After the armed conflicts
ended in June 1999, 1,078 people in Kosovo and Metohija were either missing or killed. 701 of them were Serbs
and non-Albanians and 377 were Albanians. 4,792 attacks were committed against the lives
and property of Serbs. Approximately 45,000 buildings,
mostly houses and flats, were partially
or completely destroyed. 112 churches and monasteries
of the Serbian Orthodox Church were obliterated
or severely damaged. Due to terror
and fear of retribution, 242,380 people,
mo
stly Serbs and Roma, left Kosovo and Metohija. That was the factual
state of affairs before the events
of March 17th, 2004. The situation
before the March Pogrom was rather favourable
for Serbs in Gnjilane and probably
all over Kosovo and Metohija. For days we felt
that we were safer, more free... We started doing
outdoor work in our gardens, planting new crops
and farming the land... We never thought
things would escalate the way they did in Obilic
and in Kosovo in general. Nobody could have fo
reseen the changes that were taking place and that March 17th would be,
and I say this with confidence, the hardest moment
for the Serbian people living in the territory
of Kosovo and Metohija. THE KOSOVO FILE
POGROM Caglavica,
a village near Pristina, was mostly populated
by Serbs in 2004. Most of them remained
in their homes after the conflicts ended in 1999. They lived in isolation, primarily relying on the nearby
town of Srpska Gracanica, instead of a much larger
city of Pristina. Daily powe
r outages, problems
in obtaining basic provisions, fear of frequent
attacks by Albanians, that was life in this Serbian
enclave closest to Pristina. Then, in the evening
of March 15th, the first incident took place,
evolving in the following days into what changed the history
of Kosovo and Metohija. While I was on my way
from the village to my home in Caglavica, suddenly a red VW Golf 3
came up to me from behind. They rolled the window down
and spoke in Albanian accent, "Hey, kid! Let me
ask you
something." I turned around. They took out
a gun and started shooting. I only saw a silencer.
They shot me. I hit the ground. Then they hit the gas
and drove away. They were Albanians. I could tell. Jovica's classmates held a protest
and blocked the road in Caglavica. Adults quickly joined in. The road from Pristina to Skopje
was blocked in Caglavica, and traffic was
stopped in Gracanica on the main road
from Pristina to Gnjilane. That day, on March 16th,
there were also minor conflicts between
the Serbian protesters,
Albanians and KFOR. This is not the first time
it happened, and I think it's high time that the ones responsible
for such crimes are stopped and that those in charge
of finding them do their job and bring criminals to justice. That day, on March 16th,
Albanians also took to the streets. Associations of Veterans of KLA
protested against the arrests of their members
accused of war crimes. It is estimated that 18,000
protesters were out in the streets in all major Kosovo ci
ties. They repeated that Kosovo was
occupied, just as it once was. They accused UNMIK of enforcing
the same politics as Serbia. Then, in the evening
of March 16th, tragic news came from Mitrovica. Three Albanian boys drowned
in the river Ibar. The Albanian media
swiftly accused the Serbs of the tragic event in the village
of Cabra near Zubin Potok. There was an initial report earlier
that the incident was ethnic. I stress out we don't know that
for sure right now. There was a rumour that Serbian
s
chased them into the river. That is unconfirmed.
I want to stress that fact. Despite the fact that members
of the international community warned to wait for the results
of the investigation, an avalanche of unverified
information could not be stopped. An interview with one
of the three surviving boys was aired that very night. We were by the river when a group of Serbs started
swearing at us from their home. They had a dog. I could recognise them
if I saw them. I know where they live. We tried
to run away,
but we couldn't. We were too close to the river. My nine-year-old brother,
Florim Veseli, was with me. He couldn't swim. I put him on my back,
swam for 15 metres. Then I couldn't swim anymore. In this interview,
the only one he gave, the boy Fetim only said
that Serbs swore at them from a house that was far away. He never said
that the Serbs chased the boys, forcing them into the river. But the media spin was different. All the Albanian media announced
during primetime news that th
e Albanian boys drowned while, allegedly, Serbian bandits
and their dogs chased them. The information came
from Halit Barani, a supposed Albanian human rights
activist from Kosovska Mitrovica. The story came from Halit Barani, which made me doubt it,
because I knew who he was. He was one of the first witnesses at the trial
of Slobodan Milosevic. In his testimony, he mentioned Oliver Ivanovic
in a context that was impossible. He said that Oliver Ivanovic lead
and organised paramilitary units. He
never answered
for his false testimony, whereas Ivanovic spent
three years in prison. Barani spread similar lies
during the armed conflict. This former member of KLA
disseminated a claim, which was never proven, that Serbs burned
Albanians in Trepca. He used a satellite phone
to send news to the Western media that Serbs were transporting
bodies in lorries and that strange smells
were coming from Trepca. Investigators
of The Hague Tribunal never proved Barani's claim. Later he confessed to The Wa
ll
Street Journal reporters, Daniel Perl and Robert Block, that it was only an assumption,
not verified information, but that it was something
to be expected from the Serbs. The U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl,
who uncovered Barani's lies, was brutally killed
several years later by Islamic terrorists
in Pakistan. That night, during a live show
on RTK, Barani told a story that all the media retransmitted
in the following hours. Barani instructed the boys. He was a master of false news. He knew how to
construe false news
and how to recognise the timing when such news would
captivate the masses or the international community. The main emotion when you hear
that kids were murdered, drowned, that amount of information,
that amount of unverified facts that simply flooded
the Albanian media in Kosovo, suggested something
terrible would happen. MARCH 17TH,
MITROVICA, 11:00H It started early in the morning
in the south of Mitrovica. Instead of schools, the teachers
took their pupils to the streets.
They protested over the alleged
murder of three Albanian boys. Other citizens soon joined in. A group of Albanians was
headed across the bridge to reckon with the Serbs living
in the northern part of the city. It started early in the morning, maybe sometime
around 9 or 10 o'clock. They started gathering
at the main bridge across Ibar. Around half past 11,
we heard from younger people that there was an incident and that the Albanians were
trying to cross the bridge. There wasn't that many
of them
at first. Maybe 100 to 200 people. They tried to cross
the Ibar bridge. However, roughly 50 of us
had gathered there. They didn't cross then,
but when they came back later, there were several
thousands of them. There will be carnage.
We have nowhere to go. We're not armed
and they keep firing at us. No consequences,
no response from UNMIK and KFOR. Then the French KFOR came in
and created a buffer area. They started throwing rocks. KFOR didn't let them cross
to the northern part. They even used
tear gas
and stun grenades. Then it all stopped for a while. The crowd from the southern side tried to cross the main
bridge several times, then also the pedestrian bridge
several hundred meters downriver. At a certain point, they managed
to cross that bridge and get to the northern side
next to the buildings we lived in. Then we gathered, as well,
and pushed them back somehow. Then the shooting started. It was chaos. There was
shooting everywhere. We couldn't tell who was shooting or where the
shots came from. It was like proper miniature war. From what I could tell, the shots coming from our side were fired
from the three skyscrapers. Shots also came from the south.
