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• Dall'articolo "The Most Spied Upon People Are In Europe" (Paul Kirby / Dominic Casciani / Emma Jane Kirby / David Willey / Malcolm Brabant / Julian Isherwood, BBC, 28 febbraio 2008):

• Dall'articolo "Il generale Mini: «Il nuovo Stato conviene solo ai clan - Sarà un porto franco per il denaro che arriva dall'Est»" (Francesco Battistini, Corriere della Sera, 16 febbraio 2008):

• Dall'articolo "‘Go with the flow’ on Kosovo" (Elias Hazou, Cyprus Mail, 16 dicembre 2007):

POLITICAL analysts yesterday advised Nicosia that it stood to gain more from a flexible angle on Kosovo, 24 hours after President Tassos Papadopoulos said Cyprus would not accept a unilateral declaration of independence by the breakaway Serbian province.

Speaking after the EU summit in Brussels, Papadopoulos told newsmen that any agreement on Kosovo “must be done with the blessing of the Serbs”, though he acknowledged it still made sense to begin preparations for the EU police mission.
EU leaders declared after a one-day summit that negotiations on Kosovo's future were exhausted, the status quo was untenable and there was a need to move towards a Kosovo settlement. They stopped short of endorsing independence.

Although Cyprus’ reservations are shared by countries such as Spain, Slovakia, the Netherlands and Romania, Nicosia’s stance is widely regarded as being the most hard-line within the 27-nation bloc.

Some EU nations prefer that Kosovo, a province of Serbia inhabited mostly by ethnic Albanians, declare independence after Serbian elections in January.

Kosovo says it will soon declare independence, whether or not there is an agreement with Serbia.

Serbia has insisted on broad autonomy for the province and a continuation of negotiations to explore possibilities to solve the status of Kosovo following the passing of the December 10 deadline of the mediation by the so-called troika – the EU, Russia and the United States.

After several rounds of talks, the two parties failed to find a solution before the time limit.

Conventional wisdom has it that Kosovo is another TRNC, a part of Serbia over which the recognised central government has no control, lost in the aftermath of a war, overwhelmingly populated by a minority ethnic group that claimed persecution at the hands of the majority.

What would that mean for Cyprus? Many feel it would underline the fundamental truth of international politics that ultimately political interest reigns supreme, that realpolitik drives international law, and not the other way round. It would underline that recognised sovereignty can be unrecognised at the stroke of a pen, if that is what the great powers want to do.

But there’s always the flipside to an argument. Commentators speaking to the Mail said these fears might be exaggerated and even misguided.

“I think Nicosia should chill out and stop worrying about Kosovo setting a precedent,” said Tim Potier, Associate Professor of International Law at Nicosia University.

“There’s a notion – flawed in my opinion – that if Cyprus had given the nod to Kosovo, the other EU governments would have turned around and said ‘aha! Now we can do the same for the TRNC.’ No, it doesn’t work like that.”

It is every nation’s prerogative to recognise another country and establish diplomatic relations with it, he added.

In this sense, Nicosia could have voiced its opposition and reservations to a Kosovo UDI, reiterating that any development there should have no bearing on Cyprus – and left it at that.

“Instead, what Cyprus has done is block a common decision by the EU Council, swimming against the tide. There’s no doubt that the United States and some EU countries will proceed with recognition [of Kosovo]. It’s a done deal. They don’t give a damn about Russian objections.

“It seems Nicosia hasn’t yet realised that, when you are a small country part of a large union, you need to adjust your policy. You can’t afford to be antagonistic all the time. There comes a time when you need to go with the flow… that concept hasn’t quite sunk in,” said Potier.

“Good foreign policy is about securing your own interests. Stop worrying about the others and worry about yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you.”
More than that, a softer attitude would have “definitely” earned Cyprus brownie points within the EU, he said.

But what are the implications of a Kosovo secession for Cyprus, if any?

“In my view, it does not set a precedent. For 30 years now, the international community has been committed to reunification of the island, and that’s not about to change, at least not in the foreseeable future. Granted, theoretically speaking foreign countries might recognise northern Cyprus any moment. But they don’t ‘need’ Kosovo to do that,” said Potier.

At any rate, the two cases differ vastly, a former diplomat added.

Kosovo maintained a significant degree of autonomy until 1989, when the Milosevic regime moved to exercise greater central control over the province. Additionally, 90 per cent of Kosovo’s populations are Albanians, the source pointed out.

“By linking the two, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. No one else is drawing parallels between Cyprus and Kosovo, so why are we bringing it up? Kosovo might set a precedent only if we keep harping on about this.

“The media here has whipped up frenzy about the dangers of Kosovo, and I think this has affected the government’s handling of the issue.”

Moreover, Cyprus had to play it smart in the diplomatic arena.

“When the game’s up, you never, never stay on our own. In the end, Serbia itself will be forced to recognise Kosovo, and the Russians will fall in line as well. So our alliance with Russia now may have its uses, but that can only take you so far.”

