The Kosovo Crisis: Origins and History
by Carl K. Savich February 20, 2001
Table of Contents
Introduction
Early History
Medieval Serbian Empire
Ottoman Rule and Serbian Migrations
Failure of the Medieval Albanian State
Ethnography of Kosovo
Kosovo in Post-War Communist Yugoslavia: 1945-1981
Economy and Migrations
Evolution of the Autonomy of Kosovo
Conclusion
Epilogue: Kosovo or Kosova? An Epistemological Analysishttp://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/Read the rest of this great article here:
http://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/011.shtmlCarl Savich on Forgotten Kosovo: Murders, Rapes, and Ethnic Cleansing — Creating an Ethnically Pure “Kosova”, 1981-1989
By Carl Savich
Creating an Ethnically Pure “Kosova”http://www.byzantinesacredart.com/blog/2007/07/savich-on-kosovo.htmlTo 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?
“We Want a Unified Albania”: The 1981 RiotsOn April 3-4, 1981, ethnic Albanians 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.
Ethnically Motivated MurdersThe 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!'"
A Broken Bottle Up His AnusOne of the most inflammatory and disturbing 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 donkey 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 Communist 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 Martinović, 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. 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.
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." And that ended it. Martinovic had engaged in a homosexual act of self-gratification that went awry. He then blamed Albanian separatists for his own accident. Simultaneously, he wanted to exploit and manipulate his accident for propaganda purposes to demonize the Albanian Muslims and to paint Serbs as victims. This was how the Martinovic case was spin doctored by the Communist regime in Yugoslavia and the US and Western media.
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.
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?
Desecration of Christian Graves and CemeteriesOne 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.
Conclusion
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?
The article above is a shortened version of a longer one on Kosovo in the 1980s that will appear on Serbianna web site. In the longer version, Carl Savich details how the US/Western media manipulated the events of the 1980s in Serbian Kosovo province.
Carl Savich, Historian and Balkan Expert
Carl Savich is a Michigan-based historian, with a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He has an M.A. in History and a J.D. in Law. He is a member of the Alpha Zeta Upsilon chapter of the international history honor society, Phi Alpha Theta. He has received an LCP BW American Jurisprudence Award and a Handy and Harmon Academic Scholarship.
Carl Savich’s work has been cited on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum website in Washington, DC and the Holocaust and Genocide Studies website of the University of Minnesota. His articles have appeared on numerable web sites, including AntiWar.com, Balkanlysis.com, Kosovo.net, MakNews.com, RealityMacedonia.com, SND.com, SUC.com, Pogledi.com, and Rastko.com.
Mr. Savich has been a contributor to The Detroit News, The Detroit Free Press, Foreign Policy, Ancient Serbia (Stara Srbija), The Voice of Ravanica, Liberty (Sloboda), The American Srbobran, The Macomb Daily, The Sterling Heights Mirror, and The Oakland Post. His areas of interest and expertise are history, journalism, political science, and law.
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