Of course, it wasn't just shots. Both sides threw bombs and most of them
ended up in the river. Both sides threw bombs. People were also throwing stones
on both sides. The Serbian side lost two people
during the Mitrovica riots. 63-year-old Borivoje Spasojevic
was killed in the streets near the residential building
close
to the pedestrian bridge. 36-year-old Jana Tucev was
killed in her home by a bullet. My wife was killed
in our living room, approximately one metre away
from the glass balcony door. She was hit by two bullets. After the autopsy, I found out that those were
dumdum bullets. I only saw they had automatic
weapons, I think AK rifles. I never saw the sniper
or where the bullet came from. The calibre they gave me after extracting it from her body
during autopsy suggested it was a sniper bullet. I'd al
so like to add that roughly
80 people were injured, two of them with severe injuries,
me included. We tried to hold back
as much as we could, but the Albanians kept shooting
so we had to push forward. Then the bomb went off... We managed to push them back
to the other side of the bridge, but then the UNMIK Police came.
They didn't let us do anything. They forced us out, threw tear gas
at them as they kept coming back. They pushed them back
to the other side. Near the three skyscrapers... The rea
l danger was there. If the French soldiers
hadn't protected us, I think there would have
been far more casualties. That day, they were
prepared to kill all of us. Many people were injured
among the Albanians, as well. Four Albanians were killed. According to reports
of international organisations, one of the them was a sniper
eliminated by the KFOR forces. The other three were killed
on the bridge during exchange of fire between
Albanians, Serbs and the French. Members of KFOR and UNMIK
were als
o injured. Many vehicles of the UNMIK Police were set on fire
in the south of the city, where conflicts between
the protesters and KFOR continued throughout the day. MARCH 17TH
CAGLAVICA, 11:00H Conflicts took place
in Caglavica, too. The Serbs were protesting there
for two days because of the wounded
boy Jovica Ivic. Albanians from Pristina
were headed to Caglavica. They were joined
by pupils from Ajvalija, instructed to protest
by their teachers, and by a large group of students
from the Unive
rsity of Pristina. The Swedish KFOR contingent
and the UNMIK Police were trying to stop the Albanians
from entering the village and reaching
the Serbian protesters. Albanians took a detour road. Armed with bars, bricks, stones,
but also with firearms, they started attacking KFOR,
as well. They burnt Serbian houses
at the entrance to the village. That was when shooting between
Serbs and Albanians started. Go, Bane! Go! As soon as
the first house was on fire, we knew that the chaos was
just starti
ng, that they were headed to Gracanica
to torch everything down. That massive aggression,
that huge force was first met by the resistance
of the people of Caglavica. I remember there were
many people, journalists, who just tried to catch a breath and call as many people
from Laplje Selo and Gracanica to help stabilise the line. The most important thing was
to stop them. The Albanians were not stopped. The Swedes were powerless. A Norwegian battalion based in the village of Lebane
near Pristina c
ame to assist
the Swedish KFOR contingent. Upon arriving to Caglavica,
we encountered sheer chaos. Serbian houses were on fire. The Swedish soldiers were lying scattered on the ground, screaming, "They're shooting
at us. They're shooting at us." While I was standing there,
inspecting the grounds, I could hear bullets
whizzing around me like bees. I understood
the scale of the chaos. I realised that this shock wave,
whose size I did not know, was consuming our lives completely and that nothing we
had
would be left untouched by it. When the additional troop
from our battalion came to Caglavica, the Swedish detachment was there. The Irish battalion and the Ukrainian police
were also there with us. There were not many of us
from KFOR there, no more than 300 to 500, and there were 10,000 Albanians,
so it was a big test for us. The Albanians tried
to attack us from the flank. Then they came at us
with firearms, but by then the Americans came
and covered us from a helicopter. The Swedish spec
ial forces were
holding the right flank and the Americans
secured the left one to stop them from penetrating
our line through the flanks. The Albanians used some
really devious tactics. In the front lines,
the ones facing the soldiers, they'd place children
and the elderly, while the grown men
stayed behind. We tried to get organised, to follow those soldiers,
the Swedes, Norwegians, Indians... They also tried
to organise their ranks, in confusion over jurisdiction,
completely caught off guard.
They were kids caught off guard,
their heads smashed. There were approximately
20-30 injured soldiers, with different
fractures, concussions, contusions, bruises, but also gunshot wounds
to the knees. MARCH 17TH, KOSOVO POLJE
VILLAGE OF BRESJE, 11:00H It was sometime around 11:00 a.m. I was at home when I saw roughly 100 Albanians. As they approached
the Community Health Centre, they bent down and picked up
stones from the ground. I knew they were headed
to the Health Centre. First they stoned t
he building
and then set it on fire. Many of us, including my family,
my son who was there, expected that it was a fire engine that was coming to try to save
at least some of the building, to put the fire out. But no. It was a Yugopetrol
tanker full of fuel. They used a big fuel hose, like the one we use on petrol
stations to fuel our cars, to pour fuel all over
the Russian Hospital and then someone probably
just lit a match. It burst in flames. Then the fire spread onto
a section of the Health
Centre. The patients were inside
the building when it happened. There were approximately
15 patients, five of them bedridden, and they were evacuated
through the window. We now see members
of the Kosovo Police here. How helpful were they that day? They weren't helpful at all. The Kosovo Police was leading
the Albanian mob. They actually helped them
get to us. They steered them where to go
and what to do. A Kosovo policeman
in uniform came and stood on the front stairs
of my restaurant. He told m
e and my son, and I have told this
to the authorities, the police and to the court, "This place must burn
in five minutes." Another very painful situation
I witnessed at the time was when I saw my neighbour,
Mr Trifun, being severely beaten. First one boy came and hit me. Then a dozen of them came. They knocked me down
and beat the hell out of me. They stabbed me with a knife
four times right there. Everything was crashing down.
They set our curtains on fire. I tried to throw the paper out
to st
op the curtains from burning. Then they asked us
to come outside. One of them, I don't know who,
hit me there in the loin. It's where it hurts the most. I pretended I was dead so that
he wouldn't hit me again. Then they hit my daughter. Then they all started hitting us
with sticks, stones, bricks, bars...