• Dall'articolo "Kosovo in the 1980s: Murders, Rapes, and Expulsions" (Carl Savich, Serbianna, 27 luglio 2007):

  I. Introduction: Ethnically Pure “Kosova”
                  To understand the Kosovo separatist conflict of 1998-1999, the
                  background must be analyzed and examined. Did the Kosovo
                  conflict emerge sui generis? What was the context and
                  background of the conflict? To understand that, the decade
                  before must be analyzed, the 1980s. Kosovo in the 1980s is
                  where the conflict arose.
                  From 1981 to 1989, 20,000 Kosovo Serbs are estimated to have
                  fled from Kosovo. There was a massive campaign to drive out
                  the Kosovo Serb population through ethnic murders, rapes,
                  attacks, beatings, desecrations of churches, cemeteries. From
                  1982 to 1984, 10 rapes were committed, while 11 attempted
                  rapes were committed against Serbian women by Albanian men. In
                  this period, 286 crimes were committed against Kosovo Serbs,
                  while 1,249 misdemeanors were committed against Kosovo Serbs.
                  A Kosovo Albanian Muslim leader, Fadil Hoxha, incited Kosovo
                  Albanians to rape Kosovo Serb women. Kosovo Albanian Muslims
                  engaged in a systematic and planned policy or campaign to
                  expel Kosovo Serb Christians from Kosovo.  This ethnically and
                  religious motivated campaign of genocide against Kosovo Serbs
                  has been largely suppressed and censored in the US and the
                  West. Through the infowar technique of “emphasis”, these human
                  rights abuses have been de-emphasized and buried and spin
                  doctored away.
                  A systematic and planned campaign of ethnic and religious
                  terror whose goal was genocide has been erased and deleted
                  from the historical record. How was this done? What really
                  happened in Kosovo during the 1980s that set the stage for the
                  Kosovo conflict of 1998-1999? Do we know? Can we know?

II. Arson or Accident?: Pec Patriarchate Burned
                  On March 16, 1981, the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchate was
                  burned in Pec in Kosovo-Metohija. The fire had started on
                  Sunday. Was it arson or an accident? Could a candle have
                  started the blaze? Was the attack ethnically and religiously
                  motivated, a hate crime meant to terrorize the Serbian
                  Orthodox population and to drive them out of Kosovo?
                  Why is it important? The Pec Patriarchate had been the seat of
                  the Serbian Orthodox Church from the 13th century to the
                  abolition of the Pec Patriarchate in 1766. The Pec
                  Patriarchate was regarded as the spiritual center of the
                  Serbian Orthodox and had been the seat of the Serbian
                  Patriarchs since 1346.
                  The fire burned large areas of the monastery complex, a series
                  of structures. It was started simultaneously in two separate
                  locations. The konak, or residential living quarters, and
                  religious artifacts were destroyed. The fire destroyed the
                  winter church of the monastery complex.
                  In the period between 1960 and 1981, the Albanian separatists
                  plundered and destroyed the Serbian monasteries of Devic and
                  at Decani. Christian churches were targeted by Albanian Muslim
                  separatists to destroy evidence of the Serbian cultural and
                  religious presence in Kosovo.
                  Andras J. Riedlmayer, the director of the Documentation Center
                  of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard's
                  Fine Arts Library, stated in his 2002 testimony at the Hague
                  that he had heard of the 1981attack on the Pec Patriarchate
                  but dismissed it as an accident: “That period was not part of
                  our study, but yes, I've heard reports of that. I've also read
                  that police at the time claimed that it---the fire at the
                  konak---was accidental.”
                  The New York Times reported on the burning of the Pec
                  Patriarchate in the story “Sacred Serbian Site Damaged by
                  Blaze” by Marvine Howe: “Before daybreak on March 16, the Patriarchate of Pec, which
                  had survived invasion and occupation by the Ottoman Turks, was
                  heavily damaged by fire. A whole wing of the complex was
                  demolished, including the living quarters of the Patriarch,
                  the nun's refectory, a sick ward, a workshop …”
                  No one has ever been arrested or charged for the attack. No
                  independent investigation has ever been conducted. The konak
                  was rebuilt on October 16, 1983. The causes for the fire
                  remain unknown. It becomes an epistemological game. Some
                  “claim” or “allege” arson while Albanians “claim” an accident.
                  What is the real story? It all depends on whom you ask. The
                  answer is a function of self-interested motivations and
                  concerns. Was it “arson” or was it an “accident”? Serbian
                  sources “claim” it was purposely set on fire by Albanian
                  Muslims in a terrorist attack to drive out the Kosovo Serb
                  population. Albanian sources and their supporters in the US
                  “claim” that it was an “accident”.

