Serbian commentary urges internationals to fight Kosovo Albanian terrorism

Serbian commentary urges internationals to fight Kosovo Albanian "terrorism"
BBC Monitoring Europe (Political) - September 8, 2005, Thursday

Text of commentary by Milan Mijalkovski, professor at the Belgrade University Faculty of Civil Defence entitled "Violence in Kosmet in UN presence: Terrorism or terror" published by the Serbian newspaper Politika on 6 September

On 13 August, the village of Gorazdevac not far from Pec marked the second anniversary of a terrorist attack on Serb boys and girls on the banks of the Bistrica River, in which Ivan Jankovic (aged 18 years) and Pantelija Dakic (13) were killed, while Dragana Srbljak, Marko Bogicevic, Bogdan Bukumiric, and Djordje Ugrinovic were injured. After two years of investigation (?), the perpetrators of this brutal crime are still unknown.

On 7 August of this year, criminals in the province - which has been under international protection since 20 June 1999 - claimed fresh victims much like those that fell in Gorazdevac in 2003 - Serb youths: Ivan Dejanovic (24) and Aleksandar Stankovic (28) were killed, while Nikola Dukic and Aleksandar Janicijevic were injured outside the Albanian-populated village of Banjica on the Pristina-Strpce arterial road.

In both cases, Albanian terrorists attacked their victims ruthlessly and from a safe distance. Investigators found bullet shells and located the place where the murderers had fired from - and there they stopped. During the period between the two crimes and before them, of course, Serb civilians have constantly been targets of attacks (more than 3,000 have been killed, injured or abducted). Despite this, the perpetrators of these crimes have not been found. This is absurd, since Albanian terrorists are killing off Serbs in the presence of 12,000 policemen (2,000 UNMIK [UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo] policemen and 7,000 local policemen) and 17,500 Kfor [Kosovo Force ] troops. Bearing in mind this absurdity - and the fact that this is political rather than criminal violence - the logical question arises: Do years of attacks on Serb civilians in Kosmet [Kosovo-Metohija] constitute terror (violence with the purpose of hanging on to and consolidating power) or terrorism (violence against authorities)?

The authorities that administer the province are UNMIK, Kfor and the Kosmet [Kosovo-Metohija] government. "The mother of all jobs" for these authorities is to provide safety of person and property for all people and especially for the minority communities. This means taking preventive action against potential perpetrators of acts of political violence and efficacious action for detecting and punishing those who committed crimes. However, it seems that the Kosmet authorities do not care about this. Without going into whether this is the result of incompetence or a lack of willingness to carry out the task in question, they are risking being branded "authorities of terror". It is out of the question that the UN Security Council, on the basis of whose resolution (1244) the mission was emplaced, would tolerate "authorities of terror" under its wing. However, years of hesitation by UN representatives in providing security for the population may be said to be just that. In this context, let us mention the most recent example: the Kfor commander, French General Yves de Kermabon, said in an interview to Politika on 19 August 2005 that "there are no terrorist or armed groups in Kosmet that are being trained and prepared to attack anybody". Just a few short days later (27 August), however, members of an armed group killed two Serb youths and wounded two others.

The escalation of violence in Kosmet may contribute to a transformation of terror into terrorism. There are several thousand Albanians (members of the former OVK [Kosovo Liberation Army - KLA; UCK in Albanian] serving with the Kosovo Protection Corps and the Kosovo Police Service) on the UN payroll, but parallel with this, an illegal terrorist organization is operating - the Front for the National Unification of Albanians - whose mailed fist is the terrorist Albanian National Army (ANA; AKSh in Albanian). Its members are organized in groups on military principles and they gather together, fully armed, on the eve of carrying out terrorist attacks against Serb civilians. They attack from ambush and then pull out safely, returning to their "day jobs". They have a reliable network of helpers and an efficacious intelligence service that keeps one step ahead of the clumsy UNMIK police.

The programme of the National Unification Front, in conformity with the programme of the Al-Qa'idah transnational Islamist terrorist network, describes the UN mission to the province as an occupier that Kosmet should be liberated from. Bearing this in mind, only the uninitiated can be surprised by the present violence, behind which is the ANA. In this connection, let us mention the most recent detail: BBC radio reported in early August this year that the following notices were tucked behind the windshield wipers of UNMIK vehicles in Pristina: "The ANA command is hereby ordering UNMIK, the UNMIK police, and the civilian Albanian structures to leave their jobs as soon as possible; also, Albanians that are receiving information from the Serbian intelligence service should leave our homeland Kosovo."

Obviously, the terrorist ANA is equating the present UN mission with the pre-June 1999 Serbian authority in Kosmet. There is a very real possibility, therefore, that the same organization may start attacking UNMIK, because of the extreme fanaticism of ANA members, who have a well developed infrastructure, armament, an intelligence service, money and the support of individual transnational Islamist terrorist organizations. It is believed, however, that in such circumstances, the UN mission would not hold back, but would start behaving professionally and defend itself against the terrorists and this same efficaciousness would protect all people in Kosovo. There is no doubt that, in such circumstances, it would take steps to ensure its own safety and would do what it should have been doing since it first came to Kosovo-Metohija. In order to preclude such a scenario being carried out by the terrorists, it is necessary to take extensive measures at once to find the perpetrators of the crime committed on 27 August outside Strpce, as well as all other crimes committed before it, of course. Resolution 1244 dictates the need for this kind of dedicated action, while antiterrorist Resolution 1373/01 demands even more strongly a resolute fight against all forms of terrorism, irrespective of the terrorists' motives.

It should be borne in mind that Albanian extremists are motivated in their terrorism by a desire to seize the territories of others and not by any kind of threat to their human or ethnic rights. Violence used against Serb civilians in Kosmet since the deployment of the UN mission, that is, in conditions where nobody is threatening Albanians' rights, bears out this assertion.

It is hard to believe that, if UNMIK and Kfor took antiterrorist action, Albanian extremists would resort to insurgent operations against the United Nations, as that would turn the international community and world opinion against them. It is the eleventh hour, therefore, to put up resistance to this violence, because with any further delay of the implementation of this obligation, the international community risks coming up against still more virulent forms of Albanian terrorism, which will make it that much more difficult to eradicate.

SOURCE: Politika, Belgrade, in Serbian 6 Sep 05 p 6