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Following the violence in March, "no formal indictment
has been raised against any person for the organisation of the pogrom," Fr
Sava (Janjic), deputy abbot of the Decani Monastery in western Kosovo,
told Forum 18 News Service on 4 May. "Some people had been arrested during
the investigation, but it is completely unclear whether they are the real
organisers or low rank 'soldiers' who just carried out someone's orders."
He complained that no trials have started so far, nor has the public been
informed about who is believed to have organised the attacks on Serbs,
including the attacks on religious sites. Since 1999, no attackers on any
Orthodox Church site have been arrested by the United Nations UNMIK
mission, the NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR, or the mainly
ethnic-Albanian Kosovo Police Service (KPS).
Early on 5 May, Forum
18 presented written questions to both KFOR and UNMIK headquarters in
Kosovo's capital Pristina asking what arrests have UNMIK, KFOR, or the KPS
made of perpetrators of violence and looting against religious sites, and
attacks on clergy; whether those arrested were still in custody; what
charges they will be tried on and when; what investigations into violence
against religious sites and clergy are continuing; what aid UNMIK is
giving to rebuild destroyed or damaged religious sites; what protection is
now being given to which religious sites and clergy; and who the
protection is being given by, and to which religious sites and clergy.
Despite promises from both KFOR and UNMIK to respond, neither had done so
by the afternoon of 6 May.
In the violence in March, thought by
observers including NATO's commander in Southern Europe, Admiral Gregory
Johnson, to be pre-planned, ethnic Albanian mobs attacked Serbian homes,
churches and schools throughout Kosovo. The attacks took place despite the
presence of KFOR and UNMIK, the local KPS, and the KZK (Kosovo Protection
Force). The violence left 19 people dead, 250 homes looted and burned, as
well as 30 churches and monasteries and several graveyards heavily
damaged, looted, burned or destroyed. With the previously destroyed 112
churches and monasteries, this brings the total number destroyed since
international forces took over responsibility for Kosovo in 1999 to 140
(see F18News 24 March 2004
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=286 ).
Mimoza
Kusari, spokesperson for Kosovo's prime minister Bajram Rexhepi, insisted
to Forum 18 that all the churches and monasteries destroyed during the
March violence will be rebuilt. "As soon as the damage has been assessed
they will be restored to the same condition as they were before the
violence," she told Forum 18 from Pristina on 6 May. Asked if they will be
able to reopen as places of worship she responded: "Of course." She said
priests, monks and nuns would return "as soon as the buildings are ready".
Asked who would protect them from further attacks she said this has not
been decided, though the Kosovo government presumes this will be the
international forces.
Kusari admitted that the KPS, KFOR and UNMIK
"did not do very well" during the March violence. She said that
immediately afterwards the Kosovo government established a 5 million Euro
fund from the consolidated budget – "money from Kosovo taxpayers" – to
finance the rebuilding of damaged property. "The priority was residential
homes." She said damage to historical sites – including Serbian Orthodox
churches – is now being assessed by experts from the United Nations
cultural organisation UNESCO and the Council of Europe. "UNESCO experts
are here at the moment and Council of Europe experts will be here next
week."
UNESCO has estimated that 27 million US dollars worth of
damage has been done to the 27 churches which can be rebuilt, out of the
30 destroyed. On 3 May, UNESCO director Koichiro Matsuura stated that the
Decani Monastery, which was attacked by mortar fire on 17 March, will be
recognised as a UNESCO world heritage site. Although Fr Sava believed such
a listing was "significant", he was sceptical about how it would protect
the monastery. "In the existing security and political conditions such a
decision represents no guarantee," he told Forum 18.
Valbona
Boshtrakaj of Kosovo's Culture Ministry said it expected the experts to
submit their final report with the assessment of the damage to Serbian
historic sites at the end of May. She told Forum 18 from Pristina on 6 May
that after that, a budget would be allocated to pay for restoration. She
claimed that her ministry had invited the Serbian Orthodox diocese to
cooperate but "they are not willing to have contact with the institutions
of the provisional self-government". However, she said Albanian and
Serbian experts were working jointly with UNESCO experts on the field
assessments of the damage to Serbian sites.
Although
prime-ministerial spokesperson Kusari admitted that some 30 Serbian
Orthodox churches had been destroyed or damaged during the March violence,
she refused to admit that more than 100 Serbian Orthodox holy sites had
been destroyed or damaged since international forces took control of
Kosovo in 1999. "You must have mistaken information," she told Forum 18.
