June 16, 1999; 10:00PM EDT - PostScript 4 HEADLINES Kosovo 1. "Peacekeeping" Mayhem in Kosovo: KLA on Killing Rampage; German Troops Rush to Protect Serb Bishop, Cathedral Phoenix 2. Over 1,000 American Troops Killed? Over 500 after Just First Six Weeks of War (an SF Source) Vladivostok 3. Russia-China-India Military Triangle Strengthening ---------------- 1. "Peacekeeping" Mayhem in Kosovo: KLA on Killing Rampage; German Troops Rush to Protect Serb Bishop, Cathedral KOSOVO, June 16 - We've told you the Kosovo "peace process" would turn into a "piss process," and it has. And worse... It is now turning into a combination of Serb "ethnic cleansing" and a shooting gallery with live Serbs being used as targets. The "peace process" has uprooted over 30,000 Serbs. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) rebels has fanned out across the province, killing and kidnapping scores of Serbs fleeing the province, and burning their homes and churches in the last three days. In just the last 24 hours, at least six Serbs were executed by KLA in cold blood, dozens kidnapped, including some monks. If there are some bright lights in the mayhem into which Kosovo has turned, they are the rare cases when the NATO troops have done something to try to stop the KLA's reign of terror. In Prizren, for example, German troops rushed to the aid of the Serb bishop and the monks besieged by the KLA terrorists, after an international TV station reported rumors that Albanians were getting ready to torch the Orthodox Christian cathedral. A rifle-toting German officer from the KFOR force burst into Kosovo's only Serbian Orthodox bishop's office, a pillar of Serb presence in the majority ethnic Albanian province, and urged Bishop Artemije Radosavljevic to move his books to the basement: "If someone throws a Molotov cocktail through the window, that could all go up in flames very easily," the soldier said, according to a Reuters report. The bishop ignored the advice. But today, Bishop Artemije told Reuters he was leaving Prizren because it was no longer safe for him to stay. German officers advised the Bishop, the priests and the monks to leave Prizren tomorrow with the remaining Serbs, because they could no longer guarantee their safety. The Bishop said he would leave for the Kosovo capital Pristina later in the day under German military escort with nine priests and more than 200 Serbs who took refuge at his seminary after armed KLA rebels began patrolling the streets Tuesday. Artemije said ethnic Albanians began beating and disarming Serbs once the NATO troops arrived Sunday (June 13). He said five Serb civilians, including one of his monks from a monastery out side the city, had been kidnapped Tuesday. His own office is under guard from German troops inside and out. Ethnic Albanians went to the edge of the Prizren church grounds to topple a statue of King Dusan, the legendary king of the medieval Serbian Empire. The Orthodox Church has been in Prizren more than 1,000 years. Artemije said the Serbs' departure and the KLA's arrival were the worst things he could imagine in its history. "We survived here for five centuries during the Ottoman Empire and two world wars. But the (Serb) people never had to leave their villages and towns like this -- and all this under the so-called protection of the U.N. and NATO," Artemije said. Elsewhere, 12 monks left Tuesday (June 14) after their Holy Trinity monastery in
Musutiste (15th century) was The independent Serbian news agency Beta said monks in Visoki Decani monastery and nuns near Pec had said they were under siege by the KLA. It quoted one monk as saying 22 monks and 17 other Serbs remained in Visoki Decani and that 13 Orthodox churches in the Veliko Hoca area had been destroyed. Eyewitnesses told Beta that a group of six armed Albanians with red and black armbands intercepted a column of refugees preparing to leave Kojlovica five kilometers northeast of Pristina on June 14. Dragan Jovanovic, 29, and Slavisa, 30, and Boban Krstic, 26, were separated from the rest of the refugees and shot on the spot. According to Zivka Krstic, mother of the Krstic brothers, her sons were killed in front of Slavisa Krstic's three children and his wife. Radio Pristina employee Ilija Sukic was killed in Pristina on June 14, while three civilians were abducted. Sukic was shot by an unknown assailant or assailants in front of his home. Details of the murder are unavailable. The Media Center also reported that two civilians, Ivan Nicic from the village of Kojlovic, and Abdun Musa, were wounded by the KLA near Urosevac on June 14. Five of the Serbs were kidnapped in the Vranjevac district in Pristina, while another five were taken into captivity at an administrative building at the Belacevac coal mine 10 km (6 