-Caveat Lector-

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The Committee for National Solidarity
Tolstojeva 34, 11000 Belgrade, YU
Part 4/4: End of Interview with Jasari, Ismali and Seholi

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IF THEY FIND ME, THEY WILL KILL ME:
Interviews with pro-Yugoslav Albanian
Refugees from Kosovo

Transcribed and edited by Gregory Elich

Interviews with Faik Jasari, Corin Ismali, and Fatmir Seholi, members of the
Kosovo Democratic Initiative.
Comments by Biljana Koteska, First Secretary of the United Nations Law
Projects Center in Belgrade, Bajram
Haliti, Secretary of the Republic of Serbia Secretariat for Development of
Information on the Languages of National
Minorities, and editor of "Ahimsa", and Jovan Damjanovic, President of the
Roma organization in Yugoslavia

Interviewed by Barry Lituchy, Joe Friendly, Ayman El-Sayed, Ken Freeland,
Jeff Goldberg and Gregory Elich,
members of the North American Solidarity with Yugoslavia Delegation

Belgrade, August 9, 1999

[CONTINUATION]

[Lituchy] I am just going to ask you one more question, and then I am going
to throw it open to all three gentlemen to
answer questions. First I am just going to ask one more question. What -
well, actually, this could be for each of
you. What do you think has been lost as a result of this?

[Seholi] It was a human catastrophe.

[Ismali] It was.

[Jasari] Now we can see that the United States does not care about any
ethnic minority. Before NATO started
bombing us, they said they are protecting the Albanians. You can see
Albanians were the victims. If they were
protecting the Albanians as they said they were, they wouldn't be bombing
them. The aim of the United States was
very clear. Their aim was to create a greater Albania, to sever Kosovo from
Yugoslavia. The Western countries have
military bases in Albania. They want to expand throughout the Balkans, and
have controlling influence in other
countries. Unfortunately, our Albanian people are the victims of that. They
are also victims of Albanian terrorism.
Hasim Thaci was in the United States and other Western countries, not in
Kosovo. He came to Kosovo after NATO
bombing ceased, and after our army left Kosovo. What kind of Albanian man is
that who does not protect the
Albanian people? We, as Albanians, together with the other nationalities,
protected everyone in Kosovo. Regardless
of whether he is Albanian, Egyptian, Serb or Turk, he is a human who lives
in Kosovo. Now, after the NATO
bombing, the Albanian people lost too many people. The question is, what did
the United States want from Kosovo,
Serbia and Yugoslavia? The United States used the Albanian people as the
excuse for their aggression, and perhaps
they will again bomb Yugoslavia. After these words, you can judge for
yourself what are the interests of the United
States. When Mr. [segment lost during change of tape] he promised to the
Albanian people they would support all
their endeavors to the end. He disregarded all the Albanian victims during
the NATO bombing, and if there were
more victims, he said, "It is okay, it is their duty. Politics is primary."
KFOR and the United States cannot guarantee
any kind of freedom to people in Kosovo. They can only guarantee that
terrorists can walk armed through cities and
villages and act without restraint. When someone reports that someone is
killed or kidnapped, they do nothing to
stop or prevent such actions.

Would you like to live that kind of life? I think that the number of KFOR
troops is insufficient to protect people. Even
100,000 troops would not be enough. Many KFOR soldiers support the KLA.

[Lituchy] How many Albanians live in Serbia right now?

[Jasari] In Belgrade alone you can find about 80,000 Albanians. Many have
lived here as long as twenty years. They
have rights, they work, they have offices, no one does anything to them.

[Lituchy] Actually the conditions for Albanians has not changed very much in
Serbia.

[Jasari] According to the constitution of the Republic of Serbia, everyone
has the same rights. It does not depend on
one's nationality. You have the same rights. After the visit of Mr. [Robert]
Dole and [Joseph] DiGuardi, Albanians
started pushing for a greater Albania. They promised a greater Albania,
providing support, both monetary and other.
We also know that one the presidents of Yugoslavia was an Albanian. Even one
of the vice presidents of the
Republic of Serbia was Albanian. Why would they want to clamor for more?

[Friendly] What is your comment on the allegations of wrong doing by the
Serbian military in Kosovo? How would
you compare that with what NATO did, and is there some basis for the
allegations that the Serbian army was
wantonly killing villagers, or were they actually still after the KLA?

[Seholi] The KLA is a terrorist group, and the Yugoslav army is our state's
army. We do not think that our army
killed villagers.

