Kosovo Serbs, Balkan Palestinians by Wall Street Journal

Remember Kosovo? "Madeleine's war," Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansers, a million displaced Albanians and NATO's 78 days of bombing? So much history in the eight summers since has pushed this dusty Balkan plot off the map. But a relic of 1990s geopolitics is back in the headlines.

Caught between a pushy Kremlin, weak-kneed Europe and otherwise-occupied Washington, the Kosovars are being denied their happy ending. Unless the U.S. forcefully steps in to usher this province of two million to independence without any messy compromises, Southeast Europe could fall off track again, with nasty repercussions for everyone.

The Kosovo matter should've been closed by now. In the spring, U.N. mediator Martti Ahtisaari proposed internationally "supervised" independence -- the fervent desire of over nine in 10 Kosovars -- and protections for the remaining 100,000 or so Serbs. A year plus of diplomatic efforts went for naught when Russia last month threatened to veto the plan at the Security Council. The Europeans fast got Washington to sign off on 120 days of further talks. This empty concession punted the problem into autumn, encouraging Moscow and its Slavic mini-me cousins in Serbia to dig their heels in.

The U.S. and its allies have put billions in aid, political capital and boots on the ground to bring the former Yugoslav states to the doorstep of the West's elite clubs. Now comes the hitch. When NATO agreed to put its status in limbo at the end of the 1999 war and sent in a U.N. government, no one could know that a future President Vladimir Putin would turn Kosovo into a proxy for his larger fight with the West, along with missile defense and Iran.

Well-laid plans are in jeopardy. "Further progress depends on status. And if we don't get the status issue resolved now," says the U.N. administrator in Kosovo, Joachim Rücker, "there is actually a fair chance that the achievements we've made will start to unravel." Kosovo's Albanian leaders, who have popular legitimacy but limited powers, are sitting tight. This patience may not hold long. Fresh elections are due in November, coinciding with the end of the latest negotiation period. Pressure is on them to declare independence unilaterally.

Among the consequences could be that barely dormant ethnic nationalisms flare up. Kosovo's Serbs may try to cut away the northern sliver of the province, while Albanians feel emboldened to press anew for a "Greater Albania" uniting in a single state a nation currently scattered among four. Violence is a good bet. If it sounds like a recipe for another Cyprus, a 33-year-old frozen conflict to the south, then Moscow envoys have mooted the island as their model for Kosovo's future. The Balkans would then be harder to digest for the West. Which, naturally, suits Russia fine.

A different Europe might unite in response to the Kremlin's provocation. This one is splintering, as in the early 1990s also over the Balkans. Britain wants to push ahead on independence, while the Germans fear antagonizing Moscow. In between, the French claimed the diplomatic lead and pushed the three-month delay. Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister and the U.N.'s first "governor" of Kosovo after the 1999 war, stunned his hosts during a recent visit here by pointedly refusing to rule out a partition of Kosovo. Maps showing what an ethnically divided province might look like have been passed around for years. The Kouchner omission made people wonder how far the EU is willing to go to get a Security Council resolution in order to cover up its own divisions -- divisions that President Putin ably exploits.

Kosovo's Albanian leaders claim to put their faith in America. Prime Minister Agim Ceku tells me that Washington shares his commitment to eventual independence ("Serbs in Kosovo, yes," says Mr. Ceku, "Kosovo in Serbia, never") and no partition of the province. "From my point of view," he says, "nothing has been left to negotiate." But this former military man, who fought for Croatia against the Serbs and then returned home to lead the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1999, isn't naïve enough to think the final decisions have been made. Or that his little province has great control over the outcome.

"Russian resistance blocked the process," Mr. Ceku says. "They're just using Kosovo to prove they are a superpower again." Partition is so sensitive that, at first, Mr. Ceku refuses to talk about it. Pressed, he says, "If we start redrawing borders in the Balkans, the big question is where do we stop? . . . The Europeans have to be more careful."

Kosovo's Albanians aren't the only community held hostage to big power politics. Over the Iber River, around 50,000 Serbs live in their own limbo. In the seven years since I last visited the divided city of Mitrovica, little has changed. Over a bridge from the Albanian quarter, the Serbian dinar is used instead of the euro and all the cars have Serbian license plates. Belgrade insists these Kosovars boycott government institutions in Pristina, and calls all the shots in the U.N. negotiations, with little input from ethnic kin in Kosovo itself.

Kosovo Serbs are the Palestinians of the Balkans -- useful pawns who could soon, if Western will flags, get their own Gaza strip. Oliver Ivanovic, a community leader who right after the war organized special teams to guard the main bridge linking the town, says no Serb can accept independence for Kosovo. But tensions are less visible. What happened to the bridge watchers? "No need anymore." He acknowledges that the promised devolution is a good deal for the Serbs. "We oppose the Ahtisaari plan, but we're not going to say it would be worse. If it is implemented, it would be better than it is now," he says.

Any move to split off the region north of the Iber would be costly for the Kosovo Serbs, too. Just over half the Serbs live in the Albanian-majority regions. Without the Ahtisaari protections, another exodus to refugee camps in Serbia would be likely -- not an image that anyone, save perhaps for Moscow, should welcome.

Such an ending would be uglier still were Albanian separatists in Macedonia and Serb separatists in Bosnia -- two of the most uneasy multi-ethnic constructs in the Balkans -- encouraged to follow Kosovo's lead. Far better, says analyst Dukaghin Gorani in Pristina, to bury "Greater Albania" and other nationalist dreams for good and anchor the southern Balkans in the EU. "Boring Occidental politics" would then take the place of "the old joy of Balkan politics of ethnic cleansings and murders."

International shuttle diplomacy between Belgrade and Pristina planned for the coming weeks is pointless. Absent a sudden regime change in Moscow, America and Europe ought to see the writing on the wall and plan for an orderly, unilateral Kosovar declaration. Giving up hope of a U.N. blessing for independence, Mr. Ceku wants to set a date for "a coordinated declaration with the U.S. and EU, if possible, and key countries in the EU or" -- now bringing his expectations closer in line with reality -- "a significant number of countries in the EU." NATO troops and funds must stay, along with minority protections. Kosovars would, however, be better off with less "supervision" and greater leeway to, in the words of opposition leader Hashim Thaci, "build a new state." After all, the stress in self-determination ought to be on self.

