Knowing Mr. Zhirinovsky I would say he did a brilliant suggestion about NATO. This way Russia can accomplish what it needs - effectively blocking without an armed opposition of any possible NATO decision it dislikes, enforcing its "likes", and ruining NATO, if need be. Just an excellent troyan horse.

Emina

Ahhhhhh!!! The idealism and exuberance of youth! Helps make the world go round. Daniela's inability to look at the dark side is obvious in the slants and selectivity of her posts.

Objectively, the KLA and more importantly the ethnic Albanians in general didn't do anything to deserve the fate that has befallen them at the hands of their Serb tourmentors. It seems that when one believes that the worst has come to light, yet another even more repugnant revalation emerges. Seldom in war are the women the objects of rage. Particularly in a region that has a matralinial tradition that goes back twenty or so millineum well back into the history of oral tradition. This is something quite alarming.

Rape has a long and ignoble tradition, but at least the act can lend to genetic diversity improving and strengthening the gene pool. Killing women is another matter altogether. Women are not expendable. Not only are they the source of biological renewal, but also they are the conduits of cultural values through which the best of our existance is passed on to succeeding generations. To wontonly kill the women reveals deep seated hatred and feelings of inferiority. phil

CONTROVERSY SURROUNDS NEW KOSOVA COURT. In Prishtina on
30 June, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who is Annan's special
representative in Kosova, swore in nine judges for
Kosova's new independent judiciary, including two judges
in absentia. The nine are five ethnic Albanians, three
Serbs, and one ethnic Turk. The judges' first task will
be to try 221 people, recently detained by KFOR, for
murder, looting, and other crimes. De Mello called the
swearing in "a most important step forward toward
building a new multi-ethnic, independent judiciary."
Aziz Rexha, who is one of the five Albanian judges, told
Reuters, however, that he and the other Albanians will
not assume their duties unless the ethnic balance of the
judiciary is altered to more accurately reflect that of
Kosova, which is approximately 90 percent Albanian.
Djordje Aksic, who was a judge under the former Serbian
administration but not under the new one, argued that
there must be additional Serbian judges if the exodus of
Serbs from the province is to stop.

Emina

TRIBUNAL'S RISLEY SAYS SERBIAN AUTHORITIES LAUNCHED
DESTRUCTION CAMPAIGN. Paul Risley, who is a spokesman of
the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia, told RFE/RL on 30 June that that Serbian
forces deliberately destroyed houses in Kosova. He
argued that the scale of destruction proves that the
buildings were not damaged in fighting but that the
perpetrators must have set fire to them systematically.
He stressed that cities such as Peja and Gjakova are
almost completely leveled and that in some cases
artillery and mortar fire destroyed entire areas. Risley
stressed that army, paramilitary, or police units "must
have been directed or told to go to some areas
[and]...create these fires, and then move on." There are
currently five teams of international forensic experts
working in Kosova, while up to five more teams are
expected soon. The number of investigators will then
total about 350

WELL SOON WE ALL KNOW WHO DID WHAT.AND THEN I CAN FINALY GO TO SLEEP IN PIECE.

Emina

ADDITIONAL MASS GRAVES DISCOVERED IN KOSOVA. KFOR
troops on 30 June discovered several mass graves,
including the bodies of 119 people in two locations
northwest of Prizren, dpa reported. Elsewhere, KFOR
soldiers found 11 burned bodies in a house in Kalilane
near Peja. A KFOR spokesman in Prishtina said all 11
appeared to be members of a single ethnic Albanian
family.

Emina

You can say all you want off the UCK, but they do have sense in them.I just hope the story is true.

UCK COMMANDER CALLS ON ALBANIANS NOT TO TAKE REVENGE.
UCK commander Rustem Mustafa Remi has called on ethnic
Albanians not to take revenge on local Serbs, RFE/RL's
South Slavic Service reported on 30 June. Remi said
that "revenge brings nothing good to the Albanian
people" and is "unacceptable to the UCK." He stressed
that the UCK intends to introduce the rule of law and
a democratic society for all citizens, independent of
their ethnic origin. Remi harshly condemned the
killings and maltreatment of Serbian civilians as well
as the burning of their homes and property by ethnic
Albanians.