Anything they got their hands on. Many citizens of Kosovo Polje, mainly the elderly,
were beaten up that day. 62-year-old Zlatibor Trajkovic
was sadly killed near his home. He was the third Ser
bian casualty
that day. His charred body was found
in a gutter in the village of Bresje
in the suburbs of Kosovo Polje. The unrest in Kosovo Polje started
by burning down the hospital. A school, post office and two
churches were also set on fire. 126 Serbian homes
burnt down that day. Everything that stood for a nation
and its land was destroyed. Only about 300 Serbs
now live in Kosovo Polje. Serbs were once
a majority population in this town with about
12,000 inhabitants. MARCH 17TH
PEC, 14:00H
There are no Serbs left
in Pec, either. Out of fear of terror
and Albanian retaliation, approximately 10,000 Serbs
left this city back in 1999. That did not stop the protesters from torching a Serbian Orthodox
church at the centre of Pec. However, their objective that day
was the Patriarchal Monastery, the most beautiful and probably
the most important monastery in Kosovo and Metohija. They started off
at the main street and headed towards the monastery. At first there was a dozen people, but e
ventually approximately
600 to 700 of them gathered. That was when Father Jovan
called me and asked me to send troops to Pec immediately as reinforcement. I phoned from Jerusalem two times
and spoke to General Castellano, who was colonel at the time. He assured me the paratroopers
would even die if necessary, but that they wouldn't hand over the Patriarchal Monastery
and Decane. I eased his mind and I already had a plan
to send in a reserve that included not only infantry
and the motorised briga
de, but I had also sent
three tanks with them. The tanks drove through
the crowds of people that were gathered
outside the monastery. The monastery was protected, but it was still under attack
for more than 30 hours. MARCH 17TH
BELO POLJE, 15:00H The protesters then headed
to Belo Polje, a village of Serbian returnees on the outskirts of Pec
near the Italian base. The story of Belo Polje
dates back to 1999, when this Serbian village was
burnt down the first time. The village was rebuilt with hel
p
of Serbia and the Italians. It was a pioneering example
of a multicultural Kosovo. The Serbs returned to Belo Polje. No more than seven to eight
families lived there, roughly 40 persons in total, and the situation at that time
was rather calm. On March 17th, things changed,
or perhaps its more accurate to say that they revealed themselves
for what they really were. After torching the church
at the centre of Pec and failing to burn down
the Patriarchal Monastery, thousands of protesters
were no
w headed to Belo Polje. They threw rocks at our houses.
All the windows were broken. That was when the UNMIK Police
showed up. I think they were Americans.
They told us to quickly evacuate. The first to intervene was
the international police force. They were already in the area. At one point, the confrontations became
so intense and aggressive that we were forced
to use our weapons. Many shots were fired
that day in Belo Polje. One of the Albanian protesters
was killed. He was shot by an America
n woman,
member of the UNMIK Police. According to the Serbs who were
in Belo Polje at the time, the protester, armed with a knife,
assaulted the Serbs who were being evacuated
by the police from the rectory where they found shelter from the stones
and Molotov cocktails. The following day,
the Mayor of Pec laid a wreath where the UN soldier
shot the Albanian, honouring the potential killer
as a national hero. There are hardly any Serbs left
in Belo Polje. The same goes for Djakovica, where back i
n 2004
only four elderly women lived, and they were evacuated
to a church by the Italians to save them from the protesters. Several thousand Albanians threw
stones at this Orthodox sanctum. The Italians and the four women
were forced to leave the Church of the Dormition
of the Holy Virgin. That afternoon, all three
Orthodox churches in Djakovica were completely
destroyed and torched. MARCH 17TH
PRIZREN, 15:00H Riots also started in Prizren,
the most beautiful city in Kosovo, city that was once a
symbol
of multiculturalism, city that had the most beautiful
medieval churches and mosques. After the war, only few Serbian
families remained in Prizren. Two families and a single man
lived in the Seminary building, whereas several families,
mostly elderly people, lived in the central part
of Prizren called Potkaljaja. Everything was fine until March 17th, 2004, when sometime around noon busses started coming in
from I don't know where. We didn't know what was going on.
They came out carrying p
osters. We just didn't pay attention. It was something we saw every day. But then, at 5:03h or 5:05h, we saw them turn around
as if following orders and head to the gates
of the Seminary. Nedeljko went to his quarters.
The lady and her daughter, too. We also headed to our quarters. It was me,
my 7-month-pregnant wife and two kids, 18
and 30 months old, respectively. The protesters soon entered
the Prizren Seminary. They started beating people up,
destroying and burning things. We didn't hear
a w
ord from Nedeljko. His last name was Nedeljkovic,
but I called him Nedeljko. But when they reached
the second floor, where the lady
and her daughter stayed, we heard cries and screaming. Not crying, but actual screams. One of them hit us,
the other one torched things. They torched the main
building and the rectorate. I saw the entire yard in flames. There was firewood in the yard. They hit Draga twice in the head
and then they hit me, as well. My head was bleeding. Fire was everywhere. At one po
int, my pregnant wife was
standing in the corner with our two children. They were there, fighting
for their every breath. I prayed
and God answered my prayer. My pregnant wife and the children managed to escape through
a tiny window that was this big. It is still there. We managed to push through
my wife and our two children through the window
and I then followed them. The situation was so unreal.
I got stuck. I was fat back then. I said goodbye to my wife, asked to try and save our children
any
way she could and went back. But it seems
nothing is more powerful than the will to live
and self-preservation. Some kind of frenzy took over me and I started banging
against the wall with a fridge and I managed to make a hole big enough to get out. The Pleskonjic family was saved. Mother and daughter Filipovic
were also saved. However, 60-year-old
Dragan Nedeljkovic was killed at the Seminary. Since he didn't have a family, he was buried in silence
at the Prizren Orthodox cemetery. Everything
in Prizren
that belonged to the Serbian Orthodox Church was
destroyed during those few days. The Seminary burnt down, as well as the Bishop's Palace,
St. George's Church, and what is most precious
and most important history-wise, the 13-century Church
of Our Lady of Ljevis was torched
and completely destroyed. It is a UNESCO
World Heritage Site. Serbian houses in the central
part of Prizren, Potkaljaja, were also set on fire. Members of the German KFOR
were not there that day. As the German "Der
Spiegel"
wrote later in a text titled
"Rabbits of Kosovo", the German troops refused
to provide assistance even to their countrymen,
German police officers who were stationed then in Prizren
as members of UNMIK. While the Germans stayed
in their barracks, Prizren was consumed by fire
and people died. They stormed our front yard.
There were too many of them. We couldn't even count them. First they kicked me in the chest. I endured and remained standing. Then they punched me
in the mouth. My uppe
r lip was cut
and two teeth were knocked out. Then came another punch
to my left eye. MARCH 17TH
GNJILANE, 15:00H Everything was on fire.
This house and that part up there. They hid here until they went out. They are now alive
thanks to this bathroom. Thirty years of work... Me and my brother,
my wife and sister-in-law watched it all disappear
within 10 minutes. The only thing
I have left is this key. Sadly, there is no door
left to unlock. There were six-seven
thousand protesters at the centre
of Gnjilane and in other major streets
near the town's centre, especially in the direction
of the Serbian part of town. Of course, they had a list
of Serbian and non-Serbian houses, and they burnt ours down. 26 Serbian houses
burnt down that day. Another life was lost in Gnjilane. Slobodan Peric,
a PE teacher, was killed. Peric and his mother were at home
when the protesters attacked. When Slobodan realised
that the situation was grave, really grave, he went outside. He surrendered.