At stake isn't Serbian national sovereignty but liberty for the Kosovars. This province was part of Yugoslavia, a state that no longer exists; Serbia effectively lost its claim in the 1990s.

The EU plays softly-softly with Belgrade, even recently restarting talks toward eventual membership. Instead, Belgrade should be given a stark choice: a future in league with Russia, or the EU and NATO. Kosovo is the test.

From the moment Madeleine Albright pushed for military intervention, Kosovo became an American-led nation-building project. Of the ones currently on the docket, it ought to be the easiest, too. At the command of 2,500 peacekeeping troops in the southeast, Gen. Douglas Earhart says Kosovo is "where we'll like to be in Iraq and Afghanistan." Accepted by both Serbs and Albanians, America's advantage is not to be European. "We don't have a history in the Balkans," he says.

Calm now, Kosovo can blow up unexpectedly. Three years ago in March, Albanian-led riots left 19 dead and forced hundreds of Serbs to flee. The job isn't finished. "This is one of the places," says Gen. Earhart, "you have to see through to the end."

Mr. Kaminski is editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe.

Kosovo: Serbian lies and deceptions

Julia Gorin on her latest blog posts try to use satirical quotes fro other comedians since she is clearly doesn't fit in comedian category, but using quotes like this:

So… it got me to thinking… There are a bunch of Kanadians (proof that this quote was written by Serb) who really like the island of Manhattan… we were thinking of coming down there en masse, breeding up huge families, setting our psycho and sociopaths loose on you, and then applying to the UN to start a new country… you figure it’ll work?

Is again deception for her readers, Albanians from Kosovo DIDN'T "come down" to Kosovo, they live on that land long before 7th century when Serbians came from Karpat mountains, and Kosovo is recognized in history autochthonous Ilyrian. For longer explanation you can look HERE

The Albanian language derives from the language of the Illyrians, the transition from Illyrian to Albanian apparently occurring between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. Ilyrian culture is believed to have evolved from the Stone Age and to have manifested itself in the territory of Albania toward the beginning of the Bronze Age, about 2000 BC. The Ilyrians were not a uniform body of people but a conglomeration of many tribes that inhabited the western part of the Balkans, from what is now Slovenia in the northwest to and including the region of Epirus, which extends about halfway down the mainland of modern Greece. In general, Ilyrians in the highlands of Albania were more isolated than those in the lowlands, and their culture evolved more slowly a distinction that persisted throughout Albania's history.

Kosovo was occupied during Balkan wars (1912-1913) in contradiction with the aspiration of the Albanians, expressed during their national liberation movement 1878-1912. In this manner Serbia, in spite of getting the “international legitimacy” for the occupation of Kosovo, in no way was able to justify the legitimacy of its act. In addition to this, Serbian possessive attitudes towards Kosovo which refer to history are unfounded.

Spain “had conquered all Latin America in the beginning of XVI century. Neither do “Russians ever mention their historic rights over Ukraine”. Historic arguments speak very clearly that “Serbs were placed in Kosovo with their expansion under the rule of Nemanjics’”.

That Kosovo was not part of Serbia can be proven by the following historical and political facts: Kosovo was not part of the independent sovereign state of Serbia with its international personality recognized in the Berlin Congress (1878); Kosovo was not part of Serbia in the Second AVNOJ Congress (1943); Kosovo was not part of Serbia during its establishment as a federal unit in the Anti-Fascist Popular Liberation Council (1944); Kosovo was not part of Serbia in the structure of Constitutional Assembly of Yugoslavia when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was founded (1945). Kosovo was not included in the sovereign Serbia, except in federal Serbia within federal Yugoslavia, during the military occupation of Kosovo (1945).

The future of Kosovo cannot be compared with secessions in some other parts of the world. The states that remain reserved towards Kosovo independence should be mindful of this fact. They should instead look and find the “common ground” between Kosovo and certain other countries of the world, which have agreed to the removal of sovereignty over other territories. In this regard, the relations between Kosovo and Serbia are comparable with the relations of Indonesia and East Timor. As it is well known, East Timor was occupied and annexed by Indonesia in 1975, contrary to the will of Portugal as the external sovereign, a fact which makes the annexation of Indonesia unlawful. In 1988 Indonesian government recognized the right to self-determination to the East Timor people. Singapore is another example that should be taken under consideration. This country was partitioned from Malaysia in 1965. The example of Eritrea is also meaningful for Kosovo. It was the Ethiopian government that recognized the right to self-determination to Eritrea in 1991. The case of Kosovo is also similar to the case of Namibia. Partition of Namibia from South Africa and its independence occurred in 1991.

At the end here is quote on which I can agree with Julia Gorin satiric comparison of Serbia and basketball:

I’ve read a bit of history and, for the past 10 years or so, I’ve thought that the world’s outrage against Serbia fits the “second foul syndrome” in basketball: Player A repeatedly holds, elbows, and fouls Player B, and gets away with it because the referee doesn’t see him fouling. Finally, Player B refuses to take it anymore, has his Donald Duck moment, and retaliates against Player A. Only problem is, the referee NOW sees Player B’s retaliatory foul, and calls a foul only on him.

But our Julia was in hurry and she forget to remind people that Player A actually is Serbia ...

Lack of Intellect with Guns

Today top story by Julia Gorin is called Intellectuals with Guns about Albanian intellectuals who want to speed up process of Kosovo Independence in which they stated:

“If the resolution of the Kosovo issue keeps being postponed,” Veliu threatened, “very soon, we will join UCK soldiers, first at big protests in order to internationalize the issue and then, if necessary, we will win Kosovo’s independence with weapons.”

Julia is calling them thugs who want Great Albania, but again without any proof at all. Albanian intellectuals simply gathered to speed up the process of Kosovo’s independence and they called all Albanians to gather around this program. Yes they stated they will fight if necessary but that is simply a response to their Serbian neighbors who are preparing to some "holy crusade war".

