All these people come from a small city called Peja/Pec, even Karic Bank (Karic brothers) come from the stated city.

I am loving this more and more. You never cease to amaze me with your pathetic and fundamentally flawed arguments.
You say the following:

“We now look back at how the Germans were treated after WWI and WWII with regret - staining those that were involved with it at the time.”

Are you implying that because of “double standards” the Nazi Germany should not have been attacked and defeated by the Allies? This is your logic, “double standards”, blame everything on UN and NATO (in WW2, the Allies) and never ever mention or condemn a single atrocity or war crime committed by the Serbian forces (in WW2, Nazi Germany). I am not suggesting that Serbia and Nazi Germany are equivalent, however, there are enough similarities to apply your wicked logic.

In addition, you don’t have the moral fibre to name “those” that were involved “with it at the time”, as you put it. You are one spineless person Todd because you do not dare to name anyone in particular when it comes to the treatment of Germans after WW1 and WW2, but you dare to blame a whole nation for the way Serbs were treated in Kosovo after the Kosovo war.

You really are a coward Todd. You don’t have the courage to even mention a single atrocity or war crime by your so-beloved Serbian forces, let alone condemn them. This shows your cowardice, and you dare to complain of “double standards.” I, by contrast, have condemned in numerous occasions every single crime that was committed in Kosovo, however, your problem with me is that I condemn the atrocities and war crimes by Serbian forces that took place in Kosovo before and during the war just as much as I condemn the crimes committed after the war. The problem you have with me is precisely because I am not silent and you wish that I were and just rolled over.

Your xenophobic views were repeated once more when you equate a whole nation, i.e. Kosovar Albanians, with a government, i.e. Milosevic government, which has committed the worst atrocities and war crimes in Europe since the end of the WW2. This just goes to show what a coward you are by not having the courage to repeat your completely and utterly false statement, but using the term Serbs instead of the “Milosevic” – you seem more than happy to blame the entire Kosovar Albanian population on the other hand.

You see, it is cowards like you that hide under Milosevic’s skirt, not the people who accuse. You seem more than happy to put the blame for all the atrocities and war crimes on Milosevic, and since he is now dead there is no one left to blame. However, the truth is that Milosevic had nothing to do with the massacre of children and women in Podujevo nor could he organise himself to unearth the innocent victims of Serbian war crimes from Kosovo, transport them by trucks to Serbia and dump them into rivers, lakes and mass graves in training grounds of the Serbian police. It takes more than a person or a government to commit such large war crimes at such a large scale. It is you and your deafening silence that defend these horrific war crimes, revealing your xenophobic views.

Your xenophobic world collapses when you read about the facts that the Kosovar taxpayers’ money has rebuilt every single house that was damaged or destroyed during the 2004 riots. Some Serbs have returned and live in these new houses, others at leave have houses where to return. Most have even received 2,000 Euros of cash to help them keep going. Now, if you were not living in a world of total double standards you probably would have asked the following: why didn’t the Serbian government with the Serbian taxpayers money rebuilt the homes of the families massacred in Podujevo, or the homes of those families, members of whom were trucked to Serbia and dumped in rivers, lakes and mass graves in training grounds of the Serbian police?

You have no answers Todd. You can only ask xenophobic questions.

So blind you are that the stupidity of your arguments is beginning to amuse me. You ask if “perhaps” Albanians treated Serbs better then maybe Serbs would welcome Albanians in the north of Kosovo, but I could ask you absolutely the same question. You have no answers, again. Kosovar Albanians have rebuilt many Serbian homes, provide them with free of charge transport, reserve seats for them in the Parliament and Government – surely this is a step towards inter-ethnic reconciliation. Why don’t the Serbs in the north of Kosovo replicate these steps? It takes two to tango, and while one side is taking actions, doing something, the other side has not moved at all. Where are acts of good will from the Serbian side? Is there any good will on the Serbian side?

I am looking forward to the protests of human rights organisations such as “Amnesty International” or the “Human Rights Watch” against the “torture” of the Kosovar Serb forester. Or will this turn out to be yet another lie in the string of lies coming from your side.

