http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/05/taking-up-for-tadic/
LETTER TO EDITOR: Taking up for Tadic
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Ms. Vulovic started using her celebrity for political causes in the 1990s,
protesting the rule of strongman Slobodan Milosevic. "I didn't want Serbia to
be a pariah state," she said.
As someone who often denounced the repression of the late Slobodan Milosevic, I
do not minimize his responsibility for the 1999 conflict in the Serbian
province of Kosovo and Metohija. Nevertheless, William Walker's heaping of
every foul claim human malice can concoct on Serbs collectively, even more than
on Milosevic himself, is another matter ("A separate take from Serbia," Op-Ed,
Feb. 24).
I live in Kosovo and know firsthand what actually happened - and did not happen
- during the NATO war against my country. Mr. Walker describes the terrorist
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as "a tiny band" fighting "systematic" crimes
against ethnic Albanians. But there was no widespread violence until 1996, when
the KLA attacked Serbian refugees and murdered - often in front of their
families - Albanian postmen, forest workers and other "collaborators."
Mr. Walker asserts that Albanians were "transported in cattle cars" into exile,
but large numbers of Albanians - many of whom sheltered into the rest of Serbia
or in Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries - fled only when the NATO
attack was imminent. Not even NATO's fevered propaganda claimed anything like
"cattle cars," which is Mr. Walker's deliberate effort to pin a Nazi label on
us Serbs.
As for Mr. Walker's concern for Serbs in Kosovo - please spare us from such
hypocrisy! The outrages for which Mr. Walker blames Serbs exactly describe what
the KLA didto Serbs after the war. Two-thirds of my flock was ethnically
cleansed - a larger proportion than that of Albanians fleeing the fighting. Ten
years later, these refugees cannot return home safely, nor can Serbs who remain
in the province leave their enclaves without fear of attack. So much for Mr.
Walker's concern for our rights.
Finally, Serbian President Boris Tadic and I may sometimes disagree about how
best to defend Serbia's sovereignty and territorial integrity, but we agree
that Kosovo is, and always will be, an integral and inseparable part of our
country. Mr. Walker's attacks on someone who never in any way supported
Milosevic can only be seen as further collective demonization of all Serbs.
VLADIKA ARTEMIJE
Bishop of Ras and Prizren
Gracanica, Kosovo and Metohija
Republic of Serbia
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WALKER: A Separate Take From Serbia:
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/24/a-separate-take-from-serbia/
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