Five years ago our television screens were dominated by pictures of
Kosovo-Albanian refugees escaping across Kosovo's borders to the sanctuaries
of Macedonia and Albania. Shrill reports indicated that Slobodan Milosevic's
security forces were conducting a campaign of genocide and that at least
100,000 Kosovo-Albanians had been exterminated and buried in mass graves
throughout the Serbian province. NATO sprung into action and, in spite
of the fact no member nation of the alliance was threatened, commenced
bombing not only Kosovo, but the infrastructure and population of Serbia
itself -- without the authorizing United Nations resolution so revered
by Canadian leadership, past and present.
Those of us who warned that the West was being sucked in on the side
of an extremist, militant, Kosovo-Albanian independence movement were
dismissed as appeasers. The fact that the lead organization spearheading
the fight for independence, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), was universally
designated a terrorist organization and known to be receiving support
from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda was conveniently ignored.
The recent dearth of news in the North American media regarding the
increase in violence in Kosovo compared to the comprehensive coverage
in the European press strongly suggests that we Canadians don't like
to admit it when we are wrong. On the contrary, selected news clips
on this side of the ocean continue to reinforce the popular spin that
those dastardly Serbs are at it again.
A case in point was the latest crisis that exploded on March 15. The
media reported that four Albanian boys had been chased into the river
Ibar in Mitrovica by at least two Serbs and a dog (the dog's ethnic
affiliation was not reported). Three of the boys drowned and one escaped
to the other side. Immediately, thousands of Albanians mobilized and
concentrated in the area of the divided city. Attacks on Serbs took
place throughout the province resulting in an estimated 30 killed and
600 wounded. Thirty Serbian Christian Orthodox churches and monasteries
were destroyed, more than 300 homes were burnt to the ground and six
Serbian villages cleansed of their occupants. One hundred and fifty
international peacekeepers were injured.
Totally ignored in North America were the numerous statements from impartial
sources that said there was no incident between the Serbs, the dog and
the Albanian boys. NATO Police spokesman Derek Chappell stated on March
16 that it was "definitely not true" that the boys had been chased into
the river by Serbs. Chappell went on to say that the surviving boy had
told his parents that they had entered the river alone and that three
of his friends had been swept away by the current. Admiral Gregory Johnson,
the overall NATO commander, further stated that the ensuing clashes
were "orchestrated and well-planned ethnic cleansing" by the Kosovo-Albanians.
Those Serbs forced to leave joined the 200,000 who had been cleansed
from the province since NATO's "humanitarian" bombing in 1999. The '"cleansees"
have become very effective "cleansers."
In the same week a number of individuals posing as Serbs ambushed and
killed a UN policeman and his local police partner. During the firefight
one of them was wounded which caused an immediate switch from Serbian
to Albanian as he screamed, "I've been hit"! The UN pursued the attackers
and tracked them to an Albanian-run farm where they discovered weapons
and the wounded Albanian who had died from his wounds. Four Albanians
were arrested. Once again, the ambush had been reported in the United
States but not the follow-up which clearly indicated yet another orchestrated
provocation by the Albanian terrorists.
Kosovo is administered by the UN, the very organization many Canadians
have indicated they would like to see take over from the United States
in Iraq. The fact the UN cannot order its civilian employees to go or
stay anywhere -- they have to volunteer – combined with recent history
that saw the UN abandon Iraq after a single brutal attack on their compound
in Baghdad and the reality that Kosovo, under the organization's administration,
is a basket case, disqualifies it from consideration for such a role.
Since the NATO/UN intervention in 1999, Kosovo has become the crime
capital of Europe. The sex slave trade is flourishing. The province
has become an invaluable transit point for drugs en route to Europe
and North America. Ironically, the majority of the drugs come from another
state "liberated" by the West, Afghanistan. Members of the demobilized,
but not eliminated, KLA are intimately involved in organized crime and
the government. The UN police arrest a small percentage of those involved
in criminal activities and turn them over to a judiciary with a revolving
door that responds to bribes and coercion.
The objective of the Albanians is to purge all non-Albanians, including
the international community's representatives, from Kosovo and ultimately
link up with mother Albania thereby achieving the goal of "Greater Albania."
The campaign started with their attacks on Serbian security forces in
the early 1990s and they were successful in turning Milosevic's heavy-handed
response into worldwide sympathy for their cause. There was no genocide
as claimed by the West -- the 100,000 allegedly buried in mass graves
turned out to be around 2,000, of all ethnic origins, including those
killed in combat during the war itself.
The Kosovo-Albanians have played us like a Stradivarius. We have subsidized
and indirectly supported their violent campaign for an ethnically pure
and independent Kosovo.We have never blamed them for being the perpetrators
of the violence in the early '90s and we continue to portray them as
the designated victim today in spite of evidence to the contrary. When
they achieve independence with the help of our tax dollars combined
with those of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, just consider the message of encouragement
this sends to other terrorist-supported independence movements around
the world.
Funny how we just keep digging the hole deeper!
Maj-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, now retired, commanded UN troops during the
Bosnian civil war of 1992.