He walked th
rough a gauntlet, so they started hitting him
as soon as he stepped out. The finished him off by stamping
and jumping on top of him. He died in agony. Then the hard-core extremists
among them turned around and went back to the house
to see where his mother was. They found her and beat her up. She was bleeding profusely,
all covered in bruises. She was then hospitalised
for a month or so in Vranje and in Nis, but she succumbed to injuries. My family never even considered
leaving Gnjilane. You saw
our house up there. My parents never... Maybe
Mother did mention it a few times when she saw families
heading to Serbia, "We could sell
our property and leave." But my father always asked,
"Is there any place better?" MARCH 17TH
LIPLJAN, 15:00H I'll tell you how we got out. I went out and told my wife
to leave the house, too. Then my wife hid behind the shed
in the pit latrine. I stood outside and watched. They went in first.
They entered the house. I went in with them. I wore a hat.
They didn'
t recognise me. He went in with the Shqiptari. They started wrecking the house.
I wrecked it with them. Suddenly it went up in flames. I'll show you the other side
where the fire started. You saw the cloth
and the bottles. Everything burnt down. They burnt everything down, everything I worked for
in my 75 years. It's all gone. It was the same in Lipljan. They threw a grenade
at a Serbian Orthodox church. Serbs living in residential buildings
down town were attacked. Serbian houses were set on fi
re. First they threw stones
at the houses to frighten us,
to force us to go outside and probably to kill us. We didn't give in. We stayed put,
away from the windows, going from one room to another. Then they started
howling, yelling and they set our house on fire. My brother said
to stay in the bathroom as there was water there
to keep us wet and save us from burning. But then we couldn't breathe
anymore because of the smoke, the ceiling was collapsing, so we couldn't stay there. We decided to g
o outside. My brother said, "I'll distract them.
You grab Mum and run." As soon as we left the house,
they shot my brother. I took Mother behind the house and when I turned around,
I saw him lying on the ground. I said, "Nenad! What's wrong?" I went to him, but he was
showing no signs of life. "Nenad, what should I do?
What is going on?" They kept shooting,
howling, laughing. They did horrible things. My brother was 53 years old. He used to work at a factory
before he got injured at work. He cou
ldn't move his left arm. He was a disabled person. He never held a gun in his hand, never fought in war,
never hurt anyone. Believe it or not, they, too,
respected him and loved him. I don't know. Maybe it was
just because we were Serbs... Maybe to have one Serb less
in Kosovo. I don't know why. They had no reason at all.
But they killed him anyway. MARCH 17TH
CAGLAVICA, 17:00H What happened, Madam?
-Terrible things. Terrible things. -Murders.
-Chaos. The murders. Riots continued
throughout the
day in Caglavica. The Swedish, Norwegian
and Irish contingents were there. They were assisted
by the U.S. members of KFOR. Ukrainian and Indian police forces
were there, too. Several thousands of protesters
kept coming in from Pristina, faced only with 500 KFOR troops. After several hours of conflict,
many KFOR soldiers were injured. When the blue lorry
first appeared, I noticed it when it was still
pretty far behind the front line. It was roughly 50 metres
away from us, the soldiers, and I reme
mber thinking,
"Oh, this can't be good... If we allow that lorry to speed up
and penetrate the military lines, the Albanians
would break through." I asked myself
if I should shoot or not. I asked myself this question
several times, to shoot or not to shoot. But then the lorry
reached the soldiers and I had no other
choice left anymore. I kept shooting
until I saw it swerve and the driver fall out
through the window. At the same time
when the lorry approached, one of the Albanians
managed to push
through between the legs of one
of my soldiers holding up a shield. He was kneeling and looking at me
when I noticed him. He was going to attack me. I remember it very well. I fired two shots,
one after the other, straight to his chest. He just collapsed
and hit the ground. Then the Albanians
pulled him out from our cordon. I also remember that after I shot these two men an immense amount of stones was
hurled at us. It knocked me down. It was a shower of rocks. Two Albanians,
former members of
KLA from the vicinity of Drenica,
were killed. The protesters then attacked
a combat vehicle of the Swedish contingent
with KFOR troops in it. Then we received word
from the Swedes that there were injured
soldiers inside the vehicle. The Albanians were trying to smash the windows
with iron bars to hurt the people inside
the vehicle and set it on fire. Together with the Ukrainian
special police unit, we fought the Albanians
in close combat. We threw tear-gas grenades
ahead of us, gradually pushin
g through,
forcing the Albanians to retreat. The drama in Caglavica
went on for hours. It started sometime around noon and it lasted,
I am pretty sure of it, until 11 p.m.,
when it culminated. Then a KFOR officer came, I can't remember
which contingent, and said, "The Americans are coming. They won't tell
Serbs from Albanians. They'll kill everyone in sight. Please, be safe
and get out of their way." That's when it happened. They came in Humvees, with night operations equipment, smashing against
the crowd,
pushing it back towards Pristina. That resounded
as one of the key news, even though, as far as
we were concerned, the line in Caglavica was
somewhat already stabilised. But they did push them back. The Albanians wanted to burn the entire village of Caglavica. We realised
it was ethnic cleansing. They wanted all the Serbs gone. They harboured so much hate unlike anything I'd seen before. MARCH 17TH
UROSEVAC, 18:00H Urosevac is a city where Serbs
no longer live today. Even then,
on Ma
rch 17th, 2004, only few Serbian families
lived there, mostly elderly people. They were always under
24-hour protection of the KFOR. Years after the war,
the only way to move through Urosevac
and the rest of Kosovo was with escort, first of the U.S.
and then of the Greek soldiers. That was the situation
on March 17th, as well. After an hour, the second
Greek soldier came and said to me, "Zoran,
go inside and turn on the TV." I turned it on and saw
the riots had already started and people were ga
thering
by the church. We watched it on TV.
It was already a live broadcast. Nobody was trying to hide it
or cover it up. We were afraid when we saw
the huge crowd that gathered. He told us to come with them and stay for a while
in their vehicle. I came with my wife. I asked
if I should bring anything. He said it was just a precaution. When we got in the vehicle,
they just closed the door. He said, "Zoran, we are
headed to our base. We're taking you there." I wanted to grab our papers. He said,
"Leave the papers.
Your life is what matters." At one point, we received
orders to head into town, 100 troops
and 10 armoured transporters. We moved out
and arrived to the town. I made a video that still exists. I was driving one of the vehicles. We barely made it to the Church
of Holy Emperor Uros. Many people were throwing rocks
and wooden bars at the vehicle. But that couldn't harm
an armoured transporter. We arrived to the church. Some people were
inside the church. Our commander and some
ot
her officers were there. The situation was chaotic. They were young people. Young people were
throwing stones and shouting. As far as I know, people were
standing on balconies and rooftops armed with guns and AK rifles, and from there
they fired at the church, the bell tower and everything. All the Albanians who were there, all the townspeople,
everyone who was there, they were all at the Church
of Holy Emperor Uros. All of them. We're talking about
two-three thousand people. The situation was p
retty bad. People were shooting,
there was fire everywhere. One of our officers was
injured. He had burns. It was pretty bad. When the helicopters arrived
and threw tear gas, they had to disperse. I don't think it was because
they were Americans. They couldn't breathe,
so they had to leave. Of course we were afraid. Especially because we were
not allowed to shoot, not even in the air,
to scare them off a little bit. Then, when no one could see me,
I crossed myself and said, "Virgin Mary, please
help us.