Emina

Well what can i say i don't like onesided stories.But it is a good example of what Serbian police had coming.I don't agree with the innocent citizans from both sides that is

MORE REPORTS OF KILLINGS OF SERBS. Serbian Orthodox
Father Radomir Nikcevic told the independent FoNet news
agency on 30 June that unknown persons killed four
Serbian civilians near Rahovec during the previous 24
hours and that an additional 19 Serbs have
"disappeared." A local Serbian Red Cross official added
that 4,000 Serbs fear revenge attacks by ethnic
Albanians and have taken shelter at a church, AP
reported. During the spring, Rahovec was the scene of
some particularly grisly killings of Kosovars by Serbian
forces. In Mitrovica on 30 June, KFOR sent doctors for
the first time into the Serbian part of the city,
RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported

Emina

FIRST TURKISH TROOPS LEAVE FOR KOSOVA. A convoy of 52
military vehicles left Ankara on 1 July for Kosova via
Bulgaria and Macedonia. Turkey's NATO ally Greece
refused to allow the convoy to cross its territory,
thereby causing a delay in the departure of the
vehicles, Reuters reported. A second group of troops
will travel by train to Prizren on 2 July and a third
and final contingent will fly to Skopje on 7 July before
going on to Kosova. The Turks will be stationed in
southwestern Kosova, where many ethnic Turks live. Since
the collapse of communism, Turkey has shown a keen
interest in reestablishing close ties with several
Balkan countries that formerly belonged to the Ottoman
Empire.

---

Personally i have my doubts if this is a good move
Emina

WISE WORDS FROM A MAN I HAVE RESPECT FOR.

DJINDJIC WARNS AGAINST ISOLATING SERBS. Zoran Djindjic,
who heads Serbia's opposition Democratic Party, said on
a visit to Prague on 30 June that democracy will not
come to Serbia so long as Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic stays in power, AP reported. Djindjic added,
however, that the international community should not
isolate the Serbian people in the meantime. "Isolation
of the government must not mean isolation of the nation.
We cannot expect people who have nothing to support
democracy. They could become an easy victim of
demagogy," Djindjic concluded.

Emina

HMMMM STARTING TO GET NERVOUS....HE FIRES DRASKOVIC AND NOW HE HOPES HE COMES BACK I HOPE VUK KEEPS HIS HEAD COOL.COWARD.NOT TO MENTION THAT ANIMAL SESELJ

MILOSEVIC TO RESHUFFLE CABINET? Yugoslav Prime Minister
Momir Bulatovic met in Belgrade on 30 June with
representatives of all parties represented in the
parliament to discuss reconstruction following the NATO
bombing campaign. The Serbian opposition parties
belonging to the Alliance for Change have no
parliamentary representation and were not invited.
Montenegrin parties opposed to Milosevic rejected the
invitation because they do not recognize the Bulatovic
government as legitimate. Observers suggested that
Milosevic may be seeking to solidify his power base by
ensuring that Vojislav Seselj's Serbian Radical Party
stays in government and by persuading Vuk Draskovic's
Serbian Renewal Movement to return to the cabinet after
having left earlier in the year.

Emina

TO PHIL.
Last i was thinking maybe it would help if there were more woman in politics.Imean ladies not woman who want to act like man.

Woman know about the forthcoming off life better, not that man arent a part of it.But its us who do the carrying and in many cultures the raising as well
Emina

Well, guys, I hope for missie Kissie this is intellectual enough. Although I doubt if she can discuss the subject.
For the rest of you, I hope this will clarify some things.

---

The Serbian Orthodox Church: Not What Cartoonists Would Have Us Believe
by Jim Forest

---

Conciliar Press .

---

A recent cover of the British weekly journal, The Tablet, features a
pen-and-ink drawing of an Orthodox bishop kneeling in the rubble of a bombed
church with President Milosevic behind him. Milosevic looks far and away the
more pious of the two. The headline beneath the drawing reads, "Serbia's
Martyr Complex." One wonders if there were not a few in England in the years
of the German Blitz who didn't have their own martyr complex -- being the
object of bombing day after day might do that for anyone. But it is the
drawing that interests me more than the essay it illustrates. Change the
bishops's costume and he could play the part of a criminal overlord in a old
Charlie Chan movie, the Emperor Ming ordering the execution of Flash Gordon,
or the Count Dracula contemplating the neck of a sleeping beauty.

The art of enmity has for years given us a steady diet of images of evil
Serbs, sometimes shown as cavemen, often dripping with blood, victimizing
their neighbors. Nor is it unusual to show the Serbian Orthodox Church
playing the role as chaplain to the state and accomplice in Serbian war
crimes. Journalistic background pieces remind us, if we need reminding, that
the Serbs belong to a not-quite-Christian church in which ritual is far more
important than the Gospel.

It is rarely mentioned that Serbs have been as much victims as perpetrators
of war crimes and that no ethnic group in the old, much larger Yugoslavia has
been more "ethnically cleansed" then Serbs -- witness the expulsion of at
least 600,000 Serbs from Croatia during the breakup of the former large
Yugoslavia, nearly the entire Serb minority, once 12 percent of the
population, or the 200,000 Serbs removed from Kosovo by the pro-Nazi Albanian
fascist regime during World War II.

