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Local Serbs compare the NATO-led KFOR forces with the fascist occupiers of the past.
Barricades of stones and sand, meant to stop attempts by Kosovan police and NATO and EU forces to take over border crossings with Serbia, are the only weapons the Serbs living in Kosovo have in their arsenal. They reject Kosovo's independence and put up 16 barricades in the north in July to protest over Pristina's increased presence. On Thursday NATO forces in Kosovo have deployed teargas and tanks to clear barriers to a disputed border crossing into Serbia. Overnight German and Austrian KFOR (NATO-led Kosovo Force) troops moved on barricades on the road between the town of Jagnjenica and the border crossing at Brnjak. Local Serbs compare the KFOR forces with the fascist occupiers of the past. Cartoons which are being passed from hand to hand read "We defeated your granddads, we defeated your fathers -- we will win again!" "Why do they think they can come and take our land?" one local man wonders. "Serbia is our home! We don't want to live in Albania!" As one local woman says, local Serbs "have nothing, but a flag and faith in God," against well-armed forces. And some 200 meters away, NATO-KFOR soldiers keep watching. "I would prefer a peaceful solution by talks, by an agreement," says KFOR Commander General Erchard Drews. "But if that is not to be reached, I will have to be on my own. I will have to fall back on my own means. Some of them are behind me." No surprise that the general's "own" means are military ones. Dobrivoje Putnik, a 23-year old Serb, was with his father when he was shot dead just three weeks ago, while visiting an Albanian village in Kosovo's South. Serbs are a minority there, living in tiny enclaves. "I was waiting for him in a car," Putnik said. "I saw him coming out of the Albanian cafeteria. Then I heard two gunshots and my dad fall down. I rushed to him, but I was late. He died immediately, I didn't even say goodbye to him." Dobrivoje was shot too, when his father's killers tried to eliminate the only witness. "I will never return to that place," he said. "They will chase me… I'm worrying about my family and myself."
In a separate incident, just last week, another unarmed Serb, the father of a large family, was killed in a confrontation with a local. Miodrag, together with two his friends, went to see what used to be Serb land, now owned by ethnic Albanians since Serbs fled after NATO's 1999 bombing of former Yugoslavia. They were stopped by the new occupier. "We talked for five minutes," said Dejan Bodicevic, a friend of the killed Serb. "Then [the occupier] said he needed to come back to his car to take his cell phone, but came back instead with a Kalashnikov. 'Do you want your land back?' he shouted and started firing at us. Miodrag was killed at the scene." The men who just lost their friend say there is only one reason he was killed: "That's just because we are Serbs. Period." KFOR troops are still located around 150 meters from the barricades that Serbs set up in the village of Zupče. Eleven years after the end of the major conflict, violence seems to be still part of everyday life for the Kosovo Serbs, there is little sign that is likely to change. Mathaba Editing of Russia Today articles. The Serbian and Libyan people are close friends across the Mediterranean Sea. During the NATO bombing of Serbia and support to the KLA Albanian terrorists, Libya stood in solidarity. In the current NATO Euro-American war against Libya many Serbs gave their lives travelling to Libya to help the Libyan people against the aggressors.  |
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