miles) from Pristina. Representatives of the Yugoslav authorities called on KFOR on June 14, to press the KLA to release the 10 Serbs they abducted. Beta's reporter in Pristina has said that during the last few days, Serbs have been arriving in Pristina from the southern Kosovo in increasing numbers, on their way to other locations in the country. After a series of incidents in the Pristina suburb of Vranjevac, where two solders and a police officer were killed, the hopes of the local Serbs it would be safe for them to remain in the province have greatly diminished. It is certain that there are almost no Serbs left in the southern parts of the province, while they feel relatively safe only in larger Serb enclaves and - to an extent - in Pristina. Most refugees are leaving Kosovo together with military and police convoys, using tractors, old vans, and cars packed with their belongings. Montenegrin Commissioner for Refugees, Djordje Scepanovic, told Beta that 11,000 refugees arrived in Montenegro on June 14 alone. He added that additional refugees from Kosovo were expected to arrive in the republic in the next few days. The leader of the Serbian Resistance Movement in Kosovo, Momcilo Trajkovic, has said that some 30,000 Serbs were currently displaced in Kosovo, adding that the situation was critical in Orahovac, Urosevac and in the region of Metohija, while it was stable in Klina and Istok. The refugee issue is being tackled with extreme caution in Serbia. According to official data, there are already around 700,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia in the republic. On June 14, almost all political organizations in Serbia, primarily the opposition parties, demanded from KFOR protection for the non-Albanian population in Kosovo and tp disarm the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Saddako Ogata also has asked that a new tragedy - the exodus of the remaining Serbs from Kosovo - be prevented. --- TiM Ed.: Since the preceding NATO-assisted "ethnic cleansing" and murders of the Serbs were a predictable as night day, it is not surprising that the above call by the U.N. Commissioner seems to be falling on deaf ears. American TV networks today showed pictures of the Serb refugee columns, but ignored the KLA's murders, kidnapping and destruction of the Serb church property and priceless historical monuments. --- "With every hour that passes, the arbitrary power of the KLA is growing in Kosovo, and Nato seems momentarily clueless how to deal with it," writes the London Daily Telegraph, in a June 15 report titled, "We Will Execute Serb Troops, Says KLA." Sali Mustafa, the KLA commander in Pristina, bragged to the Telegraph about personally killing the Pristina Serb chief of police. Here is an excerpt from that story:
Ivan Nicic, 25, was driving out of Pristina yesterday morning, like thousands of other fleeing Serbs, when he spotted a man he knew, an Albanian. Their eyes met. Suddenly, other Albanians appeared, pulling out their guns, and as Nicic panicked and floored the accelerator, they shot his green Yugo Tempo five times in the back. One bullet passed through his shoulder, and another grazed his skull. Nicic was luckier than others. Last night KLA checkpoints were appearing all over town, the Telegraph reports, especially at the route north to Belgrade. Three more fleeing Serbs were reportedly shot dead, and Albanian gunmen had taken the lives of at least one Albanian who worked for the Yugoslav militia, as well as three other Serb policemen. --- TiM Ed.: And all that is happening under the watchful, but evidently largely indifferent eyes of the NATO "peacekeepers." As a matter of fact, at today's press conference, the British Gen. Michael Jackson lamented all sorts of shortcomings of the KFOR engagements, but never once mentioned the Serb civilians being terrorized by the KLA. 2. Over 1,000 American Troops Killed? Over 500 after Just First Six Weeks of War (an SF Source) PHOENIX, June 16 - Responding to the comments this writer made in his speech at the June 15 WHTT luncheon meeting in Phoenix, and during the subsequent Q&A (see S99-109, Item 2, June 15), a TIM reader, a member of the Guards who had served with the U.S. troops in Bosnia and Macedonia, provided some additional information about the American casualties in NATO's war on Serbia which the Clinton administration has been covering up. He quoted a member of the U.S. Special Forces (SF) who had just returned from Yugoslavia after the first six weeks of the war, that over 500 American soldiers had lost their lives as of that point. At such a rate of casualties, and considering how much more intensive the fighting had been in the last five weeks of the 11-week war, the American toll in lives lost would have to have exceeded 1,000 