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THE WASHINGTON TIMES
COMMENTARY
April 10, 2005
Forum: Anti-Serb programs in Kosovo
Greek Foreign Minister Panayiotis Molyviatis wrote in these pages March
25,
"A return to the pre-1999 status quo is no longer a realistic option.
Kosovo must
remain multiethnic."
With all due respect, Mr. Molyviatis is way off base. "Remain
multiethnic"? Multiethnicity in Kosovo died when President Clinton
supported
Osama bin Laden's Kosovo Liberation Army, an army of which The Washington
Times' own Jerry Seper wrote in May 1999, "Some members of the Kosovo
Liberation Army, which has financed its war effort through the sale of
heroin, were trained in terrorist camps run by international fugitive
Osama bin Laden."
Further, while the Clinton administration was supporting the Bosnian
Muslim government of Alija Izetbegovic, his embassy in Vienna in 1992
issued
a passport to Osama bin Laden that enabled him to visit Bosnia and Kosovo
at
least three different times. (The Wall Street Journal Europe, Nov. 1,
2001,
"Al Qaeda's Balkan links").
Barely covered by the national media, a National Review report of March
19, 2004, said: "A pogrom started in Europe on Wednesday. A U.N.
official is
quoted as saying 'Kristallnacht is under way in Kosovo.' Serbs are being
murdered and their 800-year-old churches are aflame. Much of the Christian
heritage in Kosovo and Metohija is on fire and could be lost forever.
By these deeds too many of Kosovo's Albanians have shown that all the
speeches about democracy and multiethnicity we have been hearing in Kosovo
since June1999, and the naive repetition of them by the international
community, are false. These words too are burning, as is the hope in the
hearts of right-thinking policymakers across the world that Kosovo's barbarians
can be civilized at little cost to the West."
Former UNPROFOR Commander, Canadian Maj. Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, said it
best in the National Post report: "The Kosovo-Albanians have played
us like
a Stradivarius. We have subsidized and indirectly supported their violent
campaign for an ethnically pure and independent Kosovo. We have never
blamed
them for being the perpetrators of the violence in the early '90s and
we continue to portray them as the designated victim today in spite of
evidence to the contrary. When they achieve independence with the help
of our tax dollars combined with those of bin Laden and al Qaeda, just
consider the message of encouragement this sends to other terrorist-supported
independence movements around the world."
Mr. Molyviatis writes, "Finally, it is necessary we proceed to a
strictly monitored process for collecting small arms and ammunition in
the
region." Does he not know that, when the Kosovo Liberation Army morphed
into
the alleged Kosovo Peace Corps, it took along its arms and weapons for
use
against the Serbian minority?
So much for a multiethnic Kosovo. While the rest of the world stands
by, all vestiges of Serbian culture, religion, language and religion are
being eradicated from their Jerusalem, Kosovo being the seat of the Serbian
Orthodox Church.
However, I do agree with Mr. Molyviatis' statement that: "The year
2005 will see the Balkans return as one of the top issues on the international
agenda by reason, once again, of the uncertain situation in Kosovo."
Granting independence to Kosovar Albanian extremists would reward terrorism.
STELLA L. JATRAS
Camp Hill, Pa.
http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20050409-102733-9741r.htm
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