Serbian nationalists plan to form a paramilitary unit to prevent ethnic-Albanian Kosovo from gaining independence from Serbia, a report said Monday. Zeljko Vasiljevic, president of the Serbian veterans organization, said the nationalists will create a “Christian militia” to fight Kosovo’s ethnic-Albanians, who are mostly Muslim, the Belgrade daily Danas reported.

About 200 people gathered Saturday outside a Serbian Christian Orthodox church at Krusevac, 120 miles south of Belgrade, to set up the Guard of Prince Lazar, named after the leader who lost the 1389 Kosovo battle to the Ottoman Empire. Serbia was under Turkish rule for 500 years.
Vasiljevic said police arrested 27 men dressed in black T-shirts with the insignia of the Serbian Red Berets special police unit, known for its activities in the 1990s Yugoslav ethnic wars. Members of the disbanded Red Berets are currently on trial in Belgrade charged with the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in March 2003.

More Srebrenica victims to be buried at massacre anniversary

SARAJEVO (AFP) - Bosnia was to lay to rest on Wednesday the remains of more than 450 Muslims killed 12 years ago in Srebrenica, in Europe's worst massacre since World War II. Up to 30,000 Srebrenica survivors and victims' relatives were expected to attend a solemn religious ceremony and the funeral at the memorial cemetery where the remains of more than 2,400 of those killed are already buried.

They will be joined by the UN chief war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, as well as 2,000 people who set off Sunday on a four-day symbolic march to the eastern town.Among the remains of 465 people to be buried on Wednesday, there were those of one 75-year-old woman, while all the other victims were males, aged between 13 and 77. They were retrieved from mass graves around the eastern town and later identified by DNA analysis.

At the end of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, Serb forces overran the then UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica, summarily killing some 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

It is the only episode of Bosnia's bloody war that has been ruled a genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), both based in The Hague. The ICJ ruling prompted some Muslim leaders to call for Srebrenica to be given a special status and put under state jurisdiction, fueling tensions in an already worsened political situation in the country.

After the war Srebrenica remained in the Serb-controlled Republika Srpska, which along with the Muslim-Croat Federation makes up the two highly independent entities of Bosnia. Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, the two people considered the most responsible for the massacre, remain at large.

"I'm working to get Karadzic and Mladic. I still hope that I'll get them by the end of my mandate in December," U.N. Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte told a group of Srebrenica mothers, who accused her of not doing enough to apprehend the two men.

Serbian President Boris Tadic said in a statement that his country, consistently accused by del Ponte of harboring Mladic, was committed to locate and arrest all war crimes indictees.

"That is not just our international obligation, it is something we owe above all to ourselves and to our neighbors," Tadic said, paying respect to the Srebrenica victims.

The pair face charges of genocide for atrocities committed during the war, which claimed up to 200,000 victims. Karadzic is believed to be hiding in Serb-controlled parts of Bosnia and Serbia, and Mladic is thought to have found refuge in Serbia.

Battle on Kosovo

If a Web site were created just to record the daily lies of world leaders, politicians and quazi bloggers like Julia Gorin, overwork would soon wipe out its staff. But sometimes a week delivers such breathtaking dishonesty that someone has to step in to award them. Here goes:

The liar's medal for the last week in June 2007 goes to Serbian "patriots" who sought to march into Kosovo to remind the world of Belgrade's historical claims to that wretched territory - based on Serbia's defeat by the Ottoman Turks in 1389.

File this one under "What They Don't Tell You." Yes, the Serbs suffered a military calamity at Kosovo Field, where the better-disciplined Turks made short work of them. In the Serbs' national myth, Prince Lazar and his warriors were stalwart defenders of Christianity, embodying a great Serbian tradition that endures to this day.

What those Serb nationalists (who brought the world Srebrenica genocide and still protect war criminals) leave out is that, a mere seven years later, in 1396, the Turkish sultan, Beyazit the Thunderbolt, slaughtered a huge Christian army at Nicopolis. And he did it with Serb help.

Christian knights from France, Burgundy, Flanders, England, Bohemia and Hungary had united in a last crusade to drive the Turks from Europe. The Turks crushed them - as their new Serb allies delivered the coup de grace against their fellow Christians, then chilled out as thousands of prisoners were beheaded.

Nicopolis set the conditions for a Muslim military presence in Europe for the next five centuries. Thanks, Serbia but please don't help us again.

Serbia rehabilitates Chetniks with pensions

ISN SECURITY WATCH (22/12/04) - Serbian parliament has passed a law granting pensions to members of the Serbian Chetnik movement, the followers of the Serbian king who fled to London just before World War II. Bosnian born Chetnik commander Draza Mihajlovic revived the paramilitary units and their trademark long beards to fight the Nazis in World War II, but later changed sides to back the brutal Nazi occupation. The Chetniks’ primary enemies were the partizans, led by Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia’s communist leader until his death in the early 1980s. After partizans won the war in 1945, the Chetnik movement was declared criminal. Mihajlovic went into hiding for some time in Eastern Bosnia, but in 1946, the communists caught him and executed him as a war criminal.

“Serbia must not enter 2005, when the world marks the 60th anniversary of the victory against Fascism ... with unpatriotic lies about General Mihajlovic," said the draft bill. "The greater part of Serbia was with Mihajlovic and supported him. A slur on the Serbia of 60 years ago is also a slur on the Serbia of today," it added. The current bill was initialized by groups that view Mihajlovic as a hero demonized by communist propaganda.



Through relatives, many members of the Serbian government have ties to the Chetnik movement. Annually, the Chetnik movement gathers in Ravna Gora, Serbia to commemorate Mihajlovic. High-ranking Serbian officials are also traditionally in attendance, including Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) - the party founded by former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic - opposed granting the pensions. "One cannot deny that a significant part of the Chetnik movement collaborated with fascist Germany. To do so would be to rewrite history," media quoted SPS member Zoran Andjelkovic as saying.