It is our fallen human nature, not only the nature of the mass media, to want
to iron out the wrinkles that complicate our perception of others. It is a
process that reduces the world to comic book simplify. Thus the English say
"rather" and drink tea, the French make love and drink wine, the Dutch grow
tulips and drink gin, and Serbs kiss icons and drink blood.

In reality the religious life and identity of Serbs is not what we have been
led to believe. While it's true that church attendance in Serbia has gone up
since NATO bombardment began -- exploding bombs turn one's mind to ultimate
things -- religious faith remains a minor element in Serbian social or
political life.

Tito was extraordinarily successful in his 35-year struggle to marginalize
the Orthodox Church. Throughout the Tito era, it was a major disadvantage to
put one's toe in the church door. A professed Christian had little hope for
social rewards. Those who wanted to advance in life had to join the Communist
Party, in which atheism was obligatory. Tito died in 1980, but many of his
social policies survived, including the view that religion belonged to the
past. While Milosevic turned to nationalism in his successful bid for power
in 1989, in other ways he remained faithful to his political and ideological
roots.

It was thus a weakened Serbian Orthodox Church that had to define its
response to the events which tore Yugoslavia to shreds in the nineties.
Serbian priests I interviewed several years ago estimated that perhaps five
percent of the population were engaged in the Church in a significant way,
with the vast majority of unbaptized. In the capital, pornography was much
far more in evidence than religious literature.

Those Serbs who love things of beauty hold ancient monasteries and churches
-- many of these are in Kosovo -- in high regard. In more peaceful times they
were always ready to take guests like me to visit these "monuments," but
those who crossed themselves, kissed icons and visibly prayed in such places
were the exception. Despite occasional conversions by young intellectuals,
Serbs tend to regard the Church as a beautiful museum with little relevance
to the daily life in the modern world, though in recent years the outspoken
criticism by the hierarchy in regard to the Milosevic regime has earned the
Church a certain respect among those working for a more democratic society.
Nonetheless the head the Church, Patriarch Pavle, is highly regarded and
often described as a saint even by unchurched people. A small, lean,
white-bearded man with a meek but determined manner, he is well known for
having personally taken part in various protest demonstrations in Belgrade.
In 1997 he led a procession of many thousands that freed protesting students
who were under police siege in central Belgrade. Pavle has touched Serbs even
more deeply by being accessible to ordinary people and for significant
gestures in his private life. One cleric complained to me how inconvenient it
was when Pavle came to visit his parish church. "You can never say exactly
when he will arrive, how late he will be. He travels by tram and bus, then
walks the rest of the way. Of course we offer to drive him, but we know
beforehand that his answer will always be no. He says he will get a car only
when the poorest person can have one."

Not all clerics set such an inspiring example. A deacon I know in Belgrade
complains about priests who "are more interested in cars than souls." Two
Serbian friends of mine had to delay their wedding in Belgrade, having
decided they would not allow a priest to bless their marriage whose main
interest was economic. It took more than a week to find a priest who didn't
begin the conversation with the announcement of his fee. (It should be noted
that most Serb clergy have no regular salary and depend on gifts for services
for their livelihood.)

Further complicating the problem of the Church's role in post-Tito Serbia is
that the Church, however crippled by past oppression, is the only institution
that still incarnates Serbian identity. No other social structure is so
deeply linked with Serbia's long history, traditions, achievements and
sorrows. This has led Serbian nationalists, in many cases atheists, to value
the Church for "cultural" reasons even while regarding its beliefs and
teachings as irrelevant. For the ultra-nationalist, ultimate values are
national, not religious. An icon in someone's home can be more a sign of
Serbian than Christian identity.

This often makes it harder for visitors, journalists among them, to correctly
interpret what they see, a confusion made more intense by those Serbs for
whom superficial identification with Orthodoxy is seen as a necessary
component of one's all-important national nationality. (Thus one can joke
that when some Serbians cross themselves, it is in the name of the Father,
the Son and Saint Sava -- one of the most revered national saints.)
Yet the direction of the Church's hierarchy, while wanting to preserve all
that is good in Serbian identity and tradition, has been to oppose
ultra-nationalism and to speak out clearly, even at personal risk, against
all Milosevic and others like him represent.

The church's pastors see the neglect of spiritual life as being at the heart
of the nation's crisis.