"Churches were under special protection – nothing happened to them before
March."
Arguments have persisted about whether and how KFOR and
the other security agencies should and could have done more to protect
Serbs and Serbian-owned property, including Orthodox sites. The Serbian
Orthodox diocese has complained of what it regards as the failure
particularly of KFOR troops from Germany and France.
One German
KFOR officer of the Multinational Brigade Southwest said that KFOR is
still investigating their failure to protect the destroyed and damaged
Orthodox sites in the town in March. "I can't say why we failed to protect
them," he told Forum 18 from Prizren in southern Kosovo on 6 May. "We are
still looking for the reasons." He said he did not know when the
investigation would be complete and whether the findings would be
published. Asked about Serbian Orthodox claims that German KFOR troops did
not do as much to protect Serbian lives and property as troops from other
national contingents, the officer referred all enquiries to the German
defence ministry in Berlin.
The German KFOR officer said that all
Serbian Orthodox churches in the southwest brigade area are now protected
by fixed posts and by mobile patrols.
However, other KFOR
contingents risked their troops' lives to defend Serbs in March. "It was
very dangerous for us," Captain Jonas Bengtsson of the Swedish contingent,
based in the village of Ajvalija near Pristina, told Forum 18 on 6 May.
"It is a miracle no Swedish soldier was badly injured." He said the
thirteenth-century Gracanica monastery and the church in the village of
Laplje Selo survived only because "we kept the Albanians out". "In my
personal opinion, if we had failed to keep the Albanians out these
churches would have been burnt to the ground. I'm sure the Albanians
wanted to do this." He described these two sites as "big symbols" for the
local Serbs. "Churches have always been one of the most important things
to protect."
Captain Bengtsson told Forum 18 that his contingent
had stepped up its protection for the two churches since the March
violence, with fixed posts outside both. He said his contingent also had
responsibility for two churches in Pristina. "St Nicholas' Church was
burnt out during the March attacks, the other is unfinished and not
functioning, so we assess the threat as not too high."
However, he
declined to say why KFOR had failed to protect churches adequately in the
March violence. "I can't answer this – it is for a higher political level
to comment," he told Forum 18.
A recent visitor to the
Patriarchate of Pec (Peja) in western Kosovo, which was guarded during the
March violence by Italian KFOR troops, told Forum 18 that it "probably
survived the March attacks only because the nuns refused to leave and said
they would burn with their church if it came to that."
One Czech
KFOR officer who took part in defending St Andreas Church in the town of
Podujevo in northern Kosovo during the unrest has described the assault.
"We were defending a Serb Orthodox church against a mob of 500 Albanians,
but there were too many for us," Captain Jindrich Plescher told the Prague
Post. "When they broke through the wall [around the church], we got orders
to retreat. They smashed everything inside, including our communications
centre, made a big pile in front and set it on fire. Then they turned
their attention to the adjacent Serb cemetery. They knocked over
tombstones, dug up the coffins and scattered the bones in them."
Fr Sava complained to Forum 18 of the "complete insecurity" facing
Kosovo's Serbs today. "The unreadiness of KFOR troops at several locations
to protect Orthodox churches and monasteries, especially in the German and
French sectors where huge damage has been done, raised serious concerns
and doubts about whether KFOR will provide any protection at all to other
sites with Orthodox Christian monuments, or whether they will be left for
destruction." He said the Church has asked KFOR to bring in more troops
and to take wider authority to protect not only the Serbian population,
but its sanctuaries also.
As well as the destruction of frescoes,
icons and other church property, Fr Sava is worried about the black market
in stolen church goods. "Since 1999, more than 10,000 icons and other
church vessels were destroyed or stolen for the purpose of selling them on
the black market." Many valuable books and treasures have been lost and,
because the movement of Orthodox clergy has been restricted and no remains
have been found of items such as metal filigree crosses and other vessels,
the Orthodox fear that churches were first looted for the black market and
then burned down or otherwise destroyed. The KPS has arrested several
local Albanians who tried to sell church treasures on the black market.
The Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren has released
(below) a list, checked as accurately as possible, of the 30 religious
sites damaged or destroyed in March.
Prizren:
1. Ljeviska,
Holy Mother of God, completed 14th century. Burned from inside, heavy
damage to frescoes from 12-14th centuries.
2. Church of Christ the
Saviour – 14th century. Burned.