III. “We Want a Unified Albania”: The 1981 Riots
                  On April 3-4, 1981, ethnic Albanian demonstrations in Kosovo
                  turned into an armed rebellion to create a Greater Albania.
                  The demonstrations were motivated by separatism and secession.
                  The rioters wanted union with Albania and expressed support
                  for Albanian Communist dictator Enver Hoxha. The slogans the
                  Albanians displayed during the riots were: “We are Albanians
                  and not Yugoslavs”, “We are the children of Skanderbeg and the
                  army of Enver Hoxha”, “We Want a Unified Albania”, and
                  “Kosovo-Republic”. This is what the Yugoslav media reported.
                  In the US and Western media accounts, the Albanian majority
                  was supposedly seeking greater rights and freedoms. The
                  ultra-nationalist placards were dismissed and spin-doctored or
                  “air brushed” out of the picture.
                  There was never any secret what the objective was. Beginning
                  with the demonstrations in 1968, Kosovo Albanians wanted the
                  right to secede from Yugoslavia. They wanted to create an
                  ethnically pure “Kosovo”, an ethnic Albanian statelet. In a
                  Radio Free Europe report from December 3, 1969, this creeping
                  secessionism was noted in the article “Cooperation between
                  Tirana University and the new University of Prishtina”: “With the establishment of the new University of Prishtina, the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo has chalked up
                  another success in its quest for complete national equality.
                  The founding of the university has been hailed in the province
                  as a very important step for the future development of Kosovo.
                  At the same time, Prishtina has announced that a substantial
                  quantity of educational materials needed by the new university
                  will be imported from Albania. Rilindja reports the signing of
                  a 200 million dinar contract in Tirana for the supply of
                  Albanian textbooks and other educational aids to Kosovo during
                  1970. This cooperation between Prishtina and Tirana could have
                  a favorable effect on the development of relations between the
                  two neighboring countries. In its quest for equality within
                  the Yugoslav Federation, the predominantly-Albanian Autonomous
                  Province of Kosovo has taken a new and important step with the
                  founding of the University of Prishtina. This momentous event
                  in the history of the province, an event which will have
                  significant consequences for the future of the nationalities
                  of Kosovo, took place on 19 November and was timed to coincide
                  with the 25th Anniversary of ‘liberation’ of the provincial
                  capital.”
                  The greater autonomy that was granted to Kosovo only resulted
                  in greater aspirations for full independence from Serbia and
                  Yugoslavia. The Communist Yugoslav regime created an
                  atmosphere of rising expectations in Kosovo. The more the
                  Serbs gave, the more the Albanians wanted, the more the
                  Albanians took. It was an absurd and paradoxical cycle that
                  was predictably going to lead to disaster.
                  The “Albanianization” of Kosovo continued during the 1970s and
                  1980s as ethnic Albanians took control over the political,
                  economic, educational, and cultural aspects of Kosovo. From
                  1971 to 1981, Albania sent to Kosovo 240 university teachers,
                  together with textbooks written in the Albanian or Shqip
                  language. Albanians had the right to their own Assembly, to
                  their own Executive Council, to their Presidency, to their own
                  Supreme Court, to their own Constitutional Court, to their
                  Ministry of the Interior, and their own University in
                  Pristina. The “Albanianization” of the Kosovo police began
                  after 1966.
                  Granting Kosovo greater autonomy only whetted the Albanian
                  appetite to go for it all and create a Greater Albania, a
                  “Kosova” statelet or “Republic”. The 1981 riots proved this
                  and made it abundantly clear to all. As a result, Albanian
                  Communist Party leader in Kosovo Mahmut Bakali resigned.
                  How were these Albanian ultra-nationalist disturbances and
                  separatist riots explained in the US and the West? Eric Bourne
                  dismissed the crisis in a Christian Science Monitor article of
                  May 7, 1981. He described Kosovo-Metohija as a “onetime Serb
                  colony” and “the problem child” of Communist Yugoslavia but
                  conceded that it was Albanian “extremist nationalist riots”
                  that had sparked the violence and that the “latest unrest
                  repeated the demand that Kosovo be made a republic and
                  incorporate Albanian populations in the neighboring republics
                  of Macedonia and Montenegro.” The objective was a Greater
                  Albania although Bourne was careful not to admit that. Bourne
                  asked: “Since 1974, Kosovo has had autonomy in all domestic
                  affairs. Why not then republican status? It seems a simple
                  enough solution.” The only problem with it is that the next
                  step is secession and an independent Albanian state of
                  “Kosova”. How do you solve the illegal immigration problem in
                  California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas? It is “simple
                  enough.” Give those states back to Mexico. Bourne’s solution
                  is no solution at all, just mindless drivel. Bourne gives us a
                  clear picture of what the US stance on this issue was in 1981.
                  Bourne reports what the US government wants him to report.
                  Bourne and other US and Western journalists were not
                  interested in the plight of the Serbian Orthodox “minority” in
                  Kosovo. Not one whit. The US media did not get to experience
                  the systematic terror campaign organized by Albanian
                  separatists. The Serbian Orthodox Abbes Hilaria in the
                  Monastery of the Holy Trinity near Musutiste had to keep a
                  rifle to protect herself from separatist Albanian attacks to
                  drive her out of Kosovo. The Albanian dominated police refused
                  to provide protection from criminal attacks and looting
                  directed at the monastery. She had to use a hunting rifle and
                  to fire warning shots in the air to deter the attacks on the
                  convent, Albanians blinded her cattle. She was photographed
                  showing reporters her blinded cattle. The objective was to
                  terrorize Kosovo Serb Christians to drive them out of Kosovo,
                  The series of ethnically motivated murders began with the
                  murder of Danilo Milincic from the Kosovo village of
                  Samodreza, near Vucitrn, on June 2, 1981. In 1941, when Adolf
                  Hitler annexed Kosovo to Albania and created a Greater
                  Albania, illegal settlers or “immigrants” came from Albania
                  and forced the Milincic family out of Samodreza. In 1960, the
                  father of Danilo, Slavoljub Milincic, was killed on his own
                  property in Samodreza. He was killed by a gun shot. The
                  murderer has never been apprehended. In 1982, his son, Danilo
                  Milincic, was violently killed by an “immigrant” or settler
                  from Albania, Ferat Mujo. Mujo killed Milincic in front of his
                  own house. This was an ethnically motivated murder to drive
                  out Christian Kosovo Serbs. The second ethnically motivated murder was of Kosovo Serb
                  Miodrag Saric on July 3, 1982 in the village of Mece near
                  Djakovica, 40 miles southwest of Pristina. Saric was a
                  43-year-old Kosovo Serb, who was shot and killed by an
                  Albanian neighbor, Ded Krasnici. The official Yugoslav press
                  agency Tanjug reported on the murder. It was the second
                  ethnically motivated murder of a Serb by an Albanian in Kosovo
                  in 1982. The dispute reportedly began with a dispute over
                  damage done to a field belonging to the Saric family. The
                  Saric family had been threatened and coerced to leave Kosovo
                  by Albanians. Saric was murdered because he would not leave
                  his home in Kosovo. This was an ethnically motivated crime to
                  drive out Kosovo Serbs and to create an ethnically pure
                  “Kosova”.
                  On April 16, 1982, 21 Serbian priests and monks addressed an
                  appeal to the Yugoslav government that focused on the human
                  rights violations against Kosovo Serbs in Kosovo:
                  “It may be said without exaggeration that systematic genocide
                  is gradually being perpetrated against the Serbian people in
                  Kosovo! Because, if this were not the case, what do the theses
                  about an 'ethnically clean Kosovo' mean which, regardless of
                  everything, is being implemented without interruption? Or what
                  do the words, often repeated in villages and hamlets,
                  monasteries and churches and even in towns mean: 'What are you
                  waiting for? Move away, this is ours!'"
                  Albanian separatists had targeted Serbian Orthodox Churches
                  even after the end of World War II. In March, 1952, the
                  Serbian Orthodox Church in the village of Duganjevo near
                  Urosevac was destroyed. In 1949, the Serbian Orthodox Memorial
                  Church in Djakovica was dynamited and blown up on a major
                  Serbian Orthodox Christian holiday, St. Sava's Day. According
                  to the report by the delegation of priests: “Various Albanian
                  facilities were erected on the foundations of Serbian churches
                  and cultural monuments if they were not completely destroyed."

