Wednesday, June 12, with mix feelings their third anniversary under a United Nations administration. Although Kosovo recently elected its first ever parliament and president since the end of the war in 1999, attacks against Serb Orthodox christians continued in the troubled region despite the presence of UN police and NATO-led peacekeepers.
Fr. Sava Janjic, has told reporters that attacks continue, including those on churches, graveyards and nuns over Orthodox Easter, celebrated in early May.
In an interview with Keston News Service (KNS)he condemned Ramadan Audiu, an adviser to Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi, for denying that these attacks took place.
NO ATTACKS
"No attacks have taken place on any Orthodox sites or personnel, since January 1 of this year to today" he told KNS. "There have been no attacks at all on the Serbian minority, except for incidents started by the Serbs in the northern half of (the divided town of) Mitrovica," he said.
However Fr. Sava Janjic stressed that "with the blessing of Bishop Artemije", he feels "obliged to respond to this preposterous lie which is seriously compromising the credibility of the prime minister and his closest associates."
"We cannot believe that Mr. Audiu and the office of Kosovo’s prime minister do not have information that the campaign against the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo is continuing," he added.
BISHOP’S PROTEST
Following the Easter attacks, Bishop Artemije wrote a strong letter of protest to the commander of the NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR, Lt. Gen. Marcel Valentin.
"I can only assure you that these acts of vandalism are clearly a part of the wider strategy to discourage returns of Serb IDPs [internally displaced persons] and to change the cultural identity of the region which has been known for its valuable Serbian Orthodox sites worldwide," he wrote in his May 15 letter.
The bishop claimed that the strategy was aimed at changing the ethnic and cultural identity of Kosovo as part of a plan by the province’s ethnic Albanian leaders to accelerate the process of independence, which he said "would essentially be a ‘state’ tailored to the measure of Albanian people".
ALBANIAN LEADERS
Bishop Artemije claimed that local Albanian leaders might be behind the attacks. "I also have serious suspicions that local Albanian-led municipal councils consciously turn a blind eye towards these acts or perhaps even encourage them."
The diocese also asked for increased protection of its holy sites from KFOR and the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), KNS reported.
INNOCENT SERBS
Human rights groups say many innocent Serbs became victims of ethnic Albanians seeking revenge for years of suffering under ousted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
There is international concern that these incidents will discourage the return of an estimated 240,000 Serb refugees from Kosovo, who now stay in Yugoslavia’s main republic Serbia and Montenegro.
Most of them left shortly after 78 days of NATO bombardments against Yugoslavia three years ago, which was triggered by a violent Serb crack-down when at least about 1,000 Kosovo Albanians were killed and 800,000 others were forced to flee.