The Chetniks resurfaced once again in the 1990s during the wars that broke up Yugoslavia. Volunteers Serbs from Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia joined Chetnik paramilitary units and fought against Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Croats in Croatia and Bosnia, committing some of the war’s most heinous crimes. During his recent visit to Bosnia, Serbian President Boris Tadic apologized to the Bosniaks and Croats for crimes committed by Serbs, but hastened to redeem the Chetniks but saying they were not fascists. Until only very recently, some Bosnian cities where Bosnian Serbs are the majority have had statutes of Mihajlovic on public display.




Still, the offices of many Bosnian Serb officials are decorated with portraits of the Chetnik commander. Some refugee returnee organizations have accused the Chetnik movement of torturing Bosniak and Croat returnees to Republika Srpska, Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity. Last month, Belgrade basketball player Milan Gurovic was banned from playing in Zagreb, Croatia after Croatian authorities threatened to arrest him because of a tattoo of Mihajlovic’s face on his arm. Authorities said they would allow him to play if he covered his tattoo, but Gurovic refused.

Roots of Serbian Genocide on Croatia and Bosnia

In the "Instructions" of December 20, 1941, regarding the organization, goals and employment of the Chetnik units, Draza Mihailovic, who was promoted to General and soon became the minister for the army in the emigrant government, removed all doubts. According to him, the goal of the battle of the Chetnik movement under the leadership of King Peter was:

"... To create a Great Yugoslavia and in it a Greater Serbia, ethnically cleansed, within the borders of pre-war Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Srem, Banat and Backa..."

"... To cleanse the state territory of all national minorities and national elements..."

"... To immediately create mutual borders between Serbia and Montenegro, as well as between Serbia and Slovenia, cleansing Sandzak of Muslim inhabitants, and Bosnia and Herzegovina of Muslim and Catholic inhabitants..."

Included was the punishment of all "Ustasas and Muslims" and those guilty of "our April catastrophe" of 1941, primarily Croatians and Muslims, the colonization of Montenegrins in the cleansed territories, as well as the establishment of a "political body" which would ensure all this. The manner in which this was conveyed and explained in the field is seen in a letter by the commander of the Ozren Chetnik corps to the commander of the Zenica military Chetnik unit on February 13, 1943. Along with outline goals of the Chetnik movement according to Draza's "Instructions", the following is stated:

"... Perhaps these goals appear great and unachievable to you and your combatants. Remember the great battles for liberty under the leadership of Karadjordje. Serbia was filled with Turks (Muslims). In Belgrade and other Serbian towns, Muslim minarets were prominent and Turks performed their foul-smelling cleansing in front of mosques as they are now doing in Serbian Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that time our homeland was overflowing with hundreds of thousands of Muslims. Walk through Serbia today. You will not find a Turk (Muslim) anywhere, you will not even find even one of their graves, nor even one Muslim grave stone ...."

"This is the best proof and greatest guarantee that we will succeed in today's holy battle and that we will exterminate every Turk from these, our Serbian lands. Not one Muslim will remain among us.... Peasants and other "little" people will be moved to Turkey. Our government in London, using the English allied and benevolent government, will endeavor to gain the approval of the Turkish government with respect to this (Churchill spoke about this in Ankara with Mr. Ineni). All Catholics who sinned against our people in our tragic days, as well as all intellectuals and those well off, will be destroyed without mercy. We will spare the peasant people as well as the low working class and make real Serbians of them. We will convert them into Orthodox by hook or by crook. There, those are the goals of our great battle and when the crucial moment arrives, they will be achieved. We have already achieved them in some parts of our homeland...."

This document directly shows the sources of Chetnik genocidal crimes against Croatians and Muslims which originated from the creation of the Serbian national state and its expansionist politics. Draza went further than Moljevic regarding territory, asking for more than 90% of Croatia territory for Greater Serbia in which more than 2,500,000 Catholics and over 800,000 Muslims lived, making up 70% of the entire population on that territory, while Serbians comprised almost 30% of the population.

From Draza's "Instructions", all Croatians, Muslims, and other non-Serbians would have to disappear from this territory, either during the war or immediately after it. Croatians were given only about 10% of their territory at that time from Karlovac across Zagreb to Varazdin and approximately 1/5 of the NDH population. Accusations and allegations against Croatians and Muslims for all the evil and sufferings caused to the Serbians during the war existed for the purpose of constantly motivating Chetniks to execute punishments, that is, crimes of genocide against them. This is clearly stated in Draza's "Instructions".

With respect to this, and with the same goal, is the exaggeration of Serbian victims caused by the Ustasa or, according to the Chetniks, by the "Croatians" i.e. the entire Croatian and Muslim peoples, starting with the number of 382,000 at the end of 1941, coming to over 518,000 at the end of February 1942, then 600,000 in October 1942, with 800,000 at the end of 1943 and finally, at the end of the war, arriving at the number of one million Serbians killed on NDH territory. This is absurd to any objective researcher and is shown in the work of the Serb, Dr. B Kocovic.

Draza's threats of revenge against Croats and Muslims as a prerequisite for life and rights in a future state had the same aim. Also, in other program documents of individual Chetnik leaders and units similar arguments and goals are expressed.

The "Elaborat" of the Dinara Chetnik division of March 1942, which was established precisely at that time and encompassed northern Dalmatia, Lika, and the southwestern part of Bosanska Krajina, also presented its aims and arguments. The principle goal was the creation of a "Serbian national state" where "Serbians lived and which Serbians aspire to...", that is, a "Greater Serbia" which would include Bosnia and Herzegovina, a part of Dalmatia, Lika, and other territories with a pure national system and "King Peter at the head" in which "exclusively the Orthodox populace would live".

The rest was to disappear so that on March 25, 1943, the Dinara division gave an order to its units to "cleanse the Croatians and Muslims" from their territory. At the same time, "the establishment of a national corridor along the Dinara Mountain to link Herzegovina with northern Dalmatia and Lika", was assigned as one of the primary tasks of this division and the Chetnik movement, which they attempted to achieve, particularly in 1942 and 1943, through the cleansing of the local Croatian and Muslim population.

