This is what Owen was referring to... >From: "Macdonald Stainsby" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: hitler gets a laugh in Kosovo >Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 15:10:06 PDT > > > > Hate-filled town where Hitler gets a laugh > >Emin Xhinovci may be an eccentric, but he typifies a place where speaking >the wrong language can be fatal >Kosovo: special report > >Chris Bird in Mitrovice >Wednesday October 13, 1999 > >Meeting Emin Xhinovci for the first time, one's laughter is mixed with >horror at how Adolf Hitler's double could be walking around this ethnically >divided and explosive town in northern Kosovo. It is as if the nightmarish >film The Boys from Brazil has come true, where clones of Hitler are >manufactured from cells preserved from the dead Führer. > >Mr Xhinovci, 40, might be an eccentric but his face, which evokes friendly >waves and giggling salutes from ethnic Albanians in the southern half of >Mitrovice, symbolises the continuance of virulent ethnic intolerance. The >kind of intolerance which led to the murder of a United Nations official >who answered in Serbian when asked the time by a group of ethnic Albanian >youths late on Monday. > >The doppelganger was until recently a guerrilla with the recently disbanded >Kosovo Liberation Army, where he won a reputation as a fierce fighter who >commanded real respect among the ethnic Albanian locals. "I am a soldier," >he says simply, echoing Hitler's pride in the Iron Cross the Austrian >corporal was decorated with in the first world war. > >Mr Xhinovci has opened a bar in Mitrovice known variously as the Bar Hit >and Jet, or the Pizzeria Hitleri. He complains that French Nato troops >removed a sign which carried a badly painted swastika. A disgusted French >captain says only that his troops are absolutely forbidden to frequent the >bar, its simple interior decorated with portraits of the owner in KLA >uniform. > >Mr Xhinovci has taken great pains to enhance his physical likeness to >Hitler. His black toothbrush moustache is neatly clipped. His hair is dyed >jet black, cut and combed in perfect imitation of the lick of tar-like hair >that fell across the Nazi dictator's forehead. Otherwise his purple suit, >greasy white shirt and string vest are testament to his breathtaking >ordinariness. > >"Zum voll!", he says, toasting in German - he lived near Düsseldorf from >1993 to 1997, where he said he had an import-export business before >returning to fight for the "motherland". "Everyone who is against the >people who carried out the bloodshed against my people is a friend of >mine," he says. > >He refers to the brutal Nazi occupation of the former Yugoslavia, when >German troops based in Mitrovice turned a blind eye to ethnic Albanian >attacks on Serb homes. The occupation ran concurrently with a bitter and >confusing civil war, in which ethnic Albanians fought both as communist >partisans and as members of the Skanderberg Division of the Waffen SS, >formed from ethnic Albanians when Hitler began losing the war. > >Memories are long in the Balkans and the fact that there is an admirer of >Hitler in Mitrovice will not surprise the sullen Serbs, some of whom are >suspected paramilitaries who carry walkie-talkies and hang out in the Dolce >Vita bar, just across the Ibar river, where they watch the bridge to make >sure no ethnic Albanians return to the northern, Serb, half of the city. > >A non-smoker like Hitler, Mr Xhinovci says the dictator went too far in >killing women and children, but that it would be "a good idea to eliminate >all those who thirst for our blood" - his catch-all phrase for Serbs. > >The extremists in Kosovo do not have to look like Mr Xhinovci to be >effective in clearing the province of its ethnic minorities. There are near >daily attacks on and murders of Serbs and Roma. > >In yesterday's latest update of violence across the province, K-For >peacekeepers said the body of a Serb man had been found in a village in >eastern Kosovo. At the weekend, the Guardian came across more burnings of >Serb houses in Bresje, a village a few miles west of Pristina. In the >nearby town of Kosovo Polje, the Serb exodus continues unabated as buses >come to collect those with only a densely packed holdall to leave for >central Serbia. K-For says there are about 100,000 Serbs left in Kosovo, >out of an original population of 200,000, but aid workers and UN officials >say there are 40,000 left at most. > >While K-For and the UN are supposedly the only legal force here, and the >KLA has been officially disbanded, KLA members continue to harass >minorities, ensure that ethnic Albanians do not sell goods to Serbs, and >keep a general eye on goings on in the community, not unlike Hitler's >brownshirts in the 1930s. > >The Guardian visited a Serb monastery near the western town of Decani at >the weekend, swathed in barbed wire and guarded by Italian troops to >protect the 20 monks inside. We were watched going in by three ethnic >Albanians who stopped us on the way out, claiming to be police. They not >only asked for documents but pulled out a camera and photographed us as >well, clearly aiming to scare us away. > >Few ethnic Albanians question the new intolerance, for to do so is risky. >One who has is Veton Surroi, the publisher of the newspaper Koha Ditore. He >recently condemned attacks on minorities as "fascism", and warned that it >threatened the ethnic Albanians' own democratic future. For this, he earned >himself and his editor, Baton Haxhiu, the threat of a lynching from the >KLA's news agency, Kosova Press. > >"Those who don't mind stepping over the blood of those who made freedom in >Kosovo (KLA) _ should know that they could become subject of an eventual >and very understandable revenge," the agency wrote last week. "Neither >Veton Surroi nor Baton Haxhiu, these ordinary mobsters, will go unpunished >for their criminal acts, because their idiocies help the chief criminal, >Slobodan Milosevic." > >Mr Surroi and Mr Haxhiu have reiterated the newspaper's stance in an >editorial: "The systematic persecution of a human being because of his >ethnic or racial group is fascism, and this the Albanian nation, as a >victim of fascism, should not tolerate," they wrote. > >The international authorities in Kosovo came out only with weak >condemnations of the KLA news agency, not mentioning it by name. > >--guardian > > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