I have yet to become a father." Owing to the Greek
and U.S. soldiers, Church of Holy Emperor Uros
was preserved. Only the front door was
partially burnt. However, all the Serbian houses
in town were torched and the Serbian population
forced out of Urosevac. My 5-year diary is what I
feel sorry for the most. Our entire 5-year captivity
in our home... I never went out
during those five years. Just to my front yard a few times. I mourn every sheet of paper
and every word I wrote. Serbs no
longer live
in Pristina, either. Approximately 40,000 Serbs left
the city right after the bombing. Constant KLA attacks and killings
forced them out of the city. In 2004, approximately 120 Serbs lived in the central part
of Pristina, Ulpijana, in the YU building. Practically in captivity,
they stayed there for years. I decided to spend the 2004 New Year's
holidays alone. I picked up my camera
and went to Pristina. I happened to notice a group
of people on a balcony that was observing
the world a
round them in an entirely different way. It was the YU building. I've heard of it,
but never went there. It's where the last Serbs
in Pristina lived. They stayed there hoping that things would settle
after the war ended, but ended up being
trapped there for years. In that sort of monolithic ghetto slightly reminiscent
of Kusturica's "Underground", they lived their lives
in a sort of limbo, in a building with six entrances, where only the kids could leave when armoured vehicles
drove them to scho
ol, and the adults spend their time drinking in an improvised
store in the basement. Some of the people worked
for the United Nations, some worked at KFOR, and some, like me,
worked for NGOs. The vast majority of the rest
were elderly people and also a few families. I want to say one other thing
about the YU building. It was the first project I managed
when I went to Kosovo. I managed this project
for two years, and it certainly was an insight into how things worked
in the Territory. Because we
supplied a gym,
we supplied a shop, we set up various projects
in the building, and one by one,
they were all squashed, squeezed out of existence. The people in the YU building
lived under constant terror. What was life like there?
It was hard. It was completely... infested by fear, and fear had consumed almost everyone there. That nocturnal interview ended with a question
on what would you, a 12-year-old boy, do
if you were somewhere else. I'd never be at home.
I'd be out all the time. I'd go t
o school, get back home
to eat and go outside. Even in winter?
-Yes. Even on New Year's Eve?
-Yes. I went out in the morning and took some of the toys of one of my main
characters in the film out for a walk, since he
couldn't take them out himself. And then March happened and the tragic epilogue
of this story. MARCH 17TH, PRISTINA
YU BUILDING, 20:00H Thousands of protesters
gathered at the YU building and the same scenario took place.
They stoned and torched it. First they demolished
some of the
cars. Then they threw Molotov cocktails at the street entrances
of the building. That sound of the raging mob, the frequency of violence was gradually becoming
clearer and clearer. It was clearer by the minute that all of us would die there unless someone came
and saved us. Time went by and no one came. We phoned everyone
and called for help, even the Kosovo Police, the embassies in Belgrade, KFOR, too, but nobody came
to protect any of us. Members of the Kosovo Police
were also gone. In the mi
dst of all that chaos
and going up and down the stairs, I bumped into two Albanians
on the third floor. One of them was
definitely underage. He was very short, with blond hair and blue eyes. The other one was tall
and had dark hair. He was perhaps 18 or 19 years old. The short one took out a knife. He jumped on top of my back and started stabbing me in the head and neck
with that knife. Blood spurted all over the place and spatter was on the walls. I smeared my hand with blood and sprayed it all
over them,
the two Albanians. The short one, with blue eyes,
was covered in blood. That was the moment
when they, too, got scared and then they suddenly ran away. I went to my flat
and grabbed some sheets to put pressure on the wounds. The sheets were drenched in blood and there was a huge pool
of blood in the living room. Then I felt an immensely strong blow to the head. However, after a few seconds... when I came round, I realised my head was resting on a shoulder of some man wearing a camouf
lage uniform and carrying a rifle. It turns out I hit my head against the metal door, and somehow ended back there. YU building residents were
in agony for hours. They were evacuated sometime
after midnight in several rounds. They left behind their ruined
and demolished flats and torched cars. The protesters
also burnt the buss that took these children
to school. I entered the KFOR transporter
and while I was talking to Tamara, who I was looking for
in the building, I asked, "Who saved us?
Who b
rought us here?" She said, "The Irish." That Irish guy definitely earned his ticket to heaven
for saving us, he and his friends, as well. They saved more than
100 of us that night. Seven Irish soldiers
and two Swedish officers took part in the rescue of 122
residents of the YU building. The UNMIK Police assisted them
later on during the evacuation. According to our knowledge,
they volunteered and came from Camp Slim Lines
in Pristina. Many of them were staff officers and didn't need
to go out in
to the field. Horrible news coming
from the YU building motivated these soldiers
to leave their base and save the lives
of those people. The Irish and Swedish sources say the protesters attacked
members of KFOR, as well. They shot at them
and threw grenades. Another Albanian was killed
that night in Pristina. He was the 11th Albanian casualty of this unprecedented
terror and rampage. MARCH 17TH, PRIZREN, 20:00h
MONASTERY OF THE HOLY ARCHANGELS After torching the churches
and Serbian houses in Pr
izren, in the evening
the protesters headed to the nearby Monastery
of the Holy Archangels. German soldiers blocked the bridge
leading to the monastery, but, according to the monks, the protesters
took off their shoes and crossed the river Bistrica. The monks were then evacuated
by the German KFOR. Left completely unprotected, the monastery where Serbian
Emperor Dusan was once buried was burnt to the ground
and destroyed. MARCH 17TH, GNJILANE
VILLAGE OF SILOVO, 21:00H After they forced
all the S
erbs out of town, they saw their work
there was done. Out of the six-seven thousand
people in the mob, 2,000 of them separated from
the crowd and headed to Silovo, an ethnically homogenous
Serbian village. They attacked people
at the crossroads. 10-15 people who were driving
in their cars were injured there. I was headed from Bujanovac
and ran into a mob. We had to get out of the car.
They pulled me out and beat me up. The locals didn't get organised.
They spontaneously stood at the entrance to
the village. The Italian KFOR stood
between them and the protesters. After the blockade, the crowd
gradually dispersed and left. MARCH 17TH
BELGRADE, 20:00H I saw Metropolitan
Bishop Amfilohije walking up there in a hurry. I asked him what was going on. He said the mosque was on fire,
that he was going there to see. I went there with him.