IV. “[F]ound …with a broken bottle up his anus”: Sodomy or
                  Homosexual Accident?
                  One of the most inflammatory and disgusting incidents against
                  Kosovo Serbs occurred in 1985. Djorde Martinovic became a
                  symbol of the human rights abuses committed against Kosovo
                  Serbs. He became a “martyr” for Kosovo Serb Christians. In a
                  painting by Miodrag Popovic, 1 Maj. 1985, Martinovic was shown
                  being crucified like Jesus Christ by Albanian Muslim
                  separatists. His case became symbolic of a perceived sense of
                  Serbian Christian “martyrdom” in Kosovo. Wouldn’t you be
                  outraged and angry if someone shoved a bottle up the ass of an
                  American? In other words, this horrific attack came to
                  symbolize Serbian grievances and a sense of victimization in
                  Kosovo. For this reason, the story needed to be quashed. It
                  had to be made to appear like it was all made up. Fearing a
                  backlash, the Yugoslav government and the US and the Western
                  media colluded in manipulating and censoring and falsifying
                  the incident. What followed was a massive cover-up by the
                  Communist Yugoslav government. On May 4, 1985, the Martinovic case appeared in the Yugoslav Communist political publication "Politika". The headline read:
                  "A civilian employee of the JNA in Gnjilane, Djordje
                  Martinovic, attacked and injured on a stake on May 1 on his
                  own land Jaruga, two kilometers from Gnjilane. This crime was
                  committed by Albanian terrorists".
                  What happened in the Martinovic case?  It all depends on who
                  tells it. This is one version or “narrative” of the
                  “storytelling”. Djordje Martinovic was ambushed by several
                  Albanians who attacked him while he was working in the field
                  on his own private property. He was placed on a stake or
                  spike. He was then sodomized with a bottle, impaled with a
                  bottle. The Albanian attackers forced the bottle in his anus.
                  Martinovic managed to run to a nearby road where he was able
                  to flag someone down. He was taken to the hospital in Pristina
                  where he received emergency surgery. His injuries were
                  serious.
                  This is where the plot thickens. He was then visited by Novak
                  Ivanovic, an official from the civil branch of the Yugoslav
                  Army, the JNA. Ivanovic then told him that he had not been
                  sodomized by ethnic Albanian Muslims in an ethnically and
                  religiously motivated hate crime. This is only what appeared
                  to be the case on the surface. He told Martinovic that he was
                  a homosexual and that he had inflicted the injury on himself.
                  It was a self-inflicted injury. The bottle was a dildo
                  Martinovic used in homo-erotic self-gratification. Once the
                  exercise in homosexual auto-eroticism went awry, Martinovic
                  decided to blame the Albanian separatists. That was quite a
                  story.
                  After a year passed, Novak Ivanovic gave an interview in the
                  publication "Intervju" admitting that the whole homosexual
                  “explanation” was concocted and fabricated on the orders of a
                  General of the Yugoslav Army or JNA. The homosexual angle was
                  a hoax. This is the part of the story that never seemed to
                  reach the US and Western media. The US media stuck with the
                  discredited homosexual angle because it could be true even
                  though shown to be false.
                  Martinovic obtained the signatures of five doctors in Pristina
                  that attested to the fact that such an injury could not be
                  self-inflicted. He was operated on by British surgeon Peter
                  Holly twice in London who also confirmed that a self-inflicted
                  injury was not possible. A Slovenian doctor in Yugoslavia, in
                  an effort to buttress the Communist regime, however, had
                  argued that a self-inflicted injury was possible. This injury
                  became politically charged. The Communist regime did not want
                  to acknowledge that a Kosovo Serb, a Serbian Christian, was
                  sodomized in an ethnically and religiously motivated hate
                  crime. To do so would only strengthen Serbian “nationalists”
                  within Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav Communist regime then
                  falsified the evidence and the facts, indeed, made up its own
                  “reality”. This was all done in the name of preserving
                  Yugoslavia and in covering up any Serbian grievances.
                  We would call this “reality control” today, PR and spin. We
                  are no strangers to “reality control” in the US and the West.
                  This perhaps best explains why these outlandish and outrageous
                  lies and fabrications were accepted in the US and the in the
                  West as etched-in-stone facts and as truths. Who would believe
                  Djordje Martinovic anyway? He is a Serb. He is a Christian.
                  And he is a homosexual too. Or is he?
                  Yugoslav interior minister Stane Dolanc, who was from
                  Slovenia, made the “official” conclusions on Television
                  Ljubljana in 1987: “The Djordje Martinovic case is over. My
                  police have shown that the injury was self-inflicted and there
                  is no legal recourse. Djordje is the first Serbian Samurai who
                  has committed on himself hara-kiri." Preposterous? Outrageous
                  nonsense? Not so to the US and Western media. It could happen? In the May 22, 2004 article “Chronicle of an enduring enmity” in the Guardian Unlimited, Nicholas Lezard recalled the
                  Djordje Martinovic tragedy in the context of the broader
                  conflict between Christianity and Islam. Lezard reviewed the
                  book Infidels by Andrew Wheatcroft, which analyzed centuries
                  of confrontation and conflict between Christendom and Islam.
                  Lezard queried: “How could we have imagined this conflict
                  could ever have gone away?” Lezard then wrote about the
                  Martinovic sodomy in the context of Christian-Muslim
                  relations:
                  “When the Serb Djordje Martinovic claimed in 1985 that two
                  Albanians had shoved a bottle up his bum, some newspapers
                  pointedly referred to the old Ottoman punishment of
                  impalement, even though it was possible Martinovic had
                  performed the deed himself for private reasons.”
                  He could also have been the victim of an alien abduction.
                  Lezard played the spin game too. Anything is possible,
                  especially when you want to engage in a bit of “reality
                  control” and spin. The key to the game is to create ambiguity
                  and uncertainty. Then the game is won. It becomes a farce of
                  he said/she said. Facts are suspended and meaning is deferred.
                  Ultimately, we get to decide the facts for ourselves. We
                  create our own “reality”. That is where all the fun is.
                  Ignorance is, indeed, bliss. Who needs reality when we can
                  manufacture and create our own reality? This is the key in
                  understanding the Kosovo conflict.
                  In 1990, a court in Belgrade found the Yugoslav government
                  liable and that Martinovic be awarded 100,000 Marks in
                  damages. He never received that award. The court did, however,
                  exonerate Martinovic. But no one noticed. Or cared.
                  Djordje Martinovic died on September 6, 2000 in Citluk near
                  Krusevac. His wife was Jagodinka. He had three sons, Srecko,
                  Dragan and Gradimir, and one daughter, Olga.

