Kosovo: Unfair Treatment Of Serbs By NATO

Serb citizens are being unfairly treated by Kfor troops in Kosovo, which demonstrate a predictable and blatant policy of favouring the Albanians, as the psyche of the Serb nation is insulted and the memory of Kosovo Polye is denigrated. After NATO’s misguided and criminal attack on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, creating an Albanian question which the region had been trying to avoid, for centuries, Albanian extremism has been on the rise both in Kosovo and outside, as was seen recently in Macedonia and as can still be seen in southern Serbia, where Albanian commanders are warning that there will be a bloodbath. One man was killed and four people were injured by a bomb which had been planted by Albanian terrorists in Pristina, capital of Kosovo. One woman is in hospital with shrapnel damage to her brain. After such incidents, there is a chorus of complaints from western leaders, but no concrete action. It will be recalled that in southern Kosovo, US soldiers left a wide gap through which Albanian insurgents poured into Macedonia at the beginning of the year. While Albanian commanders are wined and dined by the US Congress, doubtless signing agreements and protocols for armament, the United States gains a foothold in a critical area of Europe, one it could destabilise if and when Europe shows signs of becoming a threat in future. One would, however, warn the Albanians that the US has been known not to honour the protocols it signs (Kyoto). Treatment of the Serbs, on the other hand, is fraught with heavy-handedness, unfairness and even cruelty. Danish Kfor troops killed an elderly Serb woman in northern Kosovo when they fired a tear gas canister at her. Stun bombs were fired at Serbs manning a road block in protest against United Nations controlled customs posts on the border between Kosovo and Serbia. Around ten Serbs were wounded in this brutal and unnecessary attack. The establishing of customs posts along the Kosovo/Serbia border is an outrage to the psyche of the Serb nation, founded in the battle of Kosovo Polye against the Turks in the 14th century. It is paramount to establishing a separate (puppet) nation within a sovereign state. What the United Nations is doing is to prepare the path ahead for an independent, Albanian, Kosovo. This is quite predictable because as we have already stated in these pages, the whole Albanian issue in the Balkans is perfectly simple : these bandits want control over drugs and arms smuggling and human trafficking, the three largest money-spinners. It is precisely at customs posts that such activities are controlled. The United Nations, doubtless at the beck and call of the United States, is, in setting up customs posts on sovereign Yugoslav territory, condoning illegal activity by the Albanian mafia. More than that, it is stimulating it. Everyone wins – the powerful Albanian mafia lobby in New York gains influence and favours, the local Albanian mafia clans in the Balkans become more powerful, the USA gains an important vantage point in and against an ever-stronger Europe...everyone except the Serbs, that is.

TIMOTHY BANCROFT-HINCHEY, PRAVDA.RU