Here are some accounts of attrocities committed by the Kosovo Albanians against the Serbs of the region:
DECLARATION OF THE BISHOPS OF THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AGAINST THE
GENOCIDE INFLICTED BY THE ALBANIANS ON THE INDIGENOUS SERBIAN POPULATION, TOGETHER WITH THE SACRILEGE OF THEIR CULTURAL MONUMENTS IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY
In Yugoslavia, ever since the end of the Second World War and up to the present day, persecution of the Serbian population and of their religion continues in Kosovo and Methoija, regions of their ten centuries' old homeland. This persecution is being administered by the Albanians, who, after the Second World War,were given Home Rule as an ethnic minority by some of the highest policy-makers in Yugoslavia. In this way, the pre-conditions for the
furtherance of the persecution of the Serbian population, and of the Serbian Orthodox Church, were created.
During the war, the Albanians were the allies of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. They committed untold atrocities against the Serbian
population. Mussolini, in the framework of his plan to create a "Great Albania", transferred 60,000 people from Albania into the regions of Kosovo and Methohija while expelling at the same
time more than 100,000 Serbs from that territory.
After the war, the highest authorities in Yugoslavia did nothing to
correct that injustice. Moreover, the process of migration of Albanians from Albania into Yugoslavia, into the regions of Kosovo and Metohija, continued. Thus, during the last four decades, 260,000 such immigrants arrived and in order to make room for
them, the Albanians drove out, by various terrorist methods, more than
200,000 Serbs.
Here are some facts about this situation:
Today there are 700 villages and towns where not one Serb remains, and
yet these places were formerly populated exclusively by Serbs. In the
areas which were
populated by mixed nationalities, Albanians and Serbs, only 10 percent
of the Serbs are still there, but the persecution continues.
Contrary to the foregoing facts, however, the western world is given
false information and outright lies are told about alleged persecutions
of Albanians by Serbs.
It is impossible to list all the crimes against the Serbian population
committed by the Albanians through the centuries. Many books have been
written about the
atrocities practised during the occupation of the Serbian territories by
the Ottoman Empire. Under the pressure of the Albanians, who adopted
Islam, a considerable
number of Serbs were driven out from Kosovo and Methohija in two great
migrations during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was at that point in
history that the
Albanians appeared, for the first time in greater numbers, on those
territories. The same process was repeated during the First and Second
World Wars as well as in
the following period when even without a war we have been witnessing a
renewed exodus of the Serbian people from their homeland.
We are aware that we cannot enumerate all acts of terrorism of the
Albanians against the Serbain people in Kosovo and Metohija. Only the
Almighty God knows
the sum-total of the suffering inflicted upon them. We are only quoting
a number of examples of different forms of pressure which have been used
to force out the
Serbs, to destroy their culture and to desecrate their sacred monuments
on their territory.
In 1974 the Albanians expelled the brothers Vojin and Velimir Soskic,
together with 17 members of their family, from the village of Papracani
near Decani; having
beaten them up at the well, they forced them to leave with threats and
violence. Velimir Soskic now lives in Montenegro while Vojin Soskic
settled in the village of
Vrncani near Gorni Milanovac (Serbia).
In 1971 Ljubomir Vucinic was forced out of the village of Ljubovac near
Srbica in Kosovo. Another 80 Serbian families were driven out and only
six families
remained there. They were all forced out by threats, barrages of
stone-throwing and the firing of guns around their houses at night.
In the same way, the whole village population was forced to leave the
village of Gornja Prekaza near Srbica. The most respected Serb,
Aleksandar Milosevic, was
the last to leave the village with his large family. He is now employed
as a labourer in Belgrade. While the Serbs, were still there, the
Albanians destroyed the
Christian Orthodox cemetery. It is known that in that village since
1960, the Albanians from neighbouring villages were practising the kind
of lawlessness reminiscent
of the Turkish Rule: under threat the Serbs were obliged to surrender to
them a quarter of the yield from their fields. Milan Scepanovic from the
village of Dasinovic
near Decani refused to abandon his land. On the 18th July 1971 his
neighbour, an Albanian, shot Milan in the head. The wound caused Milan
to lose an eye and an
ear but the assailant was never punished. Milan Scepanovic had to leave
his home even though he was a war veteran who had been decorated for his
bravery. He is
now living in the village of Jelenac, near Topola (Serbia).
When left without any males in her family Stanica Pesic of Donje Ratiste
near Decani had her house and 12 acres of land appropriated by her
Albanian neighbour.
At the end of three years of long court proceedings, the court's
decision was most baffling: Stanica Pesic was to receive 150.000 Dinars
from the village council and
the Albanian neighbour was to keep the house and the land in his
possession. That sum was just sufficient for Stanica to buy the train
tickets for herself and her four
daughters.
On the land of the brothers Djurisic, near Decani, several Albanian
houses were built without the consent of the owners. Following that, the
Djurisic brothers were
expelled from the remaining land.