3. Cathedral Church of St George the
Martyr (1856). Burned and dynamited.
4. Church of St Nicholas (14
century). Burned from inside.
5. Church of St George (16th century).
Burned from inside.
6. Church of Holy Sunday (14th century, later
reconstructed). Burned down.
7. Church of St Panteleymon (14th
century, later reconstructed). Burned down.
8. Church of Ss. Kozma and
Damian (14th century, later reconstructed). Burned down.
9. Church of
Holy Sunday in Zivinjane, near Prizren. Dynamited.
10. Monastery of
the Holy Archangels (14th century). Looted and burned in the presence of
German KFOR soldiers.
Also: Orthodox Theological College. Burned down.
Also: Bishop's residence in Prizren and a Deacon's house. Both burned
down.
Orahovac (Rrahovec):
11. Church of Holy Sunday (1852),
in Brnjaca. Set on fire and destroyed, along with a parish home.
Djakovica (Gjakova):
12. Church of the Resurrection of the
Most Holy Mother of God (16-19th century). Burned down, with the old and
new parish homes, later levelled to the ground.
13. Church of St.
Lazarus, in Piskote. Damaged in 1999, in 2004 completely razed together
with a nearby graveyard.
14. Church of St. Elijah, near Bistrazin.
Damaged in 1999, in 2004 destroyed.
Also: two belfries of the
Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity that survived the initial destruction
in 1999, in 2004 razed to the ground. Since March 2004, the local
population have completely removed all the building remains using lorries,
and the municipality has opened a public park at the site.
Srbica
(Skenderaj):
15. Devic Monastery (15th century). Burned to the ground,
and graves of saints opened up. Alongside the monastery, 20 adjoining
buildings have been looted and burned.
Pec (Peja):
16. Church
of St. John the Baptist (Metropolitan seat with parish home and
apartments). Burned, but the walls are still standing.
17. Church of
Most Holy Mother of God, in Belo Polje. Burned in 1999, renovated in late
2003, set on fire in March 2004, but lightly damaged.
Urosevac
(Ferizaj):
18. Cathedral Church of King Uros. Three hand grenades
thrown at the church, which was set on fire. 19 KFOR and UNMIK troops were
wounded attempting to protect the church severely. The structure is still
standing, under KFOR & UNMIK protection. The city graveyard was
severely damaged.
19. Church of St. Elijah, in Nekodim. Destroyed
along with a graveyard after KFOR troops left.
20. Church of Ss. Peter
and Paul, in Talinovci. Set on fire and a local graveyard destroyed.
21. Church of the Most Holy Mother of God, in Sovtovic. Destroyed with
a local graveyard.
Kamenica (Kamenice):
22. Church in Donja
Slapasnica. Stoned and broken into.
Stimlje (Shtime):
23.
Church of St. Archangel Michael (1920). Set on fire, but it remains
standing.
Pristina:
24. Church of St. Nicholas (early 19th
century). Burned down along with a parish home, many icons, and a large
historical church archive.
Kosovo Polje (Fushe Kosove):
25.
Church of St. Nicholas (1940). Burned and desecrated, but still standing.
26. Church of St. Catherine, in Bresje. Looted and desecrated.
Vucitrn (Vushtrri):
27. Church of St. Elijah, (19th century).
Looted and partially destroyed in 1999, in 2004 completely burned down.
Also destroyed was a local parish home and a graveyard.
Obilic
(Obiliq):
28. Church of St. Michael, newly built. Set on fire with car
tires, still standing but severely damaged due to the high temperature of
the fire.
Kosovska Mitrovica (Mitrovice):
29. Church of St
Sava, in the southern part of town. Set on fire twice. Photos show the
fire brigade extinguishing fire in neighbouring houses, but not in the
church. Parish home also burned down.
Podujevo (Podujeve):
30.
Church of St Andreas, (1929). Initially defended by Czech KFOR troops who
were overwhelmed by the numbers of the attacking mob. Church and graveyard
now destroyed. Belfry dynamited, as well as a church yard wall. Graves dug
out and bones scattered in neighbouring fields.
For more
background information, see Forum 18's latest Kosovo religious freedom
survey at
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=137
A
printer-friendly map of Kosovo & Serbia (map title Serbia and
Montenegro) is available at
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=yugosl
The map follows international legal usage in indicating the boundaries
of territories. Kosovo is in international law part of Serbia &
Montenegro, although administered by the UN. |