Vukasin Marcetic, the commander of the Chetnik unit "Manjaca", stated the following at a conference of the Chetnik units on June 7, 1942: "I believe that Bosnia and Serbia are one nation and I hope that everything that is not Serbian will be cleansed from Bosnia." Milan Santic, a Chetnik leader, was even more direct. In his speech, in Trebinje at the end of July 1942, he stated that the goal of the Chetnik movement was to "establish a Greater Serbia" as stipulated by Draza and then said "Serbian lands must be cleansed of Catholics and Muslims. Only Serbians will live in those lands. The cleansing will be thoroughly executed. We will drive out and destroy them all, without exception and without compassion. This will be the starting point of our liberation". He further stresses that all of this "must be executed quickly and in one revolutionary momentum" and because of this Chetniks will "never formally recognize" the NDH.

All of these documents illustrate that Chetnik crimes of genocide against Croatians and Muslims were deliberate and planned. The Muslims were even in a greater disadvantage than the Croatians. While Croatians were allowed the possibility of living in their own, albeit decreased, territorial units and in a future Yugoslavia, this possibility, according to Chetnik ideology, did not exist for the Muslims. According to the Serbians, Muslims were considered "a non-national element," an "internal enemy," and "Turks", and their destruction was considered to be the "most holy of tasks" to the Chetniks. This depended only on the military and given possibilities of the Chetniks and on the strength of the other military camps, as well as the situation in individual regions of this imaginary Chetnik Greater Serbia. In accordance with this, certain areas were cleansed of Croatians and Muslims.



The organization of Chetnik military units was proposed in order to accomplish the planned genocidal crimes against Croatians and Muslims on the territory of today's republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, the then NDH. They were founded on NDH territory (south of the Sava River extending to the Adriatic Sea) with direct support from Italian and German occupying forces. On the basis of contracts, Axis forces provided Chetnik military units not only with weapons, ammunition, provisions, and salaries but were also often initiators and protectors of a great number of mass Chetnik crimes against Croatians and Muslims.

The Chetnik movement did not fulfill its genocidal intentions because it did not possess enough military units. Yet, I personally believe that the main reason was the self-organized defense and armed opposition of the Croatian and Muslim people, which protected them from even more tragic Chetnik crimes in many places and brought about their military defeat. Following the war in 1945, all Chetnik criminals were given the opportunity to answer for their crimes of genocide against the Muslim and Croatians and their historical, sacred and cultural monuments in court. Many were even given the chance to continue with these crimes under a different symbol (the communist red star?) For this reason, it is not coincidental that such genocidal crimes of greater Serbian nationalists and Chetniks occurred in even more appalling forms, with respect to the number of those killed, the number of refugees, and the destruction, against the Croatians and Muslims in the greater Serbian aggression upon the Republic of Croatia in 1991, and then, against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina until today.

In Belgrade, a concentration camp nearly slips away

KATKA KROSNAR Jewish Telegraphic Agency

BELGRADE Wandering around the vast, neglected site straddling Belgrade's Sava river, Aleksandar Mosic admits his project is ambitious. Mosic, a former board member of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia, wants to recreate the Belgrade Fair exhibition ground and thus build a proper memorial to the victims of what he describes as "the forgotten concentration camp" the Sajmiste camp that the site was turned into during World War II by the occupying Nazis.


Within six months of the camp being set up in December 1941, all 8,000 Jews from Belgrade, as well as from Austria and Czechoslovakia, who had been rounded up and imprisoned there had been transported to gassing trucks and murdered at the site.


Most of these were women and children, as thousands of men had been shot dead earlier.

None of the Jews sent to the camp survived. What made Sajmiste unique was its location in clear view of Belgrade's residents.

"It is the only camp in Europe which was so visible; the inmates were not hidden from the view of the rest of the population and that was the intention; to intimidate other Serbs by showing them what was going on inside " says Mosic, chairman of the newly formed Old Fair Memorial Association and author of the book "The Jews in Belgrade." The first phase of the project would see the surviving tower reconstructed and converted into a Holocaust museum containing documents, testimonies and photographs of lost Jews from Serbia. "We want to rescue the memory of the camp and its victims," he says. "There is no monument to the Jews who died or no real education specifically about the Jewish Holocaust."


A monument was erected on the riverbank eight years ago to all 40,000 Serbs who died in the camp, but Mosic points out that there is no specific monument to the Jewish victims. One item that will definitely be missing from the museum, however, is a list of all those interned in Sajmiste, since all such lists were destroyed by the Nazis.

Before the war there were 10,400 Jews in Belgrade and roughly 16,000 in the whole of Serbia. Almost 90 percent were killed in the Holocaust.


Sajmiste was destroyed by U.S. bombers in raids, which killed 80 people at the camp and injured 170. The bombers' intended target was the nearby railway station. Davor Salom, secretary of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Serbia and Montenegro, renamed following the disintegration of Yugoslavia as a country, says the Sajmiste project will be an important contribution to the memory process.

"We are forgetting the Holocaust too quickly, and this Holocaust Museum and the reminder of what this site was will help fulfill our obligation to the memory of thousands of Serbian Jews and millions of Jews worldwide who were killed during World War II," he says.

About 700,000 killed in the Second World War with about 200, or more precisely 170, thousand killed only on the territory of Serbia are largely the victims of Nedic, Ljotic’s and other armies, chetniks included. It seems that it would now suit us to forget these victims, since they testify against the ideological movements we apparently wish to link ourselves with in the 21st century,” Dr. Dubravka Stojanovic said not long ago in a cult Radio B92 program called “Hourglass”.