Having said all of this, I would like to end the discussion on a good note. I share your hope for the UNSC delegation to be objective and fair.

Kind regards,

Filan Fisteku

You can call me anything you want. It is actually a compliment coming from someone that defends double standards and human rights abuses because of historical abuses. Based on your pathetic defense of the Apartheid in Kosovo, the the Armenians should be taking revennge attacks on the Turks, the French should still be killing Germans from the losses in WWI, and the Filipinos should be killing Japanese. According to you, I should be and apologist for all these too before criticizing any ongoing abuses. It’s ridiculous. We now look back at how the Germans were treated after WWI and WWII with regret - staining those that were involved with it at the time. Kosovo will share that fate with those.

You, on the other hand, support and defend ongoing violations, defend, through silence, keeping refugees homeless, and defend keeping minorities without health care and jobs. You know that. You know that the Kosovo Albanians are the new Milosevic government in Kosovo. It’s just that the light of the truth burns you. Too bad.

For one that seems to think he has the facts, you sure seem to have very few of them. So you rebuilt some houses using “tax euros” huh? Did all the refugees (except the dead ones, of course) that you chased away come back and live in them or did Albanians move into a portion or all of them? Tell me that. Let me guess, you don’t have the facts to prove either the rebuilding or the repatriation of the refugees.

Mitrovica: Perhaps the Albanians would be more welcome if they allowed more refugees to return without the threat of death and stopped throwing hand grenades into minority-populated areas. Perhaps we wouldn’t be engaged in this discussion if there wasn’t over 250,000 refugees, eight years and running, as a result of your new Kosovo. But we are, because there are these facts and you seem to be just fine with it. You’ve revealed nothing to reverse my finding that Kosovo has a double standard when it comes to the minority and the Kosovo Albanian and the UN, EU, US and NATO support it.

Good Luck on your UNSC compliance inspection. You sure will need it. Of course, I hope that the inspection is objective and fair, leaving you and yours in the ruinous light of justice that it justly deserves.

That’s my closing. Go ahead and end it with yours.

Good Luck.

I am somewhat disappointed at you, not because you raise some questions that are quite legitimate, but rather because of the manner in which you raised them.

I will, however, deal with every single one of them.

1. Minorities

There is no denying the fact that minorities in the post-war Kosovo have suffered. As I said in my previous post, their sufferings have been well documented. I condemn every sort of crime, particularly ethnically motivated crimes.

But.

I was born in Mitrovica, in the hospital which is in the northern part of the town. If Serbs don’t feel save to enter Prishtina, I feel very unsafe to enter the northern part of Mitrovica where I was born. I though of you as an intelligent man who understands that in areas where Serb are a majority Albanians are treated in the same way, if not worse then, the way Serbs are treated in the other areas. There are hundreds of Serbs working for UNMIK, OSCE and other NGOs as well as Kosovar government who work in Prishtina and travel there on a daily basis. There are almost no Albanians that can cross the bridge in the north and walk in the parts of town that are Serb-dominated.

Thankfully, not a single fatal ethnically motivated crime has occurred in Kosovo in years, and there has been a drastic fall of all other ethnically motivated crimes or accidents. There has been some undeniable progress. Just today, the head of UNMIK frustrated by the lack of cooperation from the Kosovar Serbs stated that it is not right that Kosovar Serbs have isolated themselves and blame others for that. Now, this is a strong statement, but he must know something that I and you don’t know.

Kosovar Serbs have a serious question in front of them. They know that they will no longer be the oh-so-privileged minority in Kosovo and they must decide if they want to live in a country where they will be equal as everyone else. Believe you men, I was born and brought up in Kosovo and I have many contacts (maybe even friends) with Kosovar Serbs and a number of them have left out of their own will because they can no longer live “as they used to” (read: as a privileged group) while other are doing everything possible to block and delay any progress, some would even like to incite violence against the minorities so that they can “show to the world” that Albanians cannot govern.

