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The Emperor's New Clothes (TENC) *
www.tenc.net "The distinctive two-headed
eagle of the red and black Albanian flag, reviled by Serbs, was
everywhere Sunday, held by revelers, draped on horses, flapping out of
car windows and hanging outside homes and storefronts across the
territory." This supports the charge that 'independence' is part of a U.S. (and German and Vatican) strategy of absorbing Serbia's province of Kosovo into a Greater Albania that previously existed only under WWII Axis patronage. [2]The Times says the Kosovo declaration of so-called independence is a response to a history of abuse of Kosovo Albanians, for example suppression of the Albanian language, by the Serbs. According to the Times: "In the 1980s, Mr.
Milosevic used Serbs' enormous sense of grievance that their
ancestral heartland was now dominated by Muslim Albanians to come to
power in Serbia." So, according to the Times, Serbs were stirred by
nationalism compounded by religious jealousy. Second, regarding Islam, I have posted thirteen articles on Kosovo that the New York Times published between 1981 and 1987, describing problems leading up to the 1989 constitutional change. [4]Searching these articles one finds no
mention of Serbs being upset because their "ancestral heartland was now
dominated by Muslim Albanians." Indeed, one can find no mention at all
of the words 'Muslim' or 'Islam.' [5]
But one does find the relevant use of words such as
'rape' five times; 'murder' thrice; 'vandalize' once; 'mutilate' once, 'kill' twice;
'attack' on people or property five times; 'knifed' once; 'burn' twice;
'damage' five times; 'poison' twice; "splashed gasoline in
the face" once; and 'harass' once, concerning Serbs who "have been
harassed by Albanians and have packed up and left the region." In every
case the Times was reporting terror by secessionist-organized
Albanians against Serbs. "to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger with Albania to form a greater Albania." [6]In modifying Kosovo autonomy in 1989, the
Republic of Serbia was not repressing Islam; it was belatedly resisting
a) racist violence against Serbs and b) an attempt to destroy
Yugoslavia. [Excerpt from interview with
Agim K. starts here] "The threats started again in
July, I think. First only by telephone; later they began to come to our
house, at night - four or five people usually, sometimes more, in
UCK
uniforms. They had guns, knives. First they wanted me to work for them;
I am an engineer and they needed qualified people. They wanted me to
make diversions on power stations and phone lines. I refused. Then they
started to break in our house several times a week, to beat us up: me,
my father. My mother and younger sisters had to watch them do it, at gun
point. We had no more sleep at night. This was a thousand times
worse than anything Serbs did, or didn't do, or could have done: our own
people were torturing us because we wouldn't be cut-throats." -- Agim K., an Albanian whose family fled Kosovo after refusing to assist in anti-Serb violence. [7] [Excerpt from interview with Agim K. ends here] If Kosovo is a battleground of Christianity vs. Islam, why in 1993 did Pope John Paul II - was he a Muslim? - give Kosovo Albanian secessionist leader Ibrahim Rugova an audience and a medal? [8] The pope's message was clear: the Vatican backed secession. This had a big effect on Catholic Europe, just like the pope's endorsement of Yasser Arafat. (The PLO got its own office in the Vatican in 1994!) [9] But it also politically strengthened the secessionists among Albanians, since everyone knows the pope spells power.A related myth, generally pushed in the Western media, although not in this particular Times article, is that, motivated by mythical anti-Muslim hate, Serbs drove Albanians from Kosovo in 1999, thus provoking NATO bombing. But a) Albanian flight began a week after the onset of NATO bombing, so how could it have caused it? And b) Albanian flight was staged by the NATO-controlled Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to mislead Western audiences; staged, as we shall see, through calculated terror. The Yugoslav army tried to organize Albanians to stay in Kosovo and fight the KLA, but the KLA strategy of terror prevailed, and so the pro-NATO media was able to broadcast TV images, falsely presented as Albanians fleeing Serbian violence. In 1999 and 2000 my website interviewed Cedomir Prlincevic, president of the Jewish community and chief archivist in Pristina, capital of Kosovo province. In the first interview, [10] Mr. Prlincevic described how, after the victory of NATO's 1999 bombing war against Yugoslavia, the KLA marched into Kosovo alongside KFOR. (KFOR stands for 'Kosovo Force,' NATO's name for its troops in Kosovo.) KFOR watched and refused to intervene as the KLA attacked Yugoslav loyalists (Serb, Albanian, Roma, Jewish and Slavic Muslim) in Pristina. Mr. Prlincevic described how terrorists invaded the section of Pristina where he lived, killing some people and driving 30,000 from their homes, including Albanians loyal to Yugoslavia. Here is an excerpt: [Excerpt from first Prlincevic interview
starts here] -- See footnote [10] [Excerpt from first Prlincevic interview ends here] Obviously, the KLA was a NATO proxy force whose job was
to do the dirty work, following which Western officials could lament the
understandable excesses of Albanian 'revenge.' I asked Mr. Prlincevic whether ethnic Albanians in Pristina, an intellectual center, were pro-KLA when NATO bombed. Here is his reply, shortened: [Excerpt from second Prlincevic interview
starts here] -- See footnote [11] [Excerpt from second Prlincevic interview ends here] My conclusion? The first target of Western-fostered
Kosovo "independence" has been Albanians independent of racism.
