize relations with Kosova (in the name of democracy and European and regional integration), Serbia’s leadership with Nebojsa Covic (formerly in the employ of S. Milosevic’s SPS) taking the lead, while perfidiously deceiving to little by little win both the neighboring countries and the European Union, the Council of Europe, OSCE etc. over to its side, has started to reactivate the genocidal strategy, policies and propaganda of Slobodan Milosevic’s fascist regime, by directly interfering in Kosova’s internal affairs. This is also proved by the following statement made by Rada Trajkovic, deputy to the Kosova parliament, to the public media.

She has said: “Conditions have been created for the Serbian official policy to offer UNMIK and KFOR the proposal for admitting military and special forces of the Serbia and Montenegro Union into the structures of these two international peace institutions to fight Albanian terrorism together” !? (Liria Kombëtare [L.K.] May 6, 2003). That this proposal of the deputy of the Serb minority in Kosova is out of place and unacceptable to both the Albanian side and the international peace missions, UNMIK and KFOR in Kosova, is also proved by the case of the Albanian civilians who fell victim to Serb terrorism and genocide, a fact that constitutes an international penal crime perpetrated by the forces of the Yugoslav Army (Vojska Jugoslavije – Serbia + Montgenegro), the Serbian-Montenegrin paramilitary and police forces in Kosova during the Serbian-Montenegrin aggression of occupation in Kosova in the years 1998-1999. On May 10, 2003, tens identified bodies of Albanian civilians from Kosova, found in 2002, two years after the Kosova war, in the mass grave at Petrovo Selo, the police testing ground at Batajanica not far from Belgrade and in the Perucac lake near Bajna Bashta, were handed over at the Kosova-Serbia border checkpoint of Merdar. They had been buried outside of Kosova by Serb forces, deep in the northern and western interior of Serbia so that any trace of their genocidal crimes against the Albanian victims could be lost. As UNMIK announced, the remains of the tens victims brought to Kosova, have been placed in the morgue of the Rahovec commune, where the Serb army and police committed the bloodiest crimes against the Albanian civil population.” (L.K. May 10, 2003).

Although this crime committed by the Serbian-Montenegrin military and police forces is anti-human, spearheaded against civilization and constitutes an international penal responsibility under the international humanitarian law (The Hague Regulation of 1907, Art.46, para.1; Geneva Convention IV, Art.27, para 1; Adition Protocol I, Art.51, para.2; Adition Protocol II, Art.13, para.2, both of 1977), Dr. Rada Trajkovic finds it “reasonable”, “moral” and “lawful,” in contravention of these conventions and regulations of the international humanitarian law, under which reprisals and crimes of genocide against the civilian population are punished, to publicly declare after four years that “the Serbian-Montenegrin army has already been rehabilitated and as such it should return to Kosova to protect the Serbs, Montenegrins and others” (!!!) This hypocrisy and lack of political morality that smack of Great Serb national chauvinism and ultra-nationalism that Rada Trajkovic, deputy to the Kosova parliament displays, can be found only in the “justification of the ethics” of bestial atrocities during the holocaust perpetrated by Hitler’s Nazifascism (1939-1945) against the victims, the Hebrews and other peoples in Europe. But how come that the Serbian deputy to the Kosova parliament Dr. Rada Trajkovic arrives at the conclusion and publicly proclaims that the Yugoslav, Serbian-Montenegrin, army has been “rehabilitated” and that it should by all means return to Kosova to “protect” the victims of the Albanians, and nobody from the Albanian official circles (the government and the parliament) and the International UNMIK administration has so far come forward to make an issue of her statement, unequivocally rejecting such an immoral, discriminatory, unlawful and outright anti-Albanian demand? In response to such a racist statement by Rada Trajkovic, which runs counter to the norms and rules of international humanitarian law and fans ethnic hatred, the Kosova parliament should necessarily include the case of the Serbian deputy Rada Trajkovic on its agenda and seek the suspension of her parliamentary immunity. The example Rada Trajkovic has set does not bring the Albanian majority and the Serbian minority any closer to each other, nor does it create inter-ethnic trust. Instead, it is a recipe for direct confrontation between them leading to new crises and armed conflicts within the Kosova-Serbia framework.