[Friendly] So you're saying that the Serbian army - right now, people in the
United States are being told that the
Serbian army after the bombing became undisciplined and decided to kill
Albanian citizens freely.

[Jasari] It's not true. Our Yugoslav army exists to protect people, not kill
them. It's propaganda. The Yugoslav army
never attacked anyone in Kosovo. They only defended themselves.

[Lituchy] You must be aware that one of the reasons for this attack on
Yugoslavia, according to American
propaganda or media, is that this is a human rights issue. Did American
human rights officials ever contact any of you,
or ask you for your opinions?

[Seholi] No one from the United States ever contacted us, but I had a
conversation with Mr. Jerzy Dinsbil. He is
from the United Nations human rights organization.

[Jasari] There was one visit from the United States called the Mission of
Peace, before the war started. We spoke
with a Colonel Robert from that group. They asked us about the situation and
our rights in Kosovo, and they were
very pleased to receive the information we gave them. But the other
delegations that came to Kosovo, came with
their own opinions, to support the terrorists. They never told the truth
back in their countries. Some delegations
visited only one side of Albanians, the side that supported terrorism. They
only sought their opinion, never from our
side.

[Lituchy] We know that these human rights organizations are funded by the
U.S. government for the most part, so a
lot of what they say is completely propaganda. But another argument that was
made by certain officials in the U.S.
government was that the United States had to go to war. In fact this was an
argument made by a colonel that I
debated in Ohio. He was quite proud of having bombed the Serbs in Croatia,
and he bombed the Serbs in Bosnia,
and he said now we are going to bomb the Serbs in Kosovo. And that had to be
done, he said, because the people
can't live together. Do any of you have comments on that?

[Jasari] There was no reason to bomb us, because that was not true. We lived
together. There is no reason to bomb
anywhere in the world. Why didn't the United States influence the KLA to
negotiate with our government before
Rambouillet? For the United States, it was much easier to bomb us, rather
than tell the KLA to negotiate with us.
Now we have many innocent victims of this war. Who do we blame? The United
States, Great Britain, France and
the other Western countries brought this about.

[Lituchy] Does anybody want to comment on the human rights issue?

[Seholi] I would like to point out that Yugoslavia consists of many ethnic
groups. Yugoslavia does not consist of only
Serbian people, unlike Croatia, which is only for Croatians.

[Koteska] Croatia represents her country by their constitution as consisting
of Croatian people and the others. You
cannot find that in our Yugoslav constitution.

[Seholi] These are the facts, and one doesn't have to say much to know the
truth.

[El-Sayed] When you met Albright in the Paris Conference, what did she say
the reason they were in Kosovo? Did
she say the Yugoslav army was killing innocent civilians, and if she did say
that, did you argue against her and tell her
she was wrong?

[Jasari] When she told me that, I told her, "Don't speak from your
imagination. Do you have some facts? We have
the facts that this is not happening there." But she said, "Ha! Facts? We
don't need facts." She had her task, and she
only saw that task. You couldn't say anything to her. She didn't want to
talk with us because she didn't want to listen
to our arguments. The representatives of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
went to meet the representatives of the
Albanian secessionists in Pristina 17 times before Rambouillet. Not once did
they come to meet us. Albanian people
lost everything. They no longer have property, accommodations. Now they have
a narco-mafia. They lived together
nicely before NATO bombing. They had then all that they have lost now. We
have no other state than Serbia and
Yugoslavia. That is our state and our home. We lived together with all
ethnic groups and it should be the same again
in the future. Kosovo is multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and
multi-confessional. Unfortunately, these days you cannot find
many ethnic groups in Kosovo. Serbians, Romas, Muslims, Egyptians, Albanians
who do not support the political
aims of the KLA have fled from Kosovo. One day it may be entirely cleansed
and only one ethnic group will live in
Kosovo. These days KLA soldiers kill people who work in the fields. I think
that all people in Western countries
who do not believe their government tells them the truth, must bring out the
truth from our country. We want to bring
charges against Bill Clinton and all the people responsible for the NATO
bombing. Now in Yugoslavia we have
many innocent victims, and you can see that we have less bridges than
before. The United States is a big country with
democracy. What kind of democracy is it which kills people, kills innocent
victims, bombs schools, bombs bridges,
buses full of people, and people living in their homes? Where is democracy
now?

[Lituchy] One member of our delegation, Michael Parenti, wrote a book
called, "Democracy for the Few," which is
the answer to your question. Democracy, in American terms, is not
democratic, but is anti-democratic. It's a system
of exploitation for a few people, with many people suffering.