We encountered sheer chaos, an angry mob, and heard
it was happening in Nis, as well. I figured it out right away
and said, "This is horrible. We don't know ex
actly
what's going on in Kosovo, and this is happening here." It was completely pointless,
it had nothing to do with that, but it gave them an excuse and equated setting mosques
in Belgrade and in Nis on fire with pogrom and exile
of 10,000 Serbs from their homes. It was a dumb move that only served those who carried out the pogrom
of Serbs in Kosovo. Two mosques in Serbia
were on fire that night, as were Serbian homes
in Kosovo and Metohija. Approximately 800 Serbian homes
were set on fire that
night. Together with fire, the night
brought new Serbian casualties. My brother was the first to die. They hit him in the head and back
with blunt objects and then they shot him, once in the head
and once in the arm. He died on the spot. My nephew followed him out and was shot twice,
through and through. KFOR did not grant us a helicopter
to transport him to Camp Bondsteel and he blead out
on his way to the hospital. Father and son Dobri and Borko were killed in
the village of Drajkovce, Strpce
, outside their home
on the outskirts of the village. Even though subsequent
forensics investigation showed they were shot from a riffle
of a member of the Kosovo Police, nobody was held accountable
for their murders nor for any other
committed that day. I personally heard
General Kammerhoff, the KFOR commander, over the Norwegian corps
internal radio link. On the night between
March 17th and 18th, he said that the behaviour
of the Albanians gave us clear orders
to do exactly what we did, fight
back against the riots
and quash them. It was war. We had to end it. The first day,
they engaged only so as to defend themselves
and their units. They didn't defend people
or buildings under attack. Only on the second day did
the KFOR commander give the order allowing them
to use live ammunition to defend both themselves, but also threatened edifices. I could say that Kammerhoff
practically told us to forget about
rules of engagement. It was quite a strange experience not sticking to the rules
a
nd just pushing forward. The message sent out to our men was to do whatever they wanted, whatever was needed,
just to push back the insurgents. KFOR issued different orders,
"Try to fight back, to save your own lives, and then to defend
the Serbs in Kosovo to the extent possible." German General Kammerhoff was
in charge of KFOR back then, which was also
somewhat problematic, because orders coming from him
were evidently unclear. It also turned out
that during crisis, nobody contacts the KFOR com
mand or cares about
their instructions and orders, adhering instead to commands
from national centres. Another important factor was
most definitely the KFOR's central command that issued orders, but then every contingent adhered to its own national policy,
respectively. I cannot say this with certainty, but it is possible
that some of the contingents consulted with their national
command centres. As KFOR commander, I wished
that I could issue an order and that the order was
carried out the way I
wanted it, but in certain situations
that was not possible because commanders
of certain contingents refused to carry out my orders because their governments
prohibited it. As an international mission,
KFOR is faced with such problems. On the other hand, we have to say
that it was an army. It was an army on the field
that was not prepared or trained for combat
with citizens, with the crowds. This is a problem,
because a soldier receives orders to carry out its mission
and neutralise the enemy.
They didn't know what to do. They were not prepared
for such situations. It was impossible to protect all the people
and all the edifices. When KFOR was first deployed
to Kosovo, it had 50,000 troops. When I took over,
only 18,000 were left. That is not a small number,
but it is also not enough to post permanent guards
around the churches. KFOR had around 20,000 soldiers and it is believed that
50 to 70 thousand protesters took part in the riots. That means that they really
couldn't intervene in
every single town or village. But it turned out
that it was enough to exercise determination
in their response at certain key locations, for example, in Caglavica
and in Mitrovica. It didn't take long
for the Albanians to see that, so they ended the riots
already on March 19th. In my opinion,
it was lack of political will. I think they were informed
to stay in their bases and not to get involved, because the Albanians saw them
as their liberators, they saw them as the people
who were there to p
rotect them. I think the Norwegians did
quite a lot in Caglavica. Also the American army
that came in when it dragged on
until March 21st. So, there were a few exceptions, but in general, I think they were
doing what they were told, and were told to stay in base. I cannot judge the events
that took place because I was not there
and I was not in charge. Nevertheless, before I took over
command of KFOR, I looked into everything
that happened back then so that it would
never happen again. It is no
secret that the purpose
of their deployment was to engage in the event
that our forces tried to violently invade the territory
of Kosovo and Metohija. The very deployment of KFOR and their rules of engagement were designed to stop our military
should they move against Kosovo. They were really not prepared, nor did they ever think
that the Albanians might riot. MARCH 18TH
CAGLAVICA, 11:00H Caglavica was once
an ethnic Serbian village. Now it is a Pristina suburb with megastores
and business centr
es erected where Serbian houses once stood. Luxury villas with swimming pools now surround
a solitary Orthodox cemetery. The few Serbs remaining
in Caglavica after 2004 live in a part
that still looks like a village. A highway now traverses Caglavica. It was a strategic point the Albanians clearly wanted
to cleanse of Serbs, because they moved against
Caglavica again on March 18th. Again, thousands of people
started coming in from Pristina. KFOR was ready this time. They put up a barricade on a
hill,
Veternik, outside the village. At first, it was only young Albanian men who were trying
to break through our line. But we were prepared for that. We had put up
barb wire barricades. Soon the Albanians started
using firearms and moving in the style
of a firing squad in warfare, using manoeuvre warfare tactics. Their most professional men had
probably arrived by that time. They started throwing
hand grenades at us. Then we had to start
using snipers on our flanks when we spotted firearms
or
hand grenades in the hands of the protesters. The first shot was a warning,
but we also fired at people. That day, on March 18th, the ambulance kept transporting
the injured protesters from Caglavica
to the hospital in Pristina. There was a lot of shooting today. How long have you been here? Since 11 or 12 o'clock.
-When did you get here? Watch out! There was never
this much shooting. We already have
three or four injured men. Protesters are being transported.
-We have nowhere to go. We won't le
ave until we have
forced the Serbs out of here! MARCH 18TH
PODUJEVO, 12:00H A large group of protesters was
also in Podujevo. The authentic footage
taken that day best illustrate the role
of the Albanian media in spurring ethnic violence. The protesters cordially greet
reporters and cameramen who followed them to the Orthodox
Saint Andrew's Church. We also see members
of the Czech and Slovakian KFOR helplessly retreating
before a crowd of 500 assailants. The mob entered the church,
tore down the
crosses and bells, set fire to and eventually blew up
the eastern wall of the church. All the while, an Albanian news
reporter was talking to the camera without even flinching
at the rampage. Thousands of protesters
from Labljane came to the orthodox church
in Podujevo and set it on fire in revolt over the tragic events
recently taking place in Kosovo. The protesters then torched
the coms centre of the Czech KFOR. According to the Czech soldiers, they also demolished
a nearby Orthodox cemetery
and removed bones from the graves. This footage was taken
by an Albanian TV. The Serbian
Security Information Agency acquired it back in 2004. MARCH 18TH
OBILIC, 12:00H We have left everything in Obilic.