V. Rape as an Instrument of Terror
                  Albanian separatists in Kosovo used rape, sexual assault,
                  against men and women in Kosovo. From 1982 to 1984 alone, 10
                  rapes against Kosovo Serb women committed by Albanian Muslim
                  men were reported by the police in Kosovo. There were 11
                  attempted rapes against Kosovo Serb women by Albanian Muslims. In 1983, Kosovo Serb farmer Stojan Peric was photographed carrying his 9 year-old daughter in his arms from a cornfield
                  in Zitinje near Vitina, Kosovo where she was reportedly raped
                  and sexually assaulted by Kosovo Muslim separatists. Do
                  pictures speak a thousand words? Is seeing believing? The
                  camera does not lie? Or does it? An image can mean many
                  different things to different people. It is the viewer that
                  imparts meaning to a photograph or an image. In other words,
                  meaning can be suspended and deferred. I see what I want to
                  see, or what the media or “experts” or US State Department
                  hack tell me to see.
                  Was there a planned, systematic, and organized policy of rape
                  as an instrument of terror in Kosovo? David Binder reported in
                  The New York Times on November 1, 1987 that Fadil Hoxha, the
                  political leader of Kosovo Albanians, had advocated that
                  Kosovo Serb women be raped by Albanian Muslims. He was
                  inciting rape against Christian women by Albanian Muslim men
                  to create an ethnically pure Muslim “Kosova”. Can it get any
                  more outrageous than that? How was this incitement of rape and
                  genocide spun in the West? The spin doctors in the West
                  concluded that Hoxha had “joked” at an official dinner in
                  Prizren that Kosovo Serb women should be systematically raped.
                  Can you “joke” about rape and genocide?
                  Who was Fadil Hoxha? He was one of the most prominent
                  “Kosovar” Muslim political leaders in Kosovo during the
                  Communist period. He had served as the president of the
                  Assembly of the Kosovo Autonomous Province for two terms,
                  first from July 11, 1945 to February 29, 1953, then a second
                  term from June 24, 1967 to May 7, 1969.  In 1967 he was
                  appointed to the Yugoslav Communist Party Presidium. In 1974
                  he became a member of the Federal Presidency of Yugoslavia.
                  During 1978-79 he held the rotating position of president of
                  the Federal Presidency. He was regarded as a “father-figure”
                  for the Albanian Muslim separatists and secessionists.
                  How do you explain the incitement to rape and genocide by a
                  top Albanian Muslim leader in Kosovo?