"For 45 years under communism, atheism was the official religion," Bishop
Lavrentije of Sabac-Valjevo explained in a press interview in 1995. "Priests
were forbidden from going into schools and from visiting the army. People
were educated without any contact with belief in God, and were taught that
there was no soul. Those generations [who received an atheist education] are
now soldiers. That is the reason for genocide. As one philosopher said, 'If
you take away God from man, man becomes the strongest animal'." (One of
Bishop Lavrentije's projects has been to make available works of literature
that will help restore Serbia's spiritual life. When I last saw him, a press
he founded in the diocesan office had just published an edition of the
complete works of Dostoevsky.)

One hears a similar directness on controversial issues from Patriarch Pavle.
When I first met him in 1994, I asked about the civil war that was then
raging in Bosnia. He responded that the blame must be shared among Serbs
along with everyone else -- the governments of the several republics of
former Yugoslavia plus the rest of Europe and the United States: "Everyone is
guilty. There are criminals on every side. God alone knows who has the
greatest blame or who has committed the most sins." In such a situation, the
Church "must condemn all atrocities that are committed, no matter what the
faith or origin of the person committing them may be. No sin committed by one
person justifies a sin committed by another. We will all face the Last
Judgment together where each of us must answer for his sins. No one can
justify his sins by saying someone else is guilty of a crime."

Few bishops have spoken so tirelessly against hatred and war. "Let us grasp
the teaching of the Holy Apostle Paul," he said in letter read in church
early this year, "that one cannot accomplish good by evil means -- a lesson
our mothers taught us through the ages, warning us that evil never brings
good. Oh, that God would help us to understand that we are human beings and
that we must live as human beings, so that peace would come into our country
and bring an end to the killing."

The basic principle was summed up in a statement issued by the Serbian
bishops on March 23rd two days before the NATO attack: "The way of
nonviolence and cooperation is the only way blessed by God."

At the same time a several additional prayers were added to the Liturgy,
including this petition: "For all those who commit injustice against their
neighbors, whether by causing sorrow to orphans, spilling innocent blood or
by returning hatred for hatred, that God will grant them repentance,
enlighten their minds and their hearts and illumine their souls with the
light of love even toward their enemies, let us pray to the Lord."

Church response to the war, in earlier years expressed chiefly in terms of
fundamental moral principles, has increasingly become more specific in
promoting policies the Church believes make peace more likely.

The bishop chiefly responsible for Church efforts on behalf of Kosovo, Bishop
Artemije of Prizren, has made five trips to Washington and traveled
repeatedly to European capitals in his efforts to convince the West that it
was mistaken in its long-running support of Milosevic. In a letter the bishop
hand-delivered to US Secretary of State Albright in February, he said:
"We believe that US policy must cease to be perceived as hostile to the
legitimate interests of the Serbian nation and must, instead, be directed
toward the replacement of the Milosevic regime by a democratic government . .
. The Milosevic regime, as the repeated generator of crises, cannot be relied
upon to help secure a just and durable peace. However, current American
policy seems to be repeating, once again, the mistakes of the past, relying
on the one hand, upon guarantees given by the Milosevic regime, while holding
only the Serbian nation responsible for the escalating cycle of violence.
This mistaken policy, we believe, now on the verge of a NATO intervention in
Kosovo province, will be entirely counterproductive."

NATO intervention, he argued, would only strengthen the Milosevic regime and
be a major setback for the democratic opposition in Serbia, which in turn
would delay democratization, a precondition for peace in the Balkan region.
"In the aftermath of a NATO intervention, whether in the form of a NATO
occupation of Kosovo or an air campaign against Serbia, it is certain that
the Milosevic regime would take decisive and drastic action against its
domestic opponents. A NATO intervention in Kosovo would risk setting back the
cause of democracy in Serbia and in the Balkans for years to come."
Bishop Artemije proposed a solution inspired by the Swiss example -- that
Kosovar Serbs and Kosovar Albanians each be granted the right to
self-administration in rural areas in which they constitute relative or
absolute majorities with economic, judiciary, and political links to Serbia,
while in major cities a system of multi-ethnic rule be adopted in which
political power is shared through a two-chamber Assembly.

On February 3, Patriarch Pavle sought permission for a non-negotiating
representation at the US-led peace conference at the Rambouillet chateau in
France. The request was denied. Even so a week later the delegation went to
Rambouillet, hoping to put forward the Church-backed peace proposal. They
received token recognition in Paris, where a member of the French foreign
minister's staff received them, but the gates were closed to them at the
chateau. Bishop Artemije held a press conference in a local café -- he told
attending journalists that "the Serbs in the castle represent only two
parties, Milosevic's socialists and the neo-communists of his wife" -- and
stood in prayer in the snow outside the chateau gates.

One of the other heroic voices of the Serbian Orthodox Church has been that
of a monk, Father Sava Janjic, assistant abbot of the Decani Monastery in
western Kosovo, a place of refuge for many in the region and a center of
church-backed relief work for all segments of the population, whether
Christian, Muslim or no faith at all.

The lands of the Decani monastery -- built between 1327-35 -- used to stretch
to portions of what is today northern Albania. Its service books are the only
contemporary objects in the church: a printout from Fr. Sava's computer.
There are nearly 10,000 painted figures on the church's frescoed walls, one
of the art treasures of Europe.

"While it's nice for monks to live in a medieval setting," Fr. Sava told a
reporter last year, "that does not mean we are prepared to accept a medieval
mentality. What we have here is a wonderful history that is very important to
the world. But there should be more democratization and integration of this
country into the world. The greatest losers are all civilians." He hoped the
monastery's beauty will help save Kosovo. "This church is so beautiful that
people cannot bear to leave, Serbs and Albanians alike."

When Fr. Sava arrived to deliver aid packages in the war-ravaged village of
Crnobreg last November, he was dismayed to discover the sign of the cross had
been painted on many walls and gates -- clearly the work of Serbian security
forces who often make use of "the Serbian cross" in the fight against ethnic
Albanian separatists. "It was an abuse because the cross was being used as a
symbol of hate," he said. "The cross is a symbol of love and of tolerance, of
spiritual and human values. It is unacceptable to use it to humiliate anyone.
Religion in our time is often used for political and ideological purposes.
Because of its great emotional impact religion can help mobilize people, for
good or evil."

"This is a war between extremists," he said. "On one side is a totalitarian
regime, and on the other, secessionists. We condemn violence on both the Serb
and Albanian sides, and we don't support militant secessionism."

He opposed outside military intervention, pointing out that "it will only
homogenize Serbs around hardline Serbian policies and destroy the prospects
for democracy. The psychology of the Serbs is such that if they are attacked,
they become very resentful of the attackers and foreign countries. The regime
can use this."

Discussing the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Fr. Sava said, "I am against
collective guilt. A court trial for war criminals is essential for confidence
building and the reconstruction of democracy. It would be fair first to bring
Milosevic, Tudjman and Izetbegovic to the Hague Court, then to investigate
the responsibility of their subordinates."

Fr. Sava refuses to let his monastery be used as a tool of romanticized
national ideas. "The church is and has been a guardian of the Serbian nation,
but not in the narrow sense of 19th century nationalism," he says.
"Sadly, the spiritual side of Orthodoxy is not so well known among the Serb
people now after 50 years of communism. You might be surprised to know that
at our Sunday service of worship we have only about ten people from Decani in
attendance. For the Serb, tradition is important, but there has been a
secularization of tradition here just as in other parts of Europe, and that
has taken man further from God."

"Who does this land belong to? Adam and Eve, that's who," says Fr. Sava. "It
is enough to say that Serbs and Albanians lived for centuries on this land.
We think that people should not look back to the past. They should go to the
future and leave history behind, rather than use religion to get people on
their side."

Asked what he would do if KLA guerrillas came to the monastery, he replies,
"We would open the door and ask them to have a cup of coffee."
And which side does God take in this conflict? "God is on the side of the
suffering people."

Sorry, guys, date and magazine title fell off. Here they are!

Note: This essay was published in Again magazine, vol. 21, nr. 2, Spring
1999. Posted with permission of the publisher and copyright owner,

Conciliar Press .

---

THE NEW YORK TIMES

July 1, 1999

ATROCITIES

F.B.I. Finishes Examining Sites

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON -- A team of FBI agents sent to Kosovo
last week to investigate possible war crimes has
completed its examinations at two burial sites, concluding that
many of the victims died of gunshot wounds to the head, law
enforcement officials said Wednesday.

The findings support the accusations of wartime atrocities
alleged in an indictment against the Yugoslav president,
Slobodan Milosevic, by the international war crimes tribunal.

The team of investigators, who are preparing to return to the
United States, examined two sites in Djakovica in the western
part of Kosovo, including a house that on April 2 was the
scene of executions of women and children, according to the
indictment.

The team examined remains, in some cases determining the
age, gender and identity of victims. The FBI officials said
Wednesday that the victims ranged from 2 to 86 years old.
The evidence will be turned over to the tribunal.

The agency indicated that some investigators might return if
the tribunal asked the FBI to investigate other sites.

To: Zoya

To be honest, most time I just skip Your posts, because it's not Your thinking. And they are way lengthy. As I mentioned, hogging the Board's estate won't make posts credible.