by the wars' end. A sergeant in this Guard unit, a former member of the Ranger/SF forces who was a part of the Panama invasion in 1989, said that the SF alone lost 50 men, although the death toll for the entire operation was 11, according to the Bush administration official statements. --- TiM Ed.: Which means that Bill Clinton has elevated the art of lying and deceiving the American public to an order of magnitude higher level than was George Bush's. As you saw last week, our President has claimed that we had suffered zero losses in combat during NATO's 79-day war on Serbia. And Congress, by its silence, is acquiescing to such an outrageous lie and callous disregard for the lives of our troops Clinton and his military establishment are demonstrating. It was bad enough that Congress failed to impeach Clinton for lying about having sex "with that woman" and for obstructing justice. It is UNFORGIVABLE that 100 Senators and 435 Congressmen have remained mum in the face of Clinton's lies and obstructionism regarding the lives of hundreds of our men and women in uniform. They, our elected representatives, as We the People, have the right to know how many American lives Clinton has sacrificed in his illegal and undeclared war on Serbia, not just how many of billions of taxpayer dollars he has squandered in destroying a country which has never meant us any harm. Congress has the right to know but no one has the guts to ask the question. Why not? Are the congressional perks and campaign perks paid by the "death merchants" and other industrial lobbies more important than the lives of our sons and daughters? If a Senator's or a Congressman's son or a daughter were among the over 1,000 Americans allegedly killed, one would hope that at least that person would be demanding such answers from the President? The fact that none are, suggests that most of them are morally corrupt, and that none of the their family members were killed. Surprise, surprise... for a crowd which puts its mouth to where the money is. Which is why it is time for the American people to rise up and "impeach" the Senate and the House, not just President. Let us throw out of office all Capitol Hill rats who supported Clinton not only in his illegal war, but in his sacrifice of so many American lives. So that the President's and the congressional industrial sponsors can report a few extra cents per share in their financial statements. ------------- 3. Russia-China-India Military Triangle Strengthening VLADIVOSTOK, June 14 - Nikolai Mikhailov, Russia's First Deputy Minister of Defence and State Secretary, said that "Russia's strategic cooperation with China and India will rise to a qualitatively new level soon." Mikhailov's comment was made during talks between Colonel-General Zhang Wannian, China's Deputy Chairman of the Central Military Council, the Itar-Tass news agency reported. The Russian Defence Ministry official pointed out that "the events in Yugoslavia prompted the adoption of necessary measures in the strengthening of Russia's defense capability and in a quest for strategic partners in accomplishment of this important task. China and India are such partners now." --- TiM Ed.: The Sino-Hindu-Russian military triangle, of course, was one of the possible negative consequences which we said NATO's attack on Serbia may cause (see S99-79, Day 53, Update 1, Item 4, May 15 and S99-91, Day 65, Item 3, May 27). At the very least, it may lead to Cold War II. In the worst case, it will cause a WW III. Either way, the disastrous consequences of NATO's blatant disregard of all civilized norms of behavior which its aggression against Yugoslavia represented, will be haunting us for decades. At least for those who get to live through all this death and destruction for decades.
Also, check out... Truth in Media Statement on Kosovo Crisis, "Wither Dayton, Sprout New War?", "On the Brink of Madness", "Tragic Deja Vu's," "Seven U.S. Senators Suggest Ouster of Milosevic", "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', Serbia's Aztlan", "What If the Shoe Were on the Other Foot?", "Green Interstate - Not Worth American Lives", "An American Hero or Actor of the Year?" (A June '95 TiM story) and/or "Clinton arme secrètement les musulmans bosniaques" Or Djurdjevic's WASHINGTON TIMES columns: "Chinese Dragon Wagging Macedonian Tail," "An Ugly Double Standard in Kosovo Conflict?", "NATO's Bullyboys", "Kosovo: Why Are We Involved?", and "Ginning Up Another Crisis" Or Djurdjevic's NEW DAWN magazine columns: "Washington's Crisis Factory," and "A New Iron Curtain Over Europe" |
and "Peace"
Topic: BALKAN AFFAIRS
burned down by Albanians (see the
photo). About a dozen monks had also abandoned the 14th-century Monastery of the Holy
Archangels, although this was not burned.