VI. Desecration of Christian Graves and Cemeteries
                  One of the most horrific human rights abuses against Kosovo
                  Serb Christians was never even covered by the US or Western
                  media. This was a crime committed by Albanian Muslim
                  separatists against Kosovo Serbs.
                  On September 27, 1988, five Albanian Muslim “Kosovars” dug up
                  the bodies of two Kosovo Serb infants, Radojko and Dragica
                  Petrovic. They were twins who had died at birth. The Albanian
                  Muslims then scattered the remains of the bodies all over the
                  grave in the Orthodox Christian cemetery in Grace near
                  Vucitrn. This attack occurred on an Orthodox Christian holy
                  day, the Day of the Glorification of the Holy Cross. This was
                  a horrific ethnically and religiously motivated hate crime
                  committed by Albanian Muslims against Serbian Christians. This
                  crime was well-documented and substantiated by the police.
                  Needless to say, it was virtually censored in the US and
                  Western media. How do you spin or manipulate such horrendous
                  human rights abuses? When you cannot manipulate or spin the
                  facts, you ignore or dismiss the incident entirely, in toto.
                  That was what the US and Western media did in this instance. Albanians systematically destroyed and desecrated Orthodox Christian cemeteries from 1981 to 1989. Gravestones and
                  monuments of Orthodox Serbs in the Srbica cemetery were
                  attacked in the summer of 1985. On July 18, 1984, Serbian
                  gravestones in Slakovce, near Samodreza, were destroyed,
                  desecrated, and vandalized. On October 8, 1985, in Begov
                  Lukavac, the Serbian Orthodox cemetery was burned. There was
                  photographic evidence of these ethnically and religiously
                  motivated human rights violations and hate crimes.
                  Nevertheless, in the US and the West, these human rights
                  violations were censored, dismissed, and spun away as “claims”
                  and “assertions”. None of the human rights groups in the US or
                  the West paid any attention. The “international community”
                  turned a blind eye.
                  Kosovo Serb Dmitrije Petkovic, who lived in a village near
                  Pristina, was a target of these attacks. He explained in a
                  December 4, 1984 Ilustrovana Politika interview: "It is clear
                  that this is the work of Albanian irredentist to force us to
                  leave Kosovo, but I, my wife Krstana, my four sons and two
                  daughters are determined to stay on our land. No one will
                  chase us away..."
                  The attacks against Serbian churches, cemeteries, gravestones,
                  and monuments were not random and arbitrary and accidental. It
                  was all part of a systematic, planned, and organized campaign
                  to drive Kosovo Serbian Christians out of Kosovo. The
                  implications were obvious. And yet the US and Western media
                  and pundits, the “international community”, missed it even
                  though it was right under their very noses. How do you miss
                  such egregious human rights violations that amount to
                  genocide? Is it possible? We have to ask: Who controls what we think and what we know
                  about Kosovo? When do “claims” and “assertions” become “facts”
                  and “true”. How does this process or procedure work? The
                  answer is the US State Department, that is, the US Government.
                  The media just parrots and mimics what they are told by their
                  betters and experts at the US State Department. The media
                  reports what the government tells them to report. To fully
                  grasp the Kosovo conflict, however, an epistemological
                  analysis is needed.

