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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (2582)	4/7/1999 11:01:00 PM
From: George Papadopoulos	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17770

WSJ Editorial calls McCain "refreshing"...What the hell does that mean???? WSJ today's headline of the front page article on column 4 (you know the weird one that I wonder if anybody reads) In Albania, Bandits And Killers Welcome Displaced of Kosovo. Subheading: Medieval Tract Governs Life, Including Blood Feuds;"This is a Fellini Movie" If anyone has access to it please read it. Or maybe someone can post here. But there are some really funny and tragic quotes here that describes the state of that country... Last August, a British refugee aid worker had her car seized by masked bandits. She returned in November and gangsters beat her to the ground. One of her colleagues was shot through the leg. Mobsters and tribal leaders have replaced law here. They even brought back "Kanun", a medieval tract regulating the minute details of family, work and other social topics, such as blood feuds. The "standard bearer", or headman, of the main tribe of the Topoje region concedes that the Kanun nees to be modernized but he says that "everybody obeys its rules for vendettas" [this is funny in a quite bizzare fashion] Rules: The organizer of any revenge ambush must bring food for his co-conspirators. Murderers must confess and attend the funerals of their victims Dogs have the right to be let off their chain at night, but must return at dawn. Family honor is paramount. A woman is "a sack, made to endure" [what????] The tradition of the blood feud allows a murder victim's family to avenge a murder on any male relative of the killer within 24 hrs, without penalty;but once 24 hrs have passed, the victim's family must allow a truce. A youth shot a murderer dead with 200 rounds to avenge "blood with blood" Gangsters hijacked about 20 foreign aid vehicles in the town six months ago and still cruise the streets in the cars all day long. Area officials don't condone the banditry, "but is is impossible to do something about it", says Xhevdet Hoxha, the 34 year old head of the district council of Tropoje. A Dutch rep of OSCE says: "this is a Fellini movie", he says of the banditry, rolling a cigarette and reminiscing about how attackers in January killed the brother of the town's police chief. The chief then killed nine men-one for every bullet fired by ambushers who murdered his brother. "That was a bit more than the Kanun specifies, but people respected him for that" Description of the Albanian region of Bajram Curri: Even in lawless Albania, Bajram Curri has a reputation as a murderous place. Economy is in ruins like the rest of the country. Of its 50 or so factories before communism collapsed, all that remains is a hydroelectric dam with one working turbine, a few shops, substinence farms and a dozen cafes, where young men start their day with an espresso and a glass or two of fiery Albanian brandy. The talk is often about the dealing of prices of drugs in Europe. ------------------------------------ I think the Apache helicopters will fit in very well in this Fellini Movie.