TiM GW Bulletin 98/6-5 June 20, 1998

Serbian Patriarch's Plea with U.S. Envoy Ignored Kosovo Lie Allowed to Stand Also, How Albanians Tried Surreptitiously to Misappropriate Serb Church Property

BELGRADE, Serbia - As he motioned his guest to a chair next to his little divan, the diminutive Serbian Patriarch Pavle moved with the grace of a Kosovo blackbird despite his 82 years. (Before becoming the Patriarch, Pavle had spent three decades of his life, first as a priest in, and eventually as the bishop of, the Serbian province of Kosovo).

But what His Holiness lacks in physical size, Patriarch Pavle more than makes up in spirit. He proved it on Jan. 27, 1997, the St. Sava Day (St. Sava is the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Christian church), when he led a procession of over 100,000 people through the streets of Belgrade lined by the Slobodan Milosevic's riot police.

"Like a tiny Moses, the 81-year old leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church parted the sea of the 'men in blue' who had been blocking the streets in city center for days, and clubbing the pro-democracy demonstrators for three days in a row," this writer wrote in his Feb. 9, 1997 WASHINGTON TIMES column, titled "Orthodox Patriarch leads by example." It was the largest religious procession in Serbia since World War II.

Patriarch Pavle's spirits soared high again last week as he shared with this writer two stories which exemplified the U.S. government's treachery, complementing similar transgressions perpetrated against the Serbs by Yugoslavia's late communist dictator, the darling of the West during the Cold War, Josip Broz Tito.

  "(Ibrahim) Rugova (the ostensibly 'moderate' and U.S.-backed Kosovo Albanian leader who was recently received at the Clinton White House as if he were a head of state) said, according to an interview published earlier this year, that the Devic (pronounced "Devich") monastery was being used by the Serbs as a storehouse for weapons and ammunition," His Holiness told this writer, visibly agitated. "But Devic is a female-only monastery. There are only nine nuns there, including the 'Igumania' (Mother Superior) Anastasia." And there is only one male Serb from a nearby village who occasionally helps the nuns with the heavy labor tasks they cannot handle on their own.

Angered by such blatant lies which the NWO media had published, the Patriarch asked the top U.S. envoy to Yugoslavia, Richard Miles, to pay him a visit. Which the latter did. Whereupon the Patriarch invited the U.S. ambassador to check out the situation at the Devic Monastery for himself. "And if you do find some weapons or ammunition there, I will apologize to the whole world," Patriarch Pavle said. "But if you don't, I would like you to pass on my message to Mrs. Madeleine Albright, who, as a woman, might be able to better understand the injustice which the media had done to the nuns of Devic. So that you and she could then correct this falsehood published by the media."

"And what happened?" TiM asked His Holiness.

"Nothing."

So the following day, during a meeting with Miles at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, this writer brought up the issue of the false accusations levied against the Devic Monastery nuns by the Kosovo Albanian leader. The top U.S. envoy in Belgrade corroborated His Holiness' account of what happened with one correction: he said that it wasn't Rugova, but rather his spokesperson who made the allegation.

"But is it true that nothing was done even after the Patriarch's appeal?"

"Not quite," Miles replied. The U.S. embassy did send someone to check out the Devic situation. They found no evidence of any weapons or ammunition. Instead, they heard the Devic nuns complain about the local Albanians stealing the monastery's firewood.

"They are doing more than that," this writer replied. "I don't know when your people were there, but Igumania (Mother Superior) Anastasia's car, for example, was recently fired upon and hit by Albanians. Luckily, there were no casualties."

Miles nodded affirmatively. The U.S. envoy added that he did chastise Rugova's spokesman for levying false accusations against the Devic nuns.

"And was there ever a retraction printed in the media?"

Miles shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "You know, I've been in many crisis situations during my long State Department career. But the media never been as bad as this. Nor am I talking about some minor media. I am talking about the major networks, such as CNN, NBC..."

"Spoken like a true Truth in Media supporter," this writer thought. Except that the same media culprits had perfected their art of deception in Bosnia, evidently unbeknownst to this honorable American diplomat.

The bottom line of the Devic story? First, a lie about was allowed to stand. Second, except for a verbal slap on the wrist of the Rugova's spokesperson, the U.S. government did nothing to correct the falsehood in the media, despite a personal appeal by the Patriarch. No surprise there, we suppose, considering how much lying goes on in Washington. But as Patriarch Pavle once told me, "don't be afraid of anything except sin." For, in the end, God "will weigh everything precisely and fairly." Including the sins of the U.S. government.

