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Then, he submitted this one: Posted by Indy (139.134.64.153) on September 19, 2002 at 18:29:47: In Reply to: Another article about Kosovo posted by Nancy Hey on September 17, 2002 at 18:52:00: Explain to me why Kosovo never had its own government, and was directly controlled from Belgrade? - and why was everything Serbian controlled? - Why the schools Serbian run, and why the Kosovan Albanian language was not taught there? -and why was the police force there exclusively Serbian? - infact why were all positions of power controlled by Serbs, all the media was controlled? this despite the fact the Serbs were about a 10% minority. Everything it seems was Serb dominated. Except for poverty, which of course was Kosavan exclusive. You NATO haters are really blurring the lines of what actually has been occurring in these regions of the world, long before NATO has been involved there. In the Kosovan case, it was complete Serbian hegemony and a denial of basic human rights to the Kosovan Albanians, at the benefit of the Serbs which has caused resentment against them. The Serbs, not so much for who they are, but for how they treated the Kosovans have therefore felt the brunt of the KLA. I do not endorse the violence, however, it is a Liberation Army borne out of their dire and never improving situation, under the Milosevic controlled (our friend again) Yugoslavia. : HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK : --------------------------- : : Rosbalt, 13/09/2002, 10:09 : Kosovo: The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Going... : The Russians are Coming! Today, in Kosovo, this is said in a number of ways. : The Albanians, for instance, say it with cautious hatred while the Serbs yell it :delightedly. : The northern part of Kosovo is among very few remaining places in the troubled : land where Serbs still can have their enclaves. Yet they never cease fearing for :their future and : have no money whatever. Yet they live. Early in the morning, groups of :schoolchildren move toward schools : in an organised manner, a mailman delivers morning papers and infrequent letters on :his old bicycle, : housewives do their laundry in backyards. At noon, people flock to cafes where they :stay till : night, drinking beer. This life continues against the background of tanks and :armoured personnel carriers, : peacemakers armed with submachine guns patrolling the streets and tonnes upon tonnes :of rubble in : place of the houses of Slavic residents that not so long still stood here. : No one here talks politics any more. Not since Serbia, busy extraditing : Slobodan Milosevic and dividing Yugoslavia, more or less completely gave up :controlling the situation : and upholding law and order in Kosovo. And not since practically all Serbian field :commanders still : opposing the Albanian siege of this long-suffering land were arrested. And not since :the Slavs lost : all hope to ever return to Pristina. The only topic the young and the old, who spend :most their time in : cafes for lack of work, keep discussing is help from Russia. The name Russia has :become a part of the : local dialect as the symbol of hope which was once associated with but betrayed by :Serbia. To these : people, Russian peacemakers are liberators, and there is a lot of truth in this. : In Kosovo, the so-called Russian Battalion or 'Rusbat' controls the hardest : and the most dangerous spots. Besides fighting skills, that requires a lot of :psychological : preparedness. One such spot is the administrative border with Serbia near the :Preshev Valley. Both Russian : peacemakers and the Serbs have long since called it the valley of death. This is :where up to 40 : well-organised groups of Albanian terrorists from the Kosovo Liberation Army are :active. There is evidence that : the training camps in the Preshev Valley attract scores of extremists, including :Arabs. : : 'I do not know the exact numbers', Radomir Dragoslavic, formerly a major in : the Yugoslavian army, now the head of the Slavic Association of Kosovo, said, 'but :there are enough : extremists there to take on not just Russian peacemakers but the whole KFOR :contingent'. Nevertheless, : Russian peacemakers from the 13th tactical group headed by lieutenant colonel Oleg :Redkin have : been successfully opposing all attempts of the militants to break through into :Serbia. Having : found a common language with the locals, the Russians have so far been able to learn :the militants' : plans ahead of time. : The military experience of ex-major Dragoslavic is extensive. More than once : he stole into the Preshev Valley and photographed the militants' stations. His wife :and two grown : children died in 1999 when those Albanian militants killed everyone who had anything :at all to do with : the Yugoslavian army. His elderly mother-in-law was hidden by neighbours in their :basement and was the : solo survivor. Under the pressure from international community, the remains of the :Yugoslavian army : were forced to leave Kosovo. Dragoslavic had left the service, put together a group :of volunteers : and defended their village until Russian peacemakers came. Now he says, 'Indeed, the :13th tactical group : brought peace here'. : The locals think he is either the last Serb or the first Russian among them. : 'First', he continues, 'the regular patrolling of the border was resumed. Then :Russian peacemakers cleaned : several vital roads of mines, opening the way for assistance from Serbia'. : Yet the greatest of everything that the Russian Battalion did was escorting : children to school without incidents. 'When the Americans did this', 27-year-old :Anna Jordanic, the : mother of four, says, 'we lived in constant fear for our schoolchildren. Albanian :provocateurs often would : throw rocks and empty bottles or even shoot at them. The Americans had the latest :technologies and : weapons and could not do anything. Only the Russians managed to stop that'. : The commanders of the American peacemaking contingent in Kosovo note certain : animosity toward their soldiers on the part of the Serbs. And Americans believe that :their job : in Kosovo would have been much harder without their Russian colleagues. Speaking at :a press : conference in Pristina, General Marcel Valentine, the commander of the KFOR :contingent in Kosovo, said, : 'Russian peacemakers most definitely are highly respected by their Western :colleagues. They are : real soldiers with a lot of spirit and can stand toll in any situation without :compromising the principles : of democracy'. : At this time, there are a little more than 1,500 Russian peacemakers in : Kosovo. Of this number, 500 are supposed to be withdrawn according to the agreement :between Moscow and the : European Union. One of them, sergeant Vladimir Romanov said, 'I'd like to believe :that our : service here has not been in vain and peace in Kosovo will not be compromised by new provocations'. : Back in March this year, Nikolai Mirny, the deputy commander of the Russian : peacemaking contingent, said that after the number of Russia's peacemakers in the :region : is cut, the way they perform their service would inevitably change. Because there :will be fewer : stations, the role of mobile patrolling would grow. And of course, as usual, the :Albanians and Serbs : reacted differently to the news. The Albanians rejoiced because Russian peacemakers :do not allow them to : blow up Christian Orthodox Churches and throw fragmentation grenades into Slavs' :backyards and : cafes. Serbs see the withdrawal of even a part of the Russians as the next tragedy. : In the few remaining Serbian enclaves, graffiti on walls and fences reads, : 'Russians, please do not go or we will die.' No one here believes that American, :French or German peacemakers : can protect the Serbs. : Dimitry Babic, Rosbalt news agency, : Pristina - Belgrade --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bacIlu Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