Antisemitic activity in Serbia today

Antisemitic activity in Serbia is usually confined to graffiti on walls and buildings, usually belonging to Jewish individuals and organizations, but sometimes on non-Jewish ones because the perpetrators assume that the Jews control everything. Such activity was reported in many Serbian cities in 2005. For example, on 26-27 January, a memorial plate dedicated to Jewish victims of World War II in Novi Knjazevac was coated with oil paint and a swastika and the words “Jews” (Zhidovi), scrawled on it. Central Belgrade and its surroundings were covered with anti-Zionist/antisemitic posters and graffiti on 22 March. Slogans on the wall of the Jewish cemetery read: “Fight the 5 October Zionist occupation of Serbia [fall of Milosevic regime]; “B-92 is Jewish Television!” “Jewish parasites get out of Serbia”; “We want freedom and not Jewish occupation! Serbia belongs to Serbs!” Similar graffiti appeared on buildings of the Rex Cultural Center (which engages in ‘cultural decontamination’ - showing films and lectures about recent Balkan wars and Serbian responsibility for them), formerly, the Jewish Oneg Shabbat Center; the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and the Foundation for Humanity and Law. The graffiti accused the heads of the last two institutions of being “Jewish puppets.”



In May, several buildings in the city of Zrenjanin, Vojvodina, including a restaurant with a memorial plate to the synagogue that once stood there and to Jewish victims of the Holocaust were covered with fascist and antisemitic messages. In Nish, southern Serbia, the synagogue was desecrated twice – in June and July - with antisemitic slogans such as “Death to servants of Zionism” and “Arbeit macht frei.”



In February 2005 a list of Jews living in Serbia, including their home and office phone numbers and addresses appeared on the white supremacist Stormfront site, Serbian section. Although it was eventually removed, the site continues to regularly explain the damage Jewish people do to the world in general and particularly to Serbia.


An anti-fascist meeting at the University of Novi Sad was interrupted by a group of youths who resembled skinheads. Introducing themselves as ‘the National Line’, they saluted in the Nazi fashion and harassed and insulted the speakers and audience, They were apprehended and arrested a few days later. Literature found by the police on members of the National Line indicated the neo-Nazi orientation of the group.


A brochure containing the tract “Serbs in the Claws of Jews,” by Milorad Mojic, was distributed in Novi Sad, in February. The piece was originally written in 1940/1. The author claims, inter alia, that “Jews can dishonor non-Jewish girls.”

Serbian lie about 500 US Airman

Even we pointed to notorious lie that chetniks under leadership of Draza Mihailovic did save 500 airman Julia Gorin is again using same story to somehow try to give nicer picture to her Serbian employees. Julia once for all chetniks didn't save anyone during the WW2 ! You lied to American Veterans and you need to explain yourself to them ! That is real purpose of your latest blog post.
And your source is really nice, it is man who is paid to yell on every serbian gathering :

"I love the Serbs," said Jibilian, 75, a retired industrial safety director.

But even he changed after he did see all crimes what serbs did, his latest comment is:

"But right is right and wrong is wrong. And as much as I love the Serbs," said Jibilian, "what they're doing now," in driving Albanians from their homes,"is wrong."

I proved you that Nik Lalich and US Army Lt. Col. Robert H. McDowell was part of US spy mission. On this picture you can see US Army Lt. Col. Robert H. McDowell, Draza Mihailovic and group of ustashas. This picture is from Belgrade museum of WW2 so denying it is is foolish.



But on the other side let me point you to another story... which I know you wont publish on your blog because it is story about Croatia and WW2.

The Airmen and the Baroness

Learning the realities of the fate of American airmen in Croatia during World War II proved even more interesting than uncovering the source of the mythology. Between the years of 1973 and 1979, this author undertook primary and secondary research into the subject which resulted in a monograph titled Allied Prisoners of War in Croatia 1941-1945. Since there were fewer than one hundred airmen, American, British, Russian, South African, and Partisan, who were held by the Croatian government during the War, the myth that "dozens" or twenty-five percent, were executed is a significant one.

As a part of the study, ten Americans who had been held prisoner-of-war in Croatia were interviewed as were guards, the American-born priest who celebrated mass and others who were present at the estate of the Baroness Nikolic which served as the POW "camp" on the outskirts of Zagreb. The findings of this study were surprising. It was learned that the "camp" at 203 Pantovcak in Zagreb had no fence. Visitors were welcome and some POWs visited a nearby tavern until German soldiers visited the same tavern. POWs had a radio and listened to U.S. Armed Forces radio. And the camp tennis champion was Frank Ryan of Sommerville, New Jersey.

Picture: Baroness Nikolic, Fr. Benkovic, holding an American airman's hat, the camp commander, in great coat and American, British and South African POWs at the Nikolic "camp" in Zagreb

Essentially the Baroness Nikolic considered the airmen her guests and afforded them the best treatment and food available given the wartime conditions, including a generous wine ration. Several POWs worked in the villa's vineyards and records were kept of all such work so that the POWs could be paid after the war as provided for by Geneva Conventions. Given the chaotic state at the end of the war, the airmen were given vouchers instead of cash. One former POW, a guest of honor at a Los Angeles Croatian Day celebration in 1979, still had his voucher and promised to cash it in when Croatia became independent.

Often the Croatian Red Cross provided the airmen with such luxuries as chocolate and cigarettes that were unavailable to the average Croatian soldier. While wounded or ill Croatian soldiers could expect little more than meager supplies in field first aid stations, American POWs were treated at Zagreb's finest hospital and there is photographic evidence of visits to them by Croatian Chief-of-State Pavelic and other officials.

Picture: Four Croatian guards, one visiting Croatian civilian and American POWs at the Nikolic "camp" in Zagreb

Americans Helping Croatians

In early 1945 an attempt was made to evacuate American pilots from what was soon to be a war zone. Croatian Air Force General Rubcic saw to it that twelve American pilots were trained in the use of Croatian aircraft, planes which represented the last hope for the air defense of Croatia's capital. After familiarization, fourteen Americans and one Croatian liaison officer flew to Allied Italy via Zadar where they tried to convince American forces to land on the Dalmatian coast and meet the Red Army at the Drina river. In 1943 Croatian Lt. Colonel Ivan Babic had flown a similar mission to American occupied Italy to suggest to the Americans that such an invasion would meet no resistance and that the Croatian Army would even establish a beachhead for them. The American command knew that the Dalmatian coast was Hitler's great weakness and that such an attack could split the German armies. Neither the Croatian nor American commanders knew that Yugoslavia had been designated as the Soviet sphere by Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. Allied forces continued to fight and die one foot at a time up the boot of Italy.