The village authorities cut down three times the orchards of Mirko and
Mirka Stefanovic in the centre of Decani under the pretext that it was
necessary for the
planning of the motorway. Three more houses of their neighbours, also
Serbs, were knocked down.
On the 28th of October 1982, a 12-year-old boy, Dejan Antunovic was set
upon by some Albanians who grabbed him in the street at mid-day, doused
him with
petrol and set him alight. His anorak helped to save his life but he
received severe burns.
There is a long list of evil deeds, torments and crimes to which the
nuns from the Serbian monasteries in Kosovo are being subjected. In
1981, in the monastery of
the Holy Trinity in Musutiste the Albanians blinded a bull belonging to
the monastery. They rammed a rake into the stomach of a cow which was in
calf and killed
her. The same year they drove nails into the testicles of the rams
belonging to the monastery; they also cut down the monastery's forest.
The Albanians of the village
Grazdel waited in ambush for the nuns to beat them up. The nuns dared
not go about freely with their work on their land. The Albanians
forcibly removed building
material from the yard of the monastery. Nuns Vera and Angelina were
viciously beaten. Albanian youths beat up nun Stanka and attacked and
attempted to rape
nun Heruvima, aged 50.
In the same monastery, in 1982, a Roman Catholic nun from Croatia came
to stay with the nuns as their guest. She wanted to see the ancient
altar screen and some
ancient holy books preserved in the convent. One day, while returning to
the monastery from a visit to two of her acquaintances, also Catholic
nuns, she was
stopped by three young Albanians who raped her, beat her up and robbed
her. She obtained a medical certificate from a Ugandan doctor, Dr.
Sirijaza, who was
practising there. However, no action was taken against the thugs who
were from the village of Rakovac. The police chief inspector there
declared that, in his opinion
"the rape of a nun is not a rape at all". He merely took the gold chain
and [*E3563] cross which the thugs had taken from the nun and returned
them to her.
In the ancient city of Prizren, renowned for its numerous churches and
remains of a long and brilliant Christian tradition, Milorad Sredic,
student of the Prizren
College of Theology, was stabbed twice by some Albanians who wanted to
stop him from entering the College. Another Serbain student was beaten
up while
walking with other students through the town. Bishop Pavle of
Raska-Prizren was three times attacked and beaten in the street.
In 1982, the Albanians set fire to the building of the Patriarchate in
PEC. The old living quarters were burnt down and part of the old library
and treasury room also
suffered. The authorities failed (refused) to send the fire-brigade. For
eight hours the nuns had to fight on their own, not only the fire but
also the arsonists themselves.
It is not possible to enumerate all the sufferings inflicted upon
Paraskeva, the Abbess of the monastery of Devic. Mother Paraskeva has
only one arm; the Albanians
broke that arm so she can no longer make the sign of the cross. They are
continuously ravaging the monastic estate, threatening the nuns on
killing their cattle.
On the 3rd June 1982, in the village of Samodreza near Vucitrn, an
Albanian killed Danilo Milincic, aged 22. Three Albanian youths drove
his cattle away, knocked
Danilo down and spread him on the ground. Then their father Mujo Ferat,
who had moved in from Albania only in 1972, knelt on Danilo's stomach
and shot him
through the heart. Danica, Danilo's mother, tried in vain to shield her
son with her own body. On the same spot, ten years earlier, the
Albanians had killed Danilo's
father, Slavoljub and twenty years before, exactly in the same spot they
killed Danilo's grandfather, also called Danilo.
The church of Samodreza was desecrated many times. It is a well-known
Serbian shrine: according to tradition, it was to that church that
Prince Lazar brought the
Serbian army to Holy Communion on the eve of the battle against the
Turks in Kosovo in 1389; it was there that after the battle, the body of
the hero-warrior Milos
Obilic was laid to rest. The priest from Vucitrn cannot attend the
church in Samodreza not even in the daytime. Until 15 years ago 200
Serbian families lived in this
area and much greater numbers lived their in the past. Nowadays there
remain only six of them and these are all households of elderly people.
As recently as August
1988 the frescoes of the church in Samodreza were damaged by the
Albanians. Graves were dug out and bones scattered around the church
yard.
Countless cemeteries in Serbian villages and towns in Kosovo and
Metohija are being continuously demolished.
At the end of July 1982 in the village of Mece near Djakovica, Miodrag
Saric was killed in his own back yard at the thirtieth attempt on his
life. He left a widow and
four children who could bear witness to the crimes against their family
committed by the Albanians and most of all by the local Chief of Police,
Djerdjo Bibljekaj and
his Deputy, Causi. The Albanians appropriated Saric's land of 17 acres,
poisoned the well in the yard and even the dog that guarded the well.