========================================== =========================================== Our work depends on donations. If you find Emperor's Clothes useful, please help us to pay website, research and technical expenses. Every donation helps, big or small! Our best is yet to come! Here's how to make a donation: * At our secure server: https://emperor.securesites.com/transactions/index.php * Using PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=emperors1000@aol.com&no_shipping=1 * Mail a check to: Emperor's Clothes P.O. Box 610-321 Newton, MA 02461-0321 USA * Or, call us at 1 617 916-1705 (If you get voicemail, please leave your phone number and we will call you back.) Thank you! =========================================== Footnotes =========================================== [1] "Kosovo Declares Its Independence From Serbia," by Dan Bilefsky, Warren Hoge, C. J. Chivers and Nicholas Kulish, The New York Times, February 18, 2008 [2] See, "The roots of Kosovo fascism," by George Thompson, The Emperor's New Clothes, February 19, 2000, at http://tenc.net/articles/thompson/rootsof.htm [3] Regarding the change in Kosovo's constitutional status in 1989, see "The Other Side of the Story," by Dusan Vilic and Bosko Todorovic, The Emperor's New Clothes, February 16, 2002, at http://emperors-clothes.com/book/other.htm#3 and http://emperors-clothes.com/book/other.htm#11 [4] See "Thirteen NY Times Articles on Kosovo, from 1981 to 1987," The Emperor's New Clothes, February 26, 2008, at http://emperors-clothes.com/a/13.htm [5] As I stated, if one does a word search on the page where the New York Times articles are posted http://emperors-clothes.com/a/13.htm one will not find the words 'Muslim' or 'Islam.' The word 'Moslem' (spelled with an 'o' rather than a 'u') does appear once, but that is regarding a Muslim clan which was entrusted with protecting the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchate of Pec. See "Sacred Serbian Site Damaged By Blaze," by Marvine Howe, The New York Times, April 21, 1981, at http://emperors-clothes.com/a/13.htm#2 If the Times has discovered that its reporting from 1981 to 1987 on Kosovo was wrong, let it say so and say why. By failing to refute its earlier reporting - indeed, by failing even to mention that at the time it attributed Kosovo's problems to systematic anti-Serb violence - the Times lends credibility to my charge that the 'Serbian religious jealousy' explanation was invented to provide a plausible reason for Serbs to have supposedly abused Albanians. [6] See "Exodus of Serbians Stirs Province in Yugoslavia," by Marvine Howe, The New York Times, July 12, 1982, at http://emperors-clothes.com/a/13.htm#7 The phrase "ethnically clean" appears in the article at http://emperors-clothes.com/a/13.htm#clean [7] "An Albanian Tragedy: A stranger in Belgrade. Interview with Agim K." Interviewed by Tanya Djurovic, The Emperor's New Clothes, March 6, 2000, at http://www.tenc.net/interviews/albanian.htm [8] See "In 1993, the Pope Openly Embraced Kosovo Secession ," The Emperor's New Clothes, February 26, 2008, at http://emperors-clothes.com/medal.htm [9] See "How the Vatican Legitimized the PLO and Coerced Israel to Recognize it," The Emperor's New Clothes, July 17, 2006, at http://emperors-clothes.com/vatican/pressure.htm#VII [10] "Driven from Kosovo!" Interview with Cedomir Prlincevic, Chief Archivist and leader of the Jewish Community in Pristina, capital of Kosovo province (Serbia). Interviewed by Jared Israel and Nancy Gust, The Emperor's New Clothes, September 9, 1999, at http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/prlincevic.htm [11] "Why Albanians Fled Kosovo During the 1999 NATO Bombing - Interview with Cedomir Prlincevic," interviewed by Jared Israel, The Emperor's New Clothes, December 3, 2000, at http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/keys.htm [12] Serbo-Croatian and Albanian have diacritics (accent marks), which are not present in English, and which some email services cannot decipher. In emailing this article we have therefore decided to remove all diacritics. The affected words are listed below, with explanations. (The present article is posted with diacritics at http://tenc.net/phony.htm ) - 'Cedomir' has a caron (an inverted circumflex accent mark, i.e., a wedge) on 'C' - 'Clirimtare' has a cedilla (a hook sign) under 'C' - 'Kosoves' is written with a diaeresis (a pair of dots) on 'e' - 'Leke' has a diaeresis on the second 'e' - 'Pec' has an acute accent on 'c' - 'Pristina' has a caron on 's' - 'Prlincevic' is written with a caron on the first 'c' and an acute accent on the second 'c' - 'Thaci,' and 'UCK' have a cedilla under 'c' =========================================== Further Reading A partial collection of
Emperor's Clothes articles on Kosovo is posted at
http://emperors-clothes.com/yugo.htm |