There's no turning back. Until yesterday, those two
buildings were fenced with wire, like in a labour camp. My two two-story houses
burnt down to the ground. What matters is that we're alive. Only God knows
what will happen next. I have nothing else to say. If I had a five-story palace,
covered
in silk and velvet, five servants on every floor,
I wouldn't go back there. After a few days, we went with a camera crew
to film Obilic. What we saw was that everything
was ruined, burnt, looted. What's more, it wasn't enough
for them to loot our houses, take all the metal
and our greenhouses. Upon entering my front yard,
we saw a message left for us. It was a pig hung by the neck. The meaning of the message was,
"This will be you if you return." Look at this. I cannot explain this.
A human mind
wouldn't do this. With this act, they wanted to extinguish
all things Serbian here. That pig was there as an animal that perhaps symbolised
the non-Muslim population, but that's not the key thing. To move a pig,
to lift it and carry it, that is not a simple thing to do. There is so much symbolism in hanging a pig by the neck at the doorstep
of a person's home. On March 18th, approximately 90 Serbian homes
were destroyed in Obilic. Homes of the Roma living there
were also looted. The Roma were t
argeted
also in Vucitrn, where by March 2004
no Serb was left anymore. The mobs attacked and set on fire
homes of the Ashkali, Albanian-speaking Muslim Roma. KLA constantly targeted the Roma because the militant Albanians
saw them as loyal to the Serbs. Approximately 70 Ashkali homes
were burnt down in Vucitrn, and the Ashkali were
forced out of town. A Serbian Orthodox church was
also set on fire. Saint Elijah's Church
in Vucitrn was rebuilt, as well as all other churches
and monasteries destro
yed in March 2004. MARCH 18TH
DEVIC MONASTERY, 11:00H Another crowd of protesters
gathered in Serbica. They headed to Devic Monastery. The French KFOR evacuated
the nuns from the monastery and this beautiful 15-century
sanctum was again on fire. It was attacked once before. Albanian fascists plundered
and destroyed the monastery during World War II. The greatest shock to me,
in my entire life, was the sight of that young nun
at Devic Monastery. Much later on, we were allowed
to enter Devic Monas
tery escorted by the UNMIK Police. We accompanied
the Mother Superior and the nuns. They were transported
in armoured cars. We were allowed to go in,
but under escort, because the snipers were
relatively close and they didn't want to risk it. We were just trying to stay safe,
not to get shot, to get something on film...
That was what I was doing anyway. She was walking around,
trying to find a spot, asking for a tent because she
wanted to stay and sleep there. She feared she would never be able
to get back to this holy place. My only expectation is
to go back there. Nothing else. Even with the monastery ruined? Never mind.
If the church is there, we could stay in the church
or in tents. We'd manage. The dread of something being taken in the presence of someone
who was there to protect it... She wanted to stay in a tent
to protect it from being stolen. Those were the words of a young
Serbian woman during those days. MARCH 18TH
VISOKI DECANI MONASTERY, 12:00H Visoki Decani Monastery was
also
under attack the previous day. Eight projectiles were fired from a grenade launcher
near the monastery. Now a mob was headed to Decane. The Kosovo Albanians were
approaching Decane. Their aim was to climb
the outer walls. Some even managed to climb,
but they were forced down. They wanted to enter
the monastery, to breach the monastery gates and break in like medieval
castles were once breached. They wanted to storm
and conquer the monastery. The situation in Decani
was very difficult. Havin
g that in mind, I spoke to Father Sava
about the operations and I asked him how many monks
were present at the monastery. He asked
why I wanted to know that. I said I was preparing
an evacuation plan in the event that my men fail to defend the monastery
in its entirety. Father Sava said
he'd never tell me how many monks were
present at the monastery, because if the monastery was lost,
they'd die inside it. The monks decided to stay
in the monastery at all costs. The Italians decided
to defend Vi
soki Decani and they shot at the protesters
from firearms. Only five or six Italians suffered minor injuries due to attacks by stones
and Molotov cocktails. As far as I know, but I've never
received such information, approximately 30
Kosovo Albanians were injured. None was dead. Those were not
life-threatening injuries. Our response was always proportional to the force
of the attack and always provoked by violence. After saving
the Patriarchal Monastery of Pec, the Italian paratroopers
also save
d Visoki Decani, one of the most beautiful Serbian
sanctums in Kosovo and Metohija. MARCH 18TH
VILLAGE OF SVINJARE, 15:00H It took them just one hour
to force us out. I even left my dentures
in a glass. I was watching TV
when I heard gunshots. I went outside.
I still heard gunshots. I went down there and saw
members of UNMIK in cars. Fires were already burning. All of us gathered in the part
of the village towards Mitrovica. After 15 or 20 minutes,
KFOR soldiers came from their base which was pe
rhaps
a kilometre away by air and a kilometre and a half
by land from the village. They came in by lorries and said they couldn't protect
the village or the people in it. From their base, which was on
a higher ground than the village, they watched our village burn. I cannot answer the question because I do not know exactly
what happened on the ground. We couldn't post soldiers in front
of every home to protect them. That is just not possible. Nowhere in the world
is it possible to have absolute,
100% security. The KFOR was here. Yes. They said, "We can't protect you.
We just can't. Leave this place." Me and my brother were the last
to leave. That's what happened. I didn't know where we were going. I just followed that horrible
strain of puffs of smoke rising above the torched houses. Already there we could see the scale of the destruction. Trail of smoke matched
the map of the village that was actually
just one long street. Distance between puffs of smoke told us even before
entering t
he village that every single house
was on fire. A total of 147 family houses
with outbuildings were set on fire. All of them burnt. I went there after the Pogrom. And we have... you know...
taken lots of photos of the houses that were destroyed. But what was interesting to me was that practically every house
that was destroyed had a wall
with an Albanian name on it. I took lots of photographs of that because I couldn't believe that anybody could have
the belief in themselves that they could dest
roy a village
and then just take the houses. I didn't do anything.