Still other Americans offered their services to the Croatians in order to try to save Croatian troops from the communists. Lt. Edward J. Benkoski, pilot of the P-38 fighter "Butch," joined Englishman Rodney Woods and John Gray, a Scot, in attempting to negotiate for the Croatians in May 1945. Another American officer accompanied Croatian officials to negotiations at Bleiburg, Austria at the end of the war to keep Croatians from being returned to certain death in Yugoslavia. They failed.

The American priest Theodore Benkovic who often celebrated mass for the airmen wrote:

Despite constant American bombings, the Croatians bore no hatred toward the Americans, for in a fatalistic way they held it to be necessary. I saw my countrymen held captive in Mostar, how the people treated them well, even offering the American flyers the few cigarettes they possessed; how they begged me to make known to my countrymen of their hope of liberation by the Americans.

None of the airmen interviewed or surveyed recalled any instance of mistreatment and some provided documentary and photographic evidence of very close personal relationships with Croatian officers and female members of the Croatian Red Cross. The study failed to find the name of any Allied POW who was executed and found no "official policy" of executing airmen. Several airmen did recall that they were warned in pre-flight briefings that they would be executed if captured by the Croatians.

That information was supplied by Mihailovic' s Serbian Cetniks who were paid in gold for each airman returned to the Allies.

In January 1966 the Baroness Nikolic visited the United States to attend a showing of her artworks. Several of her former "prisoners" welcomed her to Cleveland. One, Gene Keck of Washta, Iowa travelled nine hundred miles by bus to see her again. "She's my second mother...I was her baby when we were on her estate in Zagreb." Often the mythology is diametrically opposite of the truth.

10 reasons why some people believe the Balkans are primitive?

1. Serbia won't allow Kosova it's independence
2. Karadzic and Mladic remain uncaptured
3. You can still find people who defend Milosevic
4. Serbia and Croatia performances at 2006 World Cup
5. Music by Ceca.
6. Nobody admits their country committed any war crimes
7. The region gave birth to the phrase 'Ethnic Cleansing'
8. None of the countries have anything good to say about their neighbours.
9. Croatia kills five bears per year for food products such as pâté.
10. The E.U. refuse Croatia entry for no good reason.

Thx to Balkan Baby

Do Jews kill Christian children ?

"Jews kill Christian children in order to knead bread with their blood."

"In the past five years over a hundred anti-Semitic books have been published in Serbia," said Aca Singer. Some of the latest are ‘The Serbs In The Claws Of The Jew’ and ‘Jewish Ritual Murder’. The IHTUS web site features copious amounts of anti-Semitic literature and calumnies. An article entitled "Ritual Murder among Jews" repeats all the old medieval libels against Jews as killers of innocent Christians. "When a ritual murder is carried out for [the Jewish feast of] Purim,” it says, “then the victim is usually a grown-up Christian. “This blood is then dried and mixed with baking powder to make triangular cakes…. It is possible to use the dried blood left over from the murder at Purim for the upcoming Passover festival."

The IHTUS publishing house is a privately-owned company, whose headquarters are in Zabalj in Vojvodina, the northern province of Serbia.

Publisher in chief Ratibor Djurdjevic was a member of a right-wing, pre-Second World War organisation named Dimitrije Ljotic. After emigrating to the US, Djurdjevic returned to Serbia in 1990. Djurdjevic receives support from Zarko Gavrilovicn a retired priest from the SPC (Serbian Othodox Church). Djurdjevic wrote, translated and published books such as: The Elders of Zion; 3000 Years in the Service of the Satan; The Myth about the Holocaust; Judeo-Bankers and the Rise of Hitler and The Human Victim in Judaism. These books can be purchased cheaply in Belgrade, in fact, one of the bookshops specializing in such literature is located in the center, beside the Museum of Genocide. Djurdjevic expounds his views on the website, claiming his books are important for Serbs and Christians because they disclose information about "the powerful, but unrecognised rulers of the world – Jewish bankers. They are the most important collaborators of Satan in his evil enterprise against Jesus Christ." He adds that these unnamed Jewish bankers have brought much evil to the Serbs, having "started the war against the Serbs; provided assistance to the disintegrating forces in Yugoslavia; set Bosnia on fire; imposed a cruel embargo on Serbia and Montenegro; armed the Croats and Muslims... [and] demonised Serbs all over the world".

The Serbs are an obstacle to the forces of Jewish conquest in the Balkans, he argues. Djurdjevic's site promises future publications in a similar vein. Anti-Semitism in Serbia is not limited to discussions on foreign-registered websites and slogans painted anonymously on walls, however. It reaches young people through organisations such as Obraz, which target students and other young people with their hardline nationalist message.

Obraz, which means “Honour” is a right-wing movement preaching allegiance to the Serbian Orthodox Church and to Serbdom in general and encouraging passionate hostility to a list of what it calls enemies of the nation and the church. Mladen Obradovic, president of Obraz, told IWPR that Obraz’s core values were love of God and good will to people, regardless of where they come from. But their website tells a different story. A mission statement on the site contains a strongly-worded "Proclamation to the Enemies of Obraz", who are defined as "Zionists, converts to Islam, Ustashe [Croat fascists], democrats, false pacifists, perverts, criminals and drug addicts".

The above groups "shall be justly punished, because they should not be allowed to ruin the health of Serbian youth", the proclamation adds menacingly.

Obradovic was more nuanced in describing Obraz’s stance on Jews to IWPR.

“Because we are Christians, we cannot and do not want to hide the truth that many Euro-Atlantic powerful people of Jewish origin have revealed themselves as open enemies of the Serbian people,” he said.

According to a survey in 2003 by the Belgrade Centre for Studying Alternatives, a think-tank specialising in tracking public opinion, anti-Semitism was more widespread in Serbia than many once thought. Nine per cent of respondents openly declared themselves as anti-Semites, while another 31 per cent said they were undecided, the survey said.Many people on the street seem confused in their understanding of history and ready to blame Jews for their country’s recent setbacks.

One taxi driver told IWPR that “Hitler was Jewish and the fact that they [the Nazis] killed millions of their own people is evidence of how bad they are”.