According to this “farsighted vision” of Dr. Rada Trajkovic, which is as tendentious as it is subjective as far as “the fight against Albanian terrorism” in Kosova is concerned, it turns out that KFOR and UNMIK, though they have more than 27, 000 troopps under the NATO command at their disposal, “greatly need” to be reinforced with the criminal special reserve and army forces of the Serbia and Montenegro Union, though it is the same forces that carried out acts of genocide and massacres against the Albanian civilian population in Kosova four years ago. This is the culmination of cynicism of the Great Serbian hypocritical policy! No, Rada Trajkovic, Madam deputy of Kosova’s multiethnic parliament, your and Slobodan Milosevic’s army, paramilitaries and police have run out once and for all of “all credibility to exercise military obligations” in Kosova. The place of the Serbian-Montenegrin special military forces, which Covic, Trajkovic and Ivnovic and their ilk are day dreaming of and Rada Trajkovic is insisting on, is neither KFOR, UNMIK, KPC nor Kosova. They should be where they belong, at the International Court of the Hague and in international jails. Together with Slobodan Milosevic, those of the army and the police, who issued the orders, should render account for the crimes and massacres against the Albanians and their property that they plundered and burned down in Kosova. Irrespective of the theses of Nebojsa Covic and Rada Trajkovic and the pressure from Belgrade’s and Podgorica’s policy makers and their propaganda machine, the Albanians have no reason to withdraw from their trenches to defend the bitter historic truth about the Albanian issue overall and the Kosova question in the years 1998-1999 in particular. Their fight should necessarily be characterised by perspicacity and objectivity and they should always work intensively to expose the Serbian-Montenegrin war crimes and holocaust to international democratic opinion. Any symptoms of dilemma and negative tendencies for the sake of personal or political group interests, in favor of a policy aimed at defending foreign, anti-Albanian, interests in order to obscure or cover up the anti-human work, namely, the Serbian-Montenegrin holocaust of the Albanians and Kosova, would mean, in view of the norms of customary and international law, support for such a crime and amoral, apolitical and unlawful excuse against the truth on the Albanians and Kosova.

There is no doubt that like any state and people in the world, Kosova and its people indispensably need to enjoy the legitimate right to defend their national and state interests but they can in no way seek or materialize this right through the intermediary of Serbia’s and Montenegro’s invading genocide-minded troops. On the contrary, in case they are exposed to a threat, Kosova and the Albanian people will call for help on their tested friend, the United States of America, which together with its allies exerted its own influence on and took the leading role in the liberation of Kosova and the salvation of the Albanians from collective extermination that would have resulted from aggression and genocide at the hands of Serbia’s military, paramilitary and police forces. If “terrorism” has struck roots in Kosova, KFOR, UNMIK and KPC have enough forces to stamp it out and deal with any other threat to Kosova and its people. The Albanian people of Kosova and Kosova itself by no means need to ask their hangmen and murderers for protection. What they do really need is such loyal friends and allies as the United States of America and its West European allies. I do repeat and will always emphasize their historic humanitarian and friendly gesture, namely, the direct interference of the United States of America with the NATO members’ coalition, which defeated the Serbian occupation forces and their military objectives. Otherwise, Kosova today would have been totally emptied of Albanians as a result of the Serbian Hitlerite holocaust in the midst of Europe (1998-1999).

Trajkovic, Covic and their Company as well as those who support
Belgrade’s paranoid policies should not lose sight of the fact that
Kosova will never be their poor “municipality” with the status of a
colony as it was until June 1999, nor will the Albanans be their “means
of barter” to be exploited economically and pacified through terror and
genocide whenever the fancy took them in order to settle accounts and
engage in transactions with their Slav and pro-Slav allies at the
expense of the Albanian territory and Kosova’s independence.