I swear to God. I was passing through and I got
scared as soon as I saw the cops. I didn't do anything. And then everything
suddenly stopped. Incidents continued
in the following three days, until March 21st, but they were isolated
and on a much smaller scale. U.S. Admiral and Commander
of NATO Forces Southern Europe, Gregory Johnson, arrived
in Pristina on March 18th and took temporary control
over KFOR. Albanian politicians fir
st spoke
to the public also on March 18th, this time calling
for cease of violence. Their de-escalation campaign included the families
of the drowned boys. Now they told
a completely different story. I want this to stop, that no mother is left
without her child. End this. This is over now. End it so that
other sisters wouldn't suffer, to have no more graves in Kosovo. I beg of you, stop. Calm down. Let us use our brains, let us listen to our friends
and our institutions, people who only want
wha
t is good for Kosovo, and win our independence
which is not questionable. It is certain... that there was a solution
to the conflict by employing political
and diplomatic means. What actually happened was that after three days of violence, everything just stopped. I believe the politicians
played their part in it. At first they did not react, thinking it was just
one of many incidents, but when they saw that after two
days the violence was escalating, they intervened on both sides, especially wi
th the Albanians,
and ended it. We openly told this to Admiral Gregory Johnson that we had units on standby, that our public was
exerting strong pressure and that we'd move in
if they didn't take action. That is what we told him
during the meeting held at the barracks of the 37th Motorised Brigade
in Raska. After that he made a statement
that it was ethnic cleansing, and the KFOR forces were then
engaged in their full capacity to deescalate the tensions, which is what did happen
as soon as on Ma
rch 19th. In the two days, riots broke out in 33 places
in Kosovo and Metohija. It started in Mitrovica,
then in Caglavica, spreading onto Kosovo Polje, Pec, Djakovica, Gnjilane, Lipljan... Fires burnt in Prizren, Urosevac, Pristina, Obilic,
Vucitrn, Podujevo... International organisations
estimated that between 55 and 70 thousand
protesters took part in the riots. I know the Albanians organised it. Our intelligence unit was
listening in on their phones, and they heard the Albanians
talking to e
ach other who to send
and where to send them. It was organised.
The Albanians planed it. They were very efficient in employing
systems of communication because they managed
to concentrate a large number of persons at certain points, key points, and it is evident
that someone was in command, someone was heading
the activities. In my opinion,
the news of the drowned children or whatever actually
happened that day was used as an excuse
for what happened next. The fact that so many people
gathered o
n such short notice proves that it was organised
and planed in advance. I don't think so many people
can gather so quickly. I think the Kosovo Albanians
had always wanted, or at least always yearned
for independence. That was not possible at the time. The tensions kept growing and they used as an excuse an event that was never clarified. We have never fully clarified
the circumstances that were used
as justification for the riots. I think it started out
spontaneously, and then the riots flared a
nd organised actions took place with the aim
to continue the violence. A former member of the KLA,
Shkumbin Mehmeti, told the Albanian media that the March riots were
organised much earlier. Kosovo court sentenced
Mehmeti to 30 years of prison for murdering
UN and KPS policemen. Mehmeti was said to be
a protected witness of the EULEX for many post-war murders
committed by the KLA. The group received
political support to organise
the 2004 March Unrest. The support came
from all the parties that e
merged after the war. I'm not referring to the ruling
party and the president but to people in high places. We headed out in late December or early January and we were stationed
in Mitrovica. There we made plans,
contacted people and started organising
the March Unrest. Serbian intelligence services
also acquired information that the March Pogrom
was pre-organised. According to them, the meetings
where it was planed were held in October
and November 2003 in Pristina and near Vitina. Richard Holb
rooke also knew that unrests might happen
in Kosovo and Metohija. He says he warned
the State Department of it already in October 2003. The events in Kosovo yesterday
were inevitable. When I was there in October,
I publicly warned people, including the United States
and the United Nations personnel, that if they didn't take steps to resolve the final
status question of Kosovo, that it was inevitable that there
would be a deterioration. I think the only people surprised
were the Serbs. Because...
I was actually
informed yesterday again when speaking to a friend who worked for the intelligence
services years ago in Kosovo. He told me that...
he reminded me, sorry, that Quint and NATO had
actually given permission to the KLA leadership to arrange something,
like a pretext, to cause some
little bit of violence, so that they could move on
with the independence issue. It was a stalemate.
Nothing was really happening. The Albanians were well organised
in the entire territory of Kosovo, but to
achieve
such good organisation, they must have had the green
light from Western powers. That is why I think
it was kept secret, to make KFOR look surprised. And they really were surprised. An action like the one
that happened was completely unexpected. We were also surprised. We could say that the intelligence
services also failed, because it was
completely unexpected. Nobody saw it coming. Before the unrest
on March 17th, we didn't receive any intelligence
from our intelligence unit, but later
on we did get intel
on intercepted phone calls and about it being organised
by the Albanians. When it comes to the objective
of such violence, it might have been to accelerate the process
of obtaining independence, to clearly demonstrate that the Kosovo Albanians
were done waiting, or perhaps they were trying
to banish the Serbs out of fear. Is it true that all those
events were organised with the aim of pushing
for independence? I repeat, I do not think that
it was the will of the majority to
win their independence
through riots and violence. But I am convinced that the Albanians
aspired for independence, which came in a surprising way and rather quickly, in part
owing to the United States. After that, the Albanians were
absolutely the favoured side, and suddenly nobody cared anymore
about the status or standards, about more than autonomy
but less than independence. All those platitudes
were abandoned and it all lead to the creation
of an independent state. The lost lives, cultural h
eritage
and everything else aside, the most disgusting thing
about the whole March story is that it was actually
a political victory of those who resorted
to physical violence. In terms of its totality, March 17th was the greatest
crime in Europe in the age of peace
after World War II. We lost libraries, schools,
churches, architecture, frescos, cemeteries, human lives, urban settlements,
villages, animals... The 17th March Pogrom was
the most complete attack against an entire civilisation, agai
nst everything we had, and its objective was to make us
disappear completely. Their objective was definitely to force the Serbs out
of Kosovo and Metohija and to demonstrate that KFOR is
incapable to perform its role. Perhaps it was an attempt
to exert pressure and to obtain certain
terms and conditions that would be more
favourable for them. I think that it was primarily
supposed to be a message saying, "We want to be free of this
situation once and for all." They were dissatisfied because
they
were stopped half-way. They didn't banish the Serbs, they didn't obtain a definitive
solution when it came to Serbs, and they got the international
community to be their tutor, someone to teach them democracy. So, the 2004 Pogrom was not
particularly a surprise to me. It was just a culmination of all the small pogroms
into one big pogrom. For me and for all the other
Serbs who lived there back then, March 17th was... much, much more horrendous
than the bombing. The bombing was... extremely horr
endous, but March 17th was... March 17th and 18th were
horrendous beyond imagination for the Serbian people. I feel sorry for everyone
who died, who suffered, and I think that all of us,
together, need to do much more,
we need to try harder to clearly say that this must not happen to anyone ever again. Eight people of Serbian nationality
were killed. The total number
of persons injured was 954, including 126 members
of KFOR and UNMIK. 935 homes owned by Serbs,
Roma and Ashkali were destroyed
or
severely damaged. 35 churches and monasteries
of the Serbian Orthodox Church were damaged and destroyed.
19 of them were heritage sites. 4,012 people were permanently
forced out of Kosovo and Metohija. Six towns and nine villages
were ethnically cleansed. 143 Albanians were convicted of their crimes committed
during the March riots, 67 of them to more
than one year of imprisonment. In more than 60% of the cases, the prison sentences were
reduced to parole sentences. Nobody was convicted of the m
urders
of Serbian civilians. (OSCE) UNMIK's investigation
of the deaths of three Albanian boys
in the river Ibar showed that the accusations
against the Serbs were false. International Prosecutor Peter Tinsley
in charge of the investigation stated that there were
no elements of criminal act in this tragic event.
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