Minorities have been targeted and have suffered, but never from the Kosovar government or police and, as the head of UNMIK said, blaming only one side is “not right”.

2. The positive discrimination

Positive discrimination in the Kosovar parliament is good, very good. There are no “buts”.
There is a very large Albanian population in Macedonia and there is no positive discrimination there. There is no positive discrimination in Serbia or Montenegro, both with small Albanian minorities.

There is really no room for “buts” here.

After the armed conflict in Macedonia, the majority of the Albanian MPs also had to go to the Macedonian parliament under armed guards because they fought against the Macedonians. Nobody complained about that. The Prime Minister of Kosovo as well as the Speaker of Parliament is also under armed guards. So what if the Serbian MPs are under police protection? Oliver Ivanovic seems to be very relaxed in Prishtina and the two Serbs ministers in the Kosovar government have been seen many times without guards.

As I said above, hundreds of Serbs travel daily from Cagllavica and other places to Prishtina to work, some have moved back to Prishtina to live, hence, the picture that you portray of Prishtina where every Serb has to have armed guards is simply not correct.

Please, read the following: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0221/p07s02-woeu.html

Now, forgive me for being forthright, but you seem to have fallen victim of the Serb propaganda yourself. The Parliament building is not “full” of art celebrating Albanian heritage. There are three painting, yes, three painting in the lobby and they all have been covered up, so, in fact, there is no art in the Parliament building any longer. The Speaker of Parliament has said that there were plans to display art celebrating Serb and other non-Albanian heritage when the rest of the building is renovated, so until then everything has been covered up. It is also worth noting that none of the “all three” paintings contained any anti-Serbian connotation whatsoever and that Kosovar Serbs and others will have to learn to live with the fact that Albanians represent the vast majority of the population and this will have to be reflected in the Parliament and other institutions of the country.

Finally, all non-Serb minorities have taken their seats (reserved and elected) in the Kosovar Parliament and Government, and they have cooperated very well with the institutions, which leads the Kosovar Serbs somewhat isolated and removes the ground that they claim when they speak of Serb and non-Serb minorities.

3. March 2004 riots

You continue with the use of terms like “pogrom” which normally indicate bias. This is disappointing. While the riots of March 2004 represent the darkest period of the post-war Kosovo, they were by and large spontaneous and definitely not organised by any part of the government or Kosovar police. If, as you say, hundreds of people took part in the riots then these hundreds of people are “extremists”. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that the riots were state-sponsored or state-organised, and if they were not organised by the state (government) than the rioters were extremist elements of the society.

The Kosovar government has expressed deep regret over what happened and have paid with the taxpayers’ money for the reconstruction of all homes that were damaged. The government has spent over ten million Euros from a very poor budget to rebuild not only the houses but to also improve the water systems, sewage, roads and bridges. It is also worth pointing out that 19 people died in these riots, 11 of whom were Albanians. These eleven do not include the three children that were murdered north of river Iber.

So, the Kosovar government has at least done something to amend the inter-ethnic relations after the riots. Some Serb civilians are nervous, but then so are a lot of Albanians who are yet to receive an apology from the Serbian government for what happened during the war, yet to receive a single Euro cent to rebuilt a house or a school that was destroyed be Serbian forces, but instead hear threats that Kosovo will be incorporate under Serbia in the future. In Kosovo a lot of people are nervous and a lot of them have a point, but for the situation to improve both sides have to contribute towards amending inter-ethnic relations. I will use the words of the head of UNMIK once again to say that “it is not right” for the Kosovar Serbs to complain about their current situation if on the other side they don’t do anything to improve the lives of those few Albanians that remain in the north of river Iber. The fact is that the north of Mitrovica has an Albanian majority and none of these people are allowed to return, not allowed to even visit their homes then can the Kosovar Serbs really ask for a better treatment in the rest of Kosovo?

4. Kosovo’s economy

This just goes out to show the significance of the fact that despite having a small budget and a poor economy the Kosovar government is spending millions of Euros is constructing Serbian homes, subsidising their transport within Kosovo and generally trying to improve the conditions for their return. Is says a lot