Despite the compromising and provocative policy of Serbian-Montenegrin
nationalism and hegemonism, thanks to their dedication and concrete
activities, the Albanian political institutions and the military factor, KPC, have proved to the international community during the last four years that they stand for the normalization of and respect for
neighborly relations with all the countries bordering on Kosova, which
pursue a policy of peace and good neighborliness. But this rational and
farsighted policy that the Albanians are pursuing should not be
misunderstood and regarded as “submission” or “defeatism” as Belgrade’s biased destructive policy that describes the Albanians’ policies as “discriminating” against the Serb minority, is making out. Logically and practically, such a provocative policy cannot hold water in view of the reality of co-existence in Kosova but, according to the logic of Seriba, it would be productive if the Serbs’ ploy went down with the Albanian politicians, UNMIK and KFOR in Kosova. Judging by Trajkovic’s and Covic’s logic and according to the sponsors of the Serbian nationalist policy, “the Serbian-Montenegrin minority in Kosova is discriminated against to such an extent in the context of its elementary rights” as to live through the harshest prison terms in their own homes.” Primarily, by returning its Army and police (either within the framework of KFOR or that of UNMIK) or by bringing the colonist “refugees” back in, Serbia intends to create a chaotic situation in Kosova, which would be decisive for the restoration of Serbia’s state sovereignty over Kosova. In fact, this is what underlies the demand for the decentralization of the Albanian “state power” and the international peace mission in Kosova.

For this purpose, Serbia anathematizes the Albanian political
institutions and UNMIK by alleging that they are not playing their role
in defense of the rights of the Serbian-Montenegrin minority. This is
the issue Serbia is eager to take up for discussion in the first place
in a dialogue with the Albanian side and not the final settlement of
Kosova’s status.


In case the Serbian and Montenegrin official circles still insist on
suspending KPC and openly seek to trample underfoot the Kosova
Albanians’ right to self-determination, the Albanian politicians should
not be caught unawares. They should resort to all available legal and
democratic forms of struggle and means at their disposal, as stipulated
by the United Nations Charter and international law on the basis of
which KLA – KPC has been recognized as a legal Albanian national
military factor. To this end, the government and parliament of Kosova
need to make a special request to the United Nations Secretary General,
Mr. Kofi Annan, whereby to emphasize that all conditions have been
created to revise Resolution 1244, and pass a new Resolution on Kosova
in its place according to the spirit and letter of the Declaration on
Recognition of Independence to the colonial countries and peoples,
enshrined in Resolution 1514 (XX), passed by the United Nations General Assembly on December 14, 1960 as well as in compliance with the relevant provisions of the United Nations Charter and the basic legal
norms and principles of international law.

Delaying the passage of such a resolution on the settlement of the final status of Kosova would help the colonialist policies and propaganda engage in continuous acts of provocaton and interference in the internal affairs of Kosova with the aim of creating new armed conflicts not only in Kosova but in the Balkan region too. It is clear that by raising a hue and cry about and playing the card of Albanian “terrorism”, which is in no way Albanian but in fact Greater Serbian terrorism combined with genocide carried out at the expense of the Albanians and Kosova during the 1989-1999 period, the criminal gangs composed of Serbian military,paramilitary and police forces are likely to have recourse again to terrorism and genocide unless there is fast track approval of such a resolution on the recognition of Kosova’s self-determination.

If the United Nations Security Council denies the right to
self-determination to Kosova, Albanian body politic should not slacken
the intensity of its activity even for a moment. Utilizing the
legitimate institutional instruments (Government and Parliament), it
should pass the relevant legal act on a people’s referendum, in which
the people of Kosova would express themselves for a free and independent Kosova with their free and democratic vote the same as they did in the September 1991 referendum.

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Author is scientific collaborator of the "American Diplomacy", North Carolina,USA.