VII. Epistemological Analysis: Who do you believe?
                  Who is telling the truth? Who do you believe? What is the
                  “truth” here? What are the “facts”? The Kosovo conflict is a
                  classic case where epistemology is part of the issue. In other
                  words, we never know what the facts are. We never know what
                  the “reality” is. He said this and that. He claimed and
                  alleged this and that. Some assert and maintain the following
                  “facts”. According to this or that source, these are the
                  contradictory “facts”. It is like an insane asylum. We are in
                  a madhouse with a series of unending mirrors like in Orson
                  Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai (1947). Which mirror reflects
                  “reality”, “facts”, and the “truth”. We do not know. We cannot
                  know. Images are reflected endlessly and infinitely. Are we
                  losing our minds? Are we going mad? Someone must be playing
                  with our minds. Croat journalist Krsto or Christopher Cviic wrote about the
                  Martinovic sodomy in “A Culture of Humiliation” on June 22,
                  1993 in The National Interest:
                  “I keep returning to an incident from my personal experience
                  that, to me at any rate, symbolizes and encapsulates the
                  attitudes that have led to the present disaster. On May 1,
                  1985, a 59-year-old Serbian farmer by the name of Djordje
                  Martinovic was found in a distressed condition with a broken
                  bottle up his anus in his own province of Serbia, one with a
                  large ethnic Albanian majority. Almost overnight, this elderly
                  man, who supplemented his farm income by working as a
                  storekeeper for the Yugoslav Army in Gnjilane, became the
                  center of a fierce controversy that quickly grew into a cause
                  celebre.
                  According to reports claiming to be based on Mr. Martinovic's
                  own evidence and published in Belgrade, Serbia's capital, Mr.
                  Martinovic had been attacked from behind by a group of masked
                  men speaking Albanian, who then allegedly tied him up and
                  brutalized him. The other version, in Kosovo's
                  Albanian-language press and in the media in some non-Serbian
                  parts of Yugoslavia, was very different. According to that
                  account, Mr. Martinovic was a homosexual who had suffered an
                  accident while in the act of self-gratification and, in order
                  to avoid bringing dishonor on himself and his family in a very
                  old-fashioned society, decided to invent the alleged attack.”
                  Cviic suspends his judgment and reports the attack as if no
                  explanation can be found for it. It remains a mystery of
                  mysteries? An enigma inside a conundrum? Cviic engages in all
                  the journalistic tricks of manipulation and “reality control”
                  and spin. For instance, he uses the passive tense in
                  describing the attack against Martinovic, who is “found with a
                  broken bottle up his anus”. This is a passive construction
                  implying no active agency. He just woke up one day and found a
                  bottle up his ass. A body was found not breathing. A corpse
                  was found dead. Cviic is playing the journalist game. He knows
                  consciously that it is a cynical game because he discusses it
                  himself:
                  “I arrived in Kosovo shortly thereafter while researching a
                  story on the national question in Yugoslavia for The Economist
                  and was one of the first Western correspondents to write about
                  ‘the Martinovic affair.’ The atmosphere I found there reminded
                  me of Kurosawa's famous film "Rashomon" I had seen while still
                  living in Yugoslavia in the early 1950s, in which a single
                  violent incident is told in several completely different
                  versions. I wanted to talk to Mr. Martinovic but could not: he
                  had been taken out of the hands of the Kosovo authorities,
                  whisked off to the Yugoslav Army's Medical Academy in Belgrade
                  and kept incommunicado there pending further clinical and
                  psychiatric investigations. Meanwhile ethnic Albanian officials in Pristina, Kosovo's
                  capital, kept assuring me that the story of the attack was a
                  complete fabrication and even provided me with graphic
                  clinical details of the incident as recorded by the local
                  Albanian doctors (including the exact size of the bottle).
                  They argued that the Martinovic case was being exploited
                  politically by the Serbian leaders in Belgrade as another
                  argument in their campaign for the abolition of Kosovo's
                  autonomy and its re-annexation by Serbia, on the grounds that
                  this was the only way of protecting the local Serbs (by then
                  10 percent of the total population) from Albanian ‘terror.’ On
                  the other hand, local Kosovo Serbs I talked to claimed to
                  believe the attack version implicitly and interpreted the
                  incident as another instance of the systematic Albanian
                  campaign aimed at forcing the Kosovo Serbs to emigrate,
                  leaving it to the Albanians. In Belgrade, meanwhile, the
                  Kosovo farmer had become a hero to Serbian opinion as a martyr
                  in the national cause. A famous Serbian painter not long
                  afterwards made Mr. Martinovic the central figure of a
                  crucifixion scene in a painting which, I was told, now adorns
                  one of the rooms in the building of the Serbian Academy of
                  Sciences in Belgrade.
                  Four years after this bizarre and gruesome incident, in June
                  1989, Serbia re-annexed Kosovo, thus regaining full control
                  over its police and judiciary. Intriguingly, the Martinovic
                  file remained closed. The new Serbian authorities have so far
                  failed--to my knowledge anyway--to do what they might have
                  been expected to do in such a highly publicized case. They
                  have not reopened the investigation with a view to catching
                  the alleged perpetrators, bringing them to justice and
                  vindicating the old man's honor. This suggests that the attack
                  theory might after all have been an anti-Albanian fabrication,
                  as the local Albanians had claimed from the start. But,
                  whatever the true facts of the case, they do not seem to
                  matter any more--at least not to the present generation of
                  Serbs. The martyrdom of Djordje Martinovic, in the highly
                  stylized form of the crucifixion in the Academy of Sciences
                  picture, has become part of the Serbs' vision of themselves as
                  perpetual victims of cruel historical circumstances--an idea
                  born in Kosovo more than 600 years ago.
                  It was in Kosovo Polje (the Field of Blackbirds), not far from
                  where Djordje Martinovic suffered his mysterious
                  humiliation….”
                  Cviic uses ironic quotes or quotation marks when he uses the
                  term Albanian “terror”. This is an obvious ploy that
                  de-legitimizes the Serbian “claims”. Having a bottle shoved up
                  your anus is not “terror” when you cannot prove it. The game
                  here is pretty clever. We are in awe. It does get rather silly
                  after a while once you figure out what is going on. Is there
                  any reason we should suspect bias and self-interest here? Who
                  is Cviic? He is a Croatian Roman Catholic. During World War II
                  Croatian ultra-nationalists have been “accused” or alleged” to
                  have murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbian Orthodox
                  Christians. Cviic may be biased?
                  The absurdity of the Cviic “narrative” is that he tells you
                  that you cannot believe anyone but then expects you to believe
                  him. I would never lie to you. But those other people may.
                  This begs the obvious question: Why should I believe you? The
                  approach is paradoxical and contradictory. We don’t know who
                  to believe. And, of course, that is all part of the game.
                  Julie Mertus takes this outlandish approach in Kosovo: How
                  Myths and Truths Started a War. Her “analysis” is so laughable
                  and biased that one does not even need to read the book. Here
                  is how the story ends: Everything the Serbs “claim” is merely
                  “myth”; conversely, everything Albanians claim are “truths”.
                  This is simplicity itself. Why didn’t I think of that? No,
                  this is not a joke. This is supposed to be highfalutin
                  historical scholarship and research. This is the best and the
                  brightest at work. This is what they teach you in American
                  universities and colleges.
                  Mertus would interview Albanian sources and their statements
                  would be used as “truths” and as “facts” while Serbian
                  statements would be dismissed as “claims”, “allegations”, and
                  “assertions”. How are we supposed to believe what Albanian
                  Muslims say? Don’t they have a stake in a Greater Albania or
                  independent “Kosova”? Don’t they get all the Serbian property
                  for free? Don’t the Albanian Muslims get to create a second
                  Muslim Albania statelet? Why are they not biased and
                  self-interested? Julie Mertus assumes her readers are too
                  stupid to figure it out. It ain’t rocket science.
                  The “analyses” by Mertus, however, are what we have for the
                  history of Kosovo in the 1980s. This is what the “history”
                  will be for Kosovo. This mindless drivel is what will be
                  accepted as the true and accurate account of Kosovo. This is
                  more than a question of spin or bias. This is an issue of
                  humanism. Are we that brain dead that we cannot tell when our
                  minds are manipulated and screwed with?
                  In the preface to her book, Mertus admits that she is
                  advocating the Albanian Muslim side in the conflict, but
                  without actually saying it. What a big surprise. But is this
                  what a “scholar” and an “expert” should be doing? In the guise
                  of objectivity and analysis, she is totally biased and offers
                  propaganda instead of analysis. The book is totally
                  nonsensical and one-sided and prevents any understanding of
                  what occurred in Kosovo during the 1980s.
                  Kosovo in the 1980s is essentially an epistemological issue.
                  We never know what really happened. We suspend judgment and
                  defer meaning. The approach that the US media used can be
                  compared to the multiple viewpoints or perspectives approach
                  of narration or “narrative” in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane
                  (1941), a technique later “borrowed” by Akira Kurosawa in
                  Rashomon (1950).
                  We never know who Charles Foster Kane was. We get
                  contradictory appraisals of the man and his career. Who was
                  Citizen Kane? After his death, there were conflicting and
                  contradictory accounts.
                  Some “claimed” Kane was a fascist: The Chicago Globe called
                  Kane “U.S. Fascist No. 1”:
                  “DEATH CALLS PUBLISHER CHARLES KANE
                  Policies Swayed World
                  Stormy Career Ends for "U.S. Fascist No. 1"
                  The Minneapolis Record Herald claimed he sponsored democracy:
                  “KANE, SPONSOR OF DEMOCRACY, DIES
                  Publisher Gave Life to Nation's Service during Long Career “
                  In front of a Congressional investigating committee, Walter
                  Parks Thatcher recalled:
                  “Mr. Charles Foster Kane, in every essence of his social
                  beliefs, and by the dangerous manner in which he has
                  persistently attacked the American traditions of private
                  property, initiative, and opportunity for advancement, is in
                  fact, nothing more or less than a Communist!”
                  In New York's Union Square, where a boycott of Kane newspapers
                  is advocated, a speaker declares:
                  “The words of Charles Foster Kane are a menace to every
                  working man in this land. He is today what he has always
                  been---and always will be---a Fascist!”
                  Kane described himself as follows: “I am, have been, and will
                  be only one thing--an American.”
                  Who was Kane? We never find out. The problem is that we do not
                  know which “narrative” to accept as factual or truthful or
                  even accurate. In a multiplicity of viewpoints, who can you
                  believe? Who is telling the truth? Who is pulling your leg? We
                  never find out in Citizen Kane.
                  But do we know what the facts and the truth are in the Kosovo
                  conflict? How do you connect the dots? Who can you believe?