He said Jews were responsible for the destruction of Yugoslavia because “Tito was Jewish”. He added, “The Jews wanted to destroy Yugoslavia for their own economic interests”.

Another woman interviewed on the street said Jews exaggerated the dangers of anti-Semitism for their own benefit. “Jews use anti-Semitism on purpose to gain privileges for themselves,” she said.

“Anti-Semites are people who feel unfulfilled, so they often identify strongly with their own race,” he said. “These people suffer from inferiority complexes and seek an identity in the collective, embracing extremist theories in the process.”

Serbian jihad connection

For years, the Serbian dominated Belgrade government has supported and trained PLO terrorists. Immediately after the murder of Leon Klinghoffer aboard the Achille Lauro in 1985, the terrorist mastermind Abu Abbas was welcomed in Belgrade. Since the late 1980’s, Abu-Nidal has maintained a large terrorist infrastructure in Yugoslavia, in coordination with Libyan, Iraqi, and Yugoslav intelligence services. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, as Iraqi missiles landed in Israel, Belgrade supported its ally Iraq.




It is understood that Serb technicians are already helping the Iraqis prepare air-defense traps for Allied warplanes. The Iraqi air-defense system is currently based on obsolete SA-2 and SA-3 Soviet missile systems, which are no match for the sophisticated air power deployed by U.S. and British jet fighters patrolling the no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq. The Iraqis are also reported to be seeking Serb assistance in modernizing their aging squadrons of MiG-21 and MiG-29 fighter jets. In return for Serbia's assistance in rebuilding Iraq's air defenses and making its jet fighters airworthy, Saddam has reportedly agreed to provide Milosevic with oil and cash to sustain the Serbs' battered economy and its war effort.

The Serbian military would be unable to function without a supply of Iraqi oil. And hard currency, which Saddam acquires from illicit oil sales, will prove essential for paying the salaries, and retaining the loyalty, of the Serbian military. The London Sunday Telegraph reported that the alliance was initiated by a Serbian military delegation that visited Iraq earlier, shortly before NATO launched Operation Allied Force last week in Yugoslavia. The visit was intended to explore ways in which the two countries could cooperate to their common advantage. Along with traveling to conventional military sites, the delegation also visited an Iraqi pharmaceutical plant at Samarra, 100 miles from Baghdad, which U.N. weapons inspectors say is a chemical weapons production site.

The visit by the Serbian delegation to Iraq was confirmed by the Foreign Office in London, where officials regard the growing cooperation between the two with alarm.

"It appears they have identified a common aim - to shoot down Allied aircraft," a senior diplomat was quoted as saying. "Saddam and Milosevic see themselves as international outcasts who must support each other if they are to survive."

Evidence of illegal arms sales came to light last October when NATO-led peacekeeping troops raided the Orao aviation factory in the Serb-controlled area of Bosnia. Among the documents they found was a contract for $8.5 million to repair and upgrade the engines of Saddam's MIG fighter planes. They also found a copy of a letter sent last September to the Ministry of Defense in Baghdad outlining precautions to avoid detection by UN weapons inspectors. They offered the help of Yugoslav experts to dismantle the equipment, and cautioned the Iraqis to hide the spare parts in a safe place. The letter went on to say that, when the possibility of being discovered had passed, the Yugoslav side would reassemble and operate the equipment again. That letter was sent to the Iraqis by Yugoimport, the Yugoslav arms export agency, and signed by the director of Yugoimport in Baghdad.

That office in Baghdad wasn't just there to arrange the servicing of Saddam Hussein's MIGs.

Just how much the Iraqis relied on the Yugoslavs for arms is laid out in a report by the International Crisis Group, an independent organization that seeks to pinpoint potential trouble spots around the world.

We spoke to the author of the report, Dr. James Lyon.

“What we later found out was that it was not just jet engines,” Dr. Lyon said. “There were a whole series of other weapons that appeared to have gone, including artillery shells, including technology that could enable Saddam to enhance his Scud missiles, including anti-aircraft technology, including a whole series of other military technologies and equipment. So it wasn't simply jet engines in question. It could have been a whole laundry list of equipment.”

How big a laundry list? “Some estimates have put it as high as perhaps $3 billion, others $1.5 billion, no one knows for certain,” Dr. Lyon says.

No one knows for certain because Yugoimport, which is a state-owned company, saw hardly any of that money.

Shortly after the raid on Orao, Croatian authorities, acting on a tip from U.S. intelligence, intercepted a ship called the Boka Star, steaming on the Adriatic Sea, and brought it to the port of Riyeka. According to the ship's manifest, the Boka Star was headed for Egypt with a cargo of water filters and charcoal. But that's not what Croatian police found when they searched the hold. A tape shot by the Croatian authorities reveals that the Boka Star was carrying 208 metric tons of explosives--some for use in artillery shells, and some that could be used to produce solid rocket fuel for missiles. From Syria, U.S. officials say, those explosives would have been trucked overland to Iraq to fuel Saddam's missiles.

Although the sales invoice was stamped by Yugoimport in Belgrade, Croatian police found that the Boka Star's cargo and crew came from many different regions in the former Yugoslavia.

What’s Wrong with Israel and Serbia, Nothing According to Julia

I mean please Julia even I proved you "brotherhood" relationships of jews and serbians from history till today, but you still continue to write lies about it on Political Mavens . Is this your heritage ? Trying to make connection between country who caused war on Balkan, made mass executions, made first concentration camps since WW2, rape, killed and expelled over million persons and in the end committed genocide? I can understand you in one part because you come from USSR with majority of Christian orthodox church an you hearth is pulling to your slavic orthodox "brothers" but is this something you would forget your own religion?

Is this good thing about serbs ?



Or maybe you should comment this and explain your christian employees if they dont understand english:



Hmmm I wonder why this remind me of 1990's and some Serbian gatherings in Croatia where they yelled "This is Serbia"

At the end one comment: "People who don't know their heritage and they don't respect own religion are lower than worms" and your writing regarding jewish people is similar to this Sebians destroying their own church: