On My Way to Vespers one Night….

On my way to Vespers last Saturday I found this guy. Luckily, I had my camera handy. Seeing as this is a small town, I guess it shouldn’t surprise me to find my picture on today’s front page.

Bishop Artemije Demands Accountability for Harvest of Organs from Living Serbian Christians

GRACANICA, Serbia, July 17 — The following statement was issued today by His Grace ARTEMIJE, Bishop of Ras and Prizren, and pastor of Orthodox Christians in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija:

“On July 21, President George W. Bush is scheduled to meet with Hashim Thaci, styled by some ‘Prime Minister’ of the separatist Albanian Muslim administration in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija. As pastor of the Orthodox Christian people of Kosovo, I protest to the fullest possible degree the fact that President Bush would bring dishonor on his office and sully the good name of the American nation by receiving such an infamous terrorist, war criminal, and organized crime chieftain.

“Such a meeting is particularly disturbing in light of President Bush’s aspiration to leadership in the struggle of decent people everywhere against global jihad terrorism. In another context, he likened association with terrorists to seeking accord with the Nazis before World War II. Has he now changed his mind?

“Mr. Thaci’s criminal record is well-known. Under his alias ‘the Snake,’ Mr. Thaci is one of the three principal kingpins in the Albanian Mafia, which is based in Kosovo and operates drug, sexual slavery, and weapons rackets across Europe. According to the German intelligence service BND, he meets regularly in Pristina’s Grand Hotel with his chief accomplices, Ramush Haradinaj and Agim Ceku, to manage their joint criminal enterprises. To protect his criminal ‘turf,’ Mr. Thaci has not hesitated to eliminate rivals through physical means. As stated by one Albanian former leader in Kosovo, ‘Cadavers have never been an obstacle to Thaci’s career.’

“His record as a terrorist and war criminal is no less notorious. As a former commander of the so-called ‘Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA),’ Mr. Thaci bears primary responsibility for the terror campaign that has killed thousands of my flock and forced a quarter of a million to flee their homes in the province. Thousands of Serbian houses have been burned or forcibly taken over by Albanians, many of them illegal immigrants from Albania. Mr. Thaci’s henchmen have demolished or desecrated over 150 of the churches and monasteries in my diocese. Particularly targeted for destruction have been crosses and icons of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the saints, giving proof to the Islamic jihad ferocity that motivates these attacks.

“It is known that in 1995 Mr. Thaci, together with his crony Mr. Haradinaj, met in Tirana with Osama bin-Laden to plan the jihad against Serbs in Kosovo. Americans should keep in mind that the terrorist reach of the KLA is not confined to Serbia but already has reached American shores with the barely averted plot by jihad terrorists, four of whom are Albanian Muslims from the Kosovo region, to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey and kill American servicemen.

“Perhaps most appalling is Mr. Thaci’s role with respect to horrifying reports that organs destined for the illegal trade in organs for transplant were torn from live Serbian prisoners of the KLA. Some of the Serbian victims, after having one kidney cut out, were returned to confinement with fellow captives pending the lethal surgical removal of their other organs, waiting in knowing dread of the fate prepared for them! As documented by U.N. former war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte — someone who hardly can be accused of having a pro-Serb bias — these reports are specific and credible and cry out for immediate investigation. The U.S.-based advocacy organization Human Rights Watch has written to Mr. Thaci with their concerns about this matter, which he has dismissed with cavalier indifference. This is hardly surprising, given that these atrocities were committed by his KLA minions, for whose actions he bears command responsibility. Indeed, in light of Mr. Thaci’s criminal proclivities, is it not more than likely he himself profited from this gruesome trade?

“This is the man with whom the leader of the world’s foremost democracy now intends to meet! In doing so, President Bush would be committing a grave transgression against morality and decency, as well as an offense against any standard of civilized behavior. I call on President Bush, as a professing Christian and as an international leader, to cancel this iniquitous meeting. I call on U.S. authorities to demand that those responsible for the harvesting of organs from live Serbian victims be made to face justice.”

+ ARTEMIJE

Gracanica Monastery, Province of Kosovo and Metohija

Serbia

Heavenly Metal?

Somehow I have a hard time believing this one. For that matter, I never understood Christian Rock. This Catholic monk says he was at a Metallica concert and felt the “energy” of the music. I don’t doubt that but I don’t see how someone like him, with his Christian background, could have interpreted, or mistaken it, as positive energy. Oh well, to each his own.

We’re Not Alone

That was the slogan used when Kosovo declared independence and Serbia was not the only country protesting. “We’re Not Alone” we shouted. There were other countries on our side, most notably Russia and China. That’s why one wonders what’s going on when we read the following:

TADIC NO LONGER WANTS RUSSIAN HELP

Belgrade, 9 July (AKI) - Serbian president Boris Tadic has signalled a change in policy towards Kosovo, whose majority ethnic Albanians declared independence in February.

Tadic, who consolidated his power this week by forming a pro-European government, headed by his Democratic Party (DS), said the situation in Kosovo had changed since independence.

In an interview with Belgrade daily Vecernje novosti said Serbia would have „to find new answers in the new circumstances”.

Analysts said it was a decisive departure from the policy of Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica whom Tadic’s coalition ousted from power in the May election, after the two leaders split over Kosovo and European integration.

Koštunica insisted Serbia should shelve its plan to join the European Union after most EU countries recognised Kosovo and Brussels decided to send its mission (EULEX) to the province to implement the independence plan forged by United Nations negotiator Martti Ahtisaari.

Serbia’s ally Russia, which backed Belgrade by blocking Kosovo’s independence in the United Nations’ Security Council and opposed the deployment of EULEX.

But Tadic said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon now had „a clear majority on the reconfiguration of a civilian presence in the province and we must talk it out with the international community”.

Analyst Slavko Zivanov said it was a signal that Serbia no longer counted on a Russian veto and „an indirect message to Moscow to mind its business”.

Tadic reiterated his earlier position that joining the EU remained Serbia’s priority, regardless of developments in Kosovo.

„Tadic is actually looking for an exit strategy from the present situation, now that he has all reins of power in his hands,” Zivanov told Adnkronos International (AKI).

Zivanov pointed out that Kosovo’s independence and EULEX’s deployment always had majority support in the UN Security Council, and the only obstacle had been the Russian veto.

„Nothing has changed in the Security Council, but it seems that Tadic no longer wants Russian help,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kosovo Albanian language daily Zeri said on Wednesday that Tadic was aware that Kosovo’s independence was irreversible and would try to split the province.

But Kosovo officials and the international community adamantly oppose the partitioning of the province.

Galbraith: Ethnic Cleansing of Serbs was Croatia’s State Policy

[First it was Carla Del Ponte in her tell-all book and now this. The truth comes out.]

Former US Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith who testified before the Hague tribunal on Monday, confirmed that ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Serbian Krajina region was a deliberate systematic operation and the state policy of Croat leadership, headed by Franjo Tudjman, which led to the mass scale ethnic cleansing in two blitzkrieg operations in 1995, codenamed Storm and Flash.

As a prosecution witness in the case against Tudjman’s generals Ante Gotovina, Mladen Markaca and Ivan Cermak — accused of conducting military operations aimed at forced and permanent removal of Serbian population from the Krajina region, including killing Serbian civilians and prisoners, expulsion, deportation, plunder of Serbian property, merciless destruction of Serbian-populated towns and villages and inhumane and cruel treatment — Galbraith stressed that this was Croatia’s state policy that continued to be enforced afterwards, preventing the expelled Serbs from returning to their homes and land in Croatia.

According to Galbraith, the systematic destruction and plunder of the Serbian property during the Storm, as well as prevention of their return, through the legal and other means undertaken after the operation, took place “because Croat state leadership — Tudjman and the gang around him — wanted it to happen, and they were happy when it did happen”.

SYSTEMATIC POGROM

“Once the Serbs were gone, Tudjman didn’t want them to return”, American diplomat said, adding that Croat state enacted legal measures to prevent the return of the expelled and refugees.

“The systematic destruction of Krajina was either ordered or permitted, but in any case, this was intended by the Croat leadership. I believe this was a deliberate policy of Zagreb government,” Galbraith stressed.
He said that Croat war-time president Tudjman, during their numerous meetings before the Operation Storm, was not hiding the fact he considers Serbian population in Krajina region “a strategic threat” to Croatia. His adviser Hrvoje Sarinic called Serbian population in Croatia a “cancer on Croatia’s belly”, US diplomat noted.

Galbraith confirmed that Tudjman was saying that only “up to 10 percent of Serbs can remain in Croatia”, and that Serbian Krajina region ought to be cleansed of Serbs and populated by the diaspora Croats. Emphasizing that his goal was a nationally “homogeneous”, i.e. an ethnically clean state, Tudjman was also openly advocating “moving the population” and dividing Bosnia and Herzegovina, Galbraith revealed.
He testified that right after the military offensive on Serbian Krajina began, on August 4, 1995, the mass “torching and pillaging” of the Serbian towns and villages also started. He had personally witnessed these crimes and knows these were not merely “isolated incidents”, as Croats refer to them, but organized, massive action, planned at the very top of Croat political and military leadership.

GALBRAITH REGRETS LYING DURING MILOSEVIC’S TRIAL

Mass ethnic cleansing of Serbian population from Krajina in Croatia — Operation Storm — remains the biggest single act of ethnic cleansing committed on the territory of former Yugoslavia, with over 300,000 Serbs being forced to flee, while more than 14,000 Serbian civilians were killed. It was, therefore, quite convenient that US State Department’s Madeleine Albright had miraculously discovered, at the very moment Croats were “purifying” their state, that Serbs have committed a “genocide” in Srebrenica a whole month earlier, so that the focus of the world public could be successfully and instantly taken off the genocidal Croat state.

During his Hague testimony on June 23, Galbraith expressed regret he had lied in the trial against former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, claiming that there was no ethnic cleansing during Operation Storm. He said that this was a “technical explanation”, because many Serbs left the town of Knin before the savage Croat troops entered (compared to hyenas by a senior British officer who, after his peacekeeping service in Bosnia, said he “would rather find Serbs under his command, as they could be counted on to fight to the last man [while] Croats were no more dependable or courageous than hyenas”).

Elsewhere, it was noted that the US State Department representative was present the entire time during Galbraith’s testimony, sitting behind the prosecutor, with the task to oversee American diplomat’s testimony and prevent him from touching upon the subjects which involve the US role in purging Croatia of Serbs.