VIII. In the eye of the beholder?
                  We never find out who Charles Foster Kane is or was. Does a
                  sled with the word “Rosebud” explain who or what Kane was? We
                  have multiple viewpoints and perspectives but we don’t know
                  which one to give credence and priority to. There are also
                  differing layers and depths to what we see or perceive. In
                  Edgar Allan Poe’s detective story The Purloined Letter, the
                  purloined letter is in plain sight, right in front of the
                  Parisian police. The police see the letter in plain view. But
                  they also do not see the letter. They see the letter but they
                  ignore it or dismiss it. Their senses tell them that the
                  letter is not what it seems or appears to be. How do we give
                  meaning to our perceptions? Can our perceptions be tricked or
                  deceived? Are we guided by pre-determined assumptions and
                  impulses?
                  Who do we believe? What do you believe? How near or far should
                  we be? How do we figure out who he is, who he really is?
                  Similarly, we never find out what the actual situation in
                  Kosovo is or was. Everyone has their own opinion or
                  assessment. If Serbian sources are cited, they are prefaced
                  with the terms “according to”, “claims”, “alleges”, “asserts”,
                  “reports”. They are usually self-motivated or self-interested
                  allegations which are little more than “myths” and
                  “propaganda” and spurious “claims”. Information from Albanian
                  sources, on the other hand, are facts, etched is stone facts,
                  chiseled in marble and granite “truths”, to be taken at face
                  value truisms and self-evident. Serbian “claims” or “myths”
                  are juxtaposed to Albanian “facts” and “truths”. Serbian myths
                  were juxtaposed against Albanian truths. Whatever the Serbs
                  “claimed” or “reported” or “alleged” or “said” was deemed a
                  myth. Conversely, anything and everything an Albanian Muslim
                  said or wrote was etched-in-stone, chiseled-in-granite, gospel
                  “truth”, a priori true and factual because an Albanian or
                  Shqiptar had uttered them. Laughable? Psychotic and
                  delusional? If it is psychotic and delusional, then this
                  applies to the foremost US “experts” and “scholars” and think
                  tank pundits and “analysts". The key here is to foster ambiguity and uncertainty. The
                  objective is to create a smokescreen or a diversion. Like in
                  Edgar Allan Poe’s The Purloined Letter, C. Auguste Dupin has
                  someone fire a pistol as a diversionary tactic in the street
                  so that he can switch “the purloined letter” unobserved. The
                  diversion in this case is to conceal the policy of ethnic
                  cleansing and genocide being conducted by the ethnic Albanian
                  population and leaders in Kosovo. Without the diversion, the
                  evidence becomes overwhelming that human rights abuses against
                  the Serbia population are cumulative and egregious.
                  There is a suspension of disbelief in the Kosovo crisis. We
                  delude ourselves into believing that we do not understand what
                  is going on. We know perfectly well what is going on. In 1941,
                  after Adolf Hitler created a Greater Albania, Kosovar Albanian
                  Muslim political leader Dzafer Deva from Kosovska Mitrovica
                  declared: "The freedom has come. Yugoslavia is no more. The
                  Greater Albania has been created. Serbs ought to be expelled
                  from the Balkans or killed." The Kosovo crisis was always
                  about separatism and secession.
                  From 1981 to 1989, an estimated 20,000 Kosovo Serbs were
                  driven out from Kosovo. Many were settled in refugee camps in
                  Belgrade. Kaludjerica, near Belgrade, was a town settled by
                  Serbian refugees from Kosovo in the 1980s. Kosovo Serbs were
                  murdered, raped, beaten, attacked, and terrorized to leave
                  their homes and property in Kosovo. Serbian churches,
                  gravestones, cemeteries, and religious and cultural and
                  historical monuments were vandalized, desecrated, and
                  destroyed. Serbian priests and nuns were attacked, beaten, and
                  abused. Why was this systematic, planned, and organized
                  campaign of genocide against the Serbian Orthodox Christian
                  population of Kosovo suppressed and censored in the US and the
                  West?