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CHRISTIAN CHURCHES LABELED MOSQUES

BELGRADE, Serbia - Vlado, the Serb driver who was on loan to this writer for a part of his visit to Serbia, said that he was originally from Kosovo. His life's story was the living proof of the demographic war which the Kosovo Albanians have been waging during the last five decades against the incumbent Kosovo residents, the Serbs, who were a majority of Kosovo's population prior to World War II (in 1929, for example, the Serbs constituted 61% of Kosovo's population).

Now permanent residents of Belgrade, Vlado and his family, are part of the Serb exodus from Kosovo brought about by Albanian massacres during WW II (when Albanians were Hitler's allies), four decades of oppression and harassment during Tito's communist rule, and terrorist acts against the remaining Serbs after Tito's death in 1980 (for more on Kosovo demographic statistics over time - see TiM GW Bulletin 98/3-1, "Kosovo: 'Bosnia II' and Serbia's Aztlan, Chechnya," available at our Web site).

Yet, one could detect no bitterness at all listening to Vlado's stories about his former nemesis-neighbors. If anything, he displayed a sense of admiration for the unity and toughness of the Kosovo Albanians. "There is something Darwinian about them," he said. "They have the highest birth rates in Europe. Many of their children don't survive. But those who do, are as tough as nails. I watched some of them labor hard all day in the field without breaking a sweat."

But Vlado's stories about Albanians weren't as complimentary when it came to their morals. Just before he dropped off this writer at the Patriarchate building in Belgrade, he told a story about an ancient Serbian Orthodox Christian church, which dates back to Tsar Dushan's time (who ruled 1331-1355), being converted into a mosque.

Having gotten used to discarding much of such folk hearsay during the Bosnian war as exaggerations, this writer only nodded politely. Which is why his surprise was that much greater when Patriarch Pavle, less than 15 minutes later, independently relayed his version of the same story - totally unprompted. It seemed as if God had been eavesdropping on my conversation with Vlado and on this writer's private thoughts and doubts about the veracity of Vlado's tale, and then whispered it into Patriarch Pavle's ears.

The Patriarch's story started back in the 1984-1985 time frame, when post-Tito communists were still running Yugoslavia according to the communist dictator's edicts, and when their Albanian proxies were slowly but surely "ethnically cleansing" the Serbs from Kosovo. At the time, Pavle was still the Archbishop of Pec, the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchs in ancient times.

The Patriarch said that there were several Serbian churches built by Tsar Dushan near Prizren, Kosovo. One of them was the "Monastery of the Holy Trinity," which was surrounded by a number of smaller churches and chapels. One day, someone showed the Patriarch a copy of the local county register. Incredibly, the 600+ year-old Christian "Monastery of the Holy Trinity" was described in the county register as a "mosque." The surrounding churches were variably depicted as either a "mosque," a "house," or a "building" - anything but what they really were - proof of the Serbs' presence in, and rule of, Kosovo for nearly a thousand years now.

Needless to say, the then Archbishop of Pec got rather agitated over his accidental discovery of a fraud being perpetrated by Tito's communists and/or the local Albanians. So he ordered his Kosovo clergy to obtain copies of the county registers for all church properties in this Serbian province. One of the monks, however, spoke to the local media, and a story was published about this communist-Albanian collusion and attempt in misappropriation. Whereupon, the local authorities frantically moved to erase any trace of such fraud.

"So I can't prove to you that all this really happened," Patriarch Pavle told this writer in conclusion of his story. "Except to offer you my word for it."

Which was a good enough for this writer to report about this untold Kosovo travesty. A word of an Orthodox Patriarch is worth more than thousands of the signed and sealed New World Order treaties. Besides, if we consider Vlado's preamble to this Patriarch's story, was it not God who was speaking to us through Patriarch Pavle? And if so, were you listening?

Also, check out... "Biting the Hand That Feeds You", "A Balkan Affairs Potpourri", "Put the U.N. Justice on Trial", "International Justice 'Progresses' from Kidnapping to Murder", "Milosevic: 'A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery'...", "Kosovo Lie Allowed to Stand", "New World Order's Inquisition in Bosnia", "Kosovo Heating Up", "Decani Monastery Under Siege?", "Murder on Wall Street",  "Kosovo: 'Bosnia II'",  "What If the Shoe Were on the Other Foot?", "Green Interstate - Not Worth American Lives", and/or "Clinton arme secrètement les musulmans bosniaques"

Or Djurdjevic's WASHINGTON TIMES columns: "An Ugly Double Standard in Kosovo Conflict?", "NATO's Bullyboys", "Kosovo: Why Are We Involved?", and "Ginning Up Another Crisis"