[Jasari] In the United States, only Americans can be elected, and you have
about forty nationalities. But in
Yugoslavia we have many nations, and everyone has the same rights. Anyone
can vote and anyone can be elected.

[Lituchy] What kind of help do you think that we could bring to the people
of Yugoslavia, including the Albanian
people of Yugoslavia who are pro-Yugoslavia? Are you getting help right now
from abroad? My understanding is
no.

[Jasari] None at all.

[Lituchy] Only from the Yugoslav government?

[Jasari] Yes.

[Lituchy] What kind of help can Americans who want to support you give?

[Seholi] Any kind of help: food, medicine, or clothes, because winter will
come.

[Lituchy] And is there an Albanian Yugoslav organization that we can deal
with directly?

[Jasari] It is best to deal through the International Red Cross or the
Yugoslav Red Cross. But when you send help,
arrange for whom the aid should be delivered, otherwise it may be diverted
to the terrorists.

[El-Sayed] Do you know that the KLA is part of the KFOR patrol? Are they
part of it, do they have any members
patrolling with the UN or KFOR?

[Seholi] We don't have information about that, but they cooperate quite
closely. Ten days ago, KFOR arrested the
commander of the KLA, Agim Ceku. He killed at least fifty people, but he was
released after 25 minutes. If a man
kills so many people, should he then walk free? The other example is a
conversation between Hasim Thaci and Mr.
Michael Jackson, in which it was agreed that Thaci's bodyguards can still
carry arms. You know, in Pristina there is
a sports center. It was called Boro and Rames. And now they've changed the
name to Adem Jashari, Hamez
Jashari, two terrorists. This sports center was renamed after two people who
are equivalent to the most wanted
criminals in the United States. Can you imagine naming a sports center in
the United States after Osama Bin Laden? I
think that if President Clinton falls, there will be less American
imperialism. I think Clinton's biggest mistake is trying
to remove Slobodan Milosevic from office, and some day that aggression will
come back to haunt him. He is the
president of the United States, but he speaks on television about his sexual
affair with Monica Lewinsky. Who is
Clinton to accuse another? I would like to say to Hillary Clinton that her
husband is an immoral person. That man
ruined our state for no reason. What would he say if someone bombed the
United States, bombed the White House,
or killed or raped his daughter? Who is the evil man here? Milosevic, who is
protecting the territory of Yugoslavia
and protecting the people of Kosovo, or Clinton, who bombs us?

[Lituchy] Let me ask you a question. I personally agree with you that it is
wrong for the United States to try to
overthrow President Milosevic. You must be aware that the United States is
trying to overthrow Milosevic simply to
gain control over Yugoslavia, and destroy what remains of Yugoslavia. Are
you aware of that?

[Jasari] Yes, certainly.

[Lituchy] Well, the point I wish to make is that the United States wants to
destroy Yugoslavia before the Russian
elections next year. Are you aware of that? If the Russian elections next
year bring to power somebody like
[Gennady] Zyuganov, the whole situation in Yugoslavia could change. Are you
aware of that?

[Seholi] I agree with you that if Mr. Zyuganov and the communist party get
elected, that will affect the situation in
Yugoslavia. I want to point out, though, that Yugoslav people are very
strong people and no one can defeat us. This
is our third war, and no one has beaten us. How can 19 of the most powerful
countries attack one country of only
eleven million citizens? Because of a few terrorists.

[Lituchy] Do you think that the opposition parties who are working with the
United States will succeed in bringing
about new elections this year, or in overthrowing Milosevic?

[Jasari] The opposition parties cannot overthrow President Milosevic because
he was legally elected. He became
president in a legal way. But unfortunately, some leaders of the opposition
parties are involved with representatives of
Western countries. They are only puppets. They are carrying out orders from
abroad. They are not for democracy.

[Lituchy] Just one more question. We believe that this message, this idea of
multi-national unity that Yugoslavia
represents is very important. If somehow that message that that's what
Yugoslavia stands for could get out to the rest
of the world, that that would be beneficial to Yugoslavia, that maybe that
could change people's opinion. How do
you think would could get that message across to other people in the United
States and other countries?

[Jasari] Yugoslavia, Serbia and Kosovo are multi-ethnic and multi-cultural,
and only if all ethnic groups have the
same rights can we have a good life. You can't find any country in the whole
world that is more multi-ethnic.

[Lituchy] Would you like to comment?

[Seholi] Yugoslavia was established many years ago, and it always had a
peaceful policy. You can find democracy in
Yugoslavia before democracy in the United States. Can you find any country
in the entire world, where the president
of the whole country is Albanian, a member of an ethnic minority? You cannot
find it. We had a president and
vice-presidents who were Albanians.

[Lituchy] Their names?

[Seholi] Sinan Husani, Fati Hoxha, Ali Cugriho, Asam Blazi. Asam Blazi was
the president of the youth in
Yugoslavia. What more could Albanian people want? Perhaps if Albanian people
stopped boycotting elections, they
could have an Albanian vice-president. It is a problem with people who
refuse to vote. President Milosevic
encouraged them to vote in the elections, but they didn't want to vote.
President Milosevic met with their
representative. I think that Albanians who move to the United States will,
within two or three months, want to replace
President Clinton with an Albanian president.

[Haliti] Does the United States and the 19 countries who bombed us, know
that in Hasim Thaci's army they have no
other ethnic groups but Albanian. And they said the reason they bombed us is
because there is no multi-ethnic or
multi-cultural life in Kosovo. Where are the other ethnic groups in the KLA?

[Lituchy] It would be very nice, I believe, if the three gentlemen here
could somehow travel to other countries,
including the United States, and speak to the American public directly,
because it -

[Koteska] It's very nice, thank you for that. But you know money is a big
problem. If you've left your home, you
have no property, no money to travel.

[Lituchy] Of course, I am going to propose that maybe organizations in the
United States will sponsor these
gentlemen to come and travel.

[Seholi] Yes, I support that idea.

[Jasari] I want to travel to tell the truth about what has happened.

[Lituchy] That's one thing that we'll try to help make happen, so we should
keep in touch with your organization. I
just want to add that your political tendency has never been recognized in
the United States.

[Jasari] As I mentioned before, when delegations from the United States and
other Western countries were in
Kosovo, they only talked with one side.

[Lituchy] That's right.

[Seholi] One day before I left Kosovo, a woman came to my flat and said that
if I told people that my father was
killed by Serbs, I could have a high-ranking position in the KLA. The United
States is heavily involved with the
KLA, they work closely together. Why didn't the United States do anything
many months ago, when the KLA was
killing citizens of Kosovo. The United States took measures only when the
KLA was about to be destroyed. What
can one think when one sees Madeleine Albright, President Clinton, Hasim
Thaci together, and Albright gives Thaci a
kiss? We accuse Mr. Clinton for the crimes he has committed, not only to
Albanian people in Kosovo, but also to all
ethnic groups in Yugoslavia. Mr. Clinton is indirectly connected with the
murder of my father.

[Lituchy] We do believe that is a form of war crime, and that's why we're
collecting this kind of evidence.

On behalf of our delegation, I would like to thank each of you for your
time, and for your very interesting and
illuminating interviews and testimonies, to our delegation. As you know,
we're here both to help bring humanitarian
aid to the people of Yugoslavia, but also to collect evidence of NATO war
crimes, because we believe that what has
been done here is a violation of human rights, and that it is necessary for
peace organizations and people who are
concerned about the future of humanity to begin an alternative process of
investigating war crimes, of bringing that
information to the public, and of possibly bringing pressure against these
governments to prevent future wars like this,
and to also bring restitution to the victims of the crimes of NATO in
Yugoslavia. So we thank you very much and we
wish to stay in touch.

[Damjanovic] I would like to ask you about democracy and Black people in the
United States. They can't go to
some parts of town. Where is democracy there, with discrimination?

[Lituchy] The United States was created, as you may or may not know, out of
genocide. It was created out of wars
of genocide against Native American people, genocide against African people,
and against all foreigners, in order to
create a great empire. That's the whole history of the United States of
America. So this is not surprising to us, those
of us who have been fighting for human rights in the United States know very
well that the struggle for human rights in
the United States is connected to what the United States does everywhere
else in the world, and that somehow that
system has to be changed. And especially after the rise of the United
States-

[Jasari] We thank you and support you, and hope you succeed in your task. We
only want the truth to be told to
people in other nations. We hope one day the truth will be known. I wish all
the best in life for those who want the
best for people in Kosovo-Metohija, Serbia and Yugoslavia.

[Lituchy] We only hope that we are worthy of your confidence and that we can
carry out this work as best we can,
and we'll keep in our minds and our memories our meetings with you.

[Seholi] Mr. Ramsey Clark is our great friend, and we support him in his
work. The thirty thousand members of our
party support him.

[Lituchy] Well, now we're all working together.

[Seholi] Thank you very much.

[END]

http://www.iacenter.org/elich3.htm

Secretary General
Mrs. Jela Jovanovic
Art  historian
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