They killed their last
horse with a chain. Two months after the murder of Miodrag Saric, the
Albanians shot his eldest son, Aleksander. The younger son, Mitar aged
14, was struck on
the head by a stone thrown by a Albanian in the middle of the street in
Djakovica, causing grievious bodily harm. The Saric family now lives
with the assistance of the
Church and people of good-will who collect for them. They are the last
remaining Serbian family in that part of the country. They have nowhere
else to go.
At the University of Pristina, in 1971, Serbian students were beaten up
during an escalation of the Albanian nationalism; a recurrence of the
incident took place on
the 2nd April 1981.
Alabanians burned down the forest adjacent to the house belonging to
Dusan Bijelic from the village of Gornji Ratis. He was set upon at home
when Albanians
broke down the doors and smashed in the windows and took away the
chickens the bee-hives and all the money that was in the house.
Milan Vlahovic and Batric Perovic, from the village of Pozar, fared in
the same way; their children were beaten up inside the house and the
haystacks were set on
fire.
Hundreds more examples could be given. Bratimir Toskovic of Pristina had
a "Molotov Cocktail" twice thrown in over his balcony and through the
window of his
home.
In the village of Dolac, near Klina, the Babic brothers were first
stabbed with knives, then, as they were returning from the fields, some
Albanians ambushed them.
First they dug a spade into Bogosav Babic's ribs and split open his
skull with an ax; his brother, Bozidar, was killed on the spot and the
third brother Bogoljub,
although wounded, managed to escape into the village.
Seventy wounds were counted on his body. Despite the injuries which
Bogosav sustained, he survived. Sometime later Bogolujb too was killed.
The Babic brothers
have been the prize-winner in agriculture in Kosovo so the Albanians
hacked down their vine-yards and orchards, destroying them completely.
The one remaining
brother Bogosav Babic is still being subjected to attacks and his house
was raided by Albanian militia-men as well.
A 15-year-old girl from the Rajic family was raped, according to the
testimony of Bogosav Babic. In Dolac and its neighbourhood alone, 15
Serbian girls were
raped by Albanians in the course of 8 months.
In a nearby village, in broad daylight, from their open gate, Albanians
shot Milan Petrovic, a high-school pupil as he was returning from
school. He was wounded in
the hip, but as the bullet was of the "Dum-Dum" type, Milan remained
permanently crippled in both legs. In Klina, a 70-year-old woman was
raped. The press did
not reveal her name in order to protect the family's honour.
On the 1st May 1985 Djordje Martinovic, aged 50, was impaled in his own
field, just outside the village of Gnjilane. The Albanains first stunned
him drove a wedge
through his anus and then pushed a beer bottle up through the colon to
the stomach and rib-cage. This is reminiscent of the punishment meted
out to the Serbs by the
Turks in earlier times. Djordje Martinovic survived but the attackers
have not been brought to justice.
The daughter of Milosav Lazic of Batusa village near Pristina, was
raped. This 14-year-old girl was dragged away in broad daylight by
Albanians in front of the
school in Donje Dobrevo village.
The 7-year-old daughter of M. Rancic, originally from the Batusa
village, was raped. The family was living in great poverty in Pristina,
next to the hospital, in a
toolshed which was left there after completion of the building. The girl
described her most frightful ordeal on television but the public soon
forgot about it under the
onslaught of new assaults and rapes which followed within the next days.
In the village of Palez, near Vitina, 14 Serbian girls from 11 Serbian
families were raped by Albanians in one year.
In PEC, in 1983, Albanians set fire to the studio of the artist Radoslav
Miketic.
At the end of June 1986, the whole Serbian village of Batusa fled from
the village to seek refuge in front of the unabated terror. Batusa had
been a Serbian village for
centuries. Among the refugees were children, old people and the dying.
Serbian families from other villages joined them. Their attempt to save
their lives was
thwarted by the local Militia who pillaged the belongings which the
refugees were carrying, and beat them up. The refugees were told that
they could move away, but
only one by one. They were not allowed to leave in groups as that would
have constituted a political provocation.
The persecution of our people and our church continues. In August 1988
Mother Tatiana, the Abbess of the 14th century monastery of Gracanica
was twice
attacked and assaulted.
We must emphasise that the Serbian and other non-Albanian population in
the Kosovo and Metohija regions are not protected by law. Albanians
committing crimes
against them have not been prosecuted nor punished. We, Bishops of the
Serbian Orthodox Church, will condem any misdeeds by the Serbs against
the Albanians,
should they happen. At the same time we do appeal to the civilised world
to show more understanding for the real suffering of our people and to
show concern for
their endangered church and tradition in Kosovo and Metohija.
Serbian Orthodox Bishops:
Dr. Firmilijan: Diocese of Midwestern America.
Lavrentije: Diocese of Western Europe.
Hristofor: Diocese of Eastern America.
Georgije: Diocese of Canada.
Longin: Diocese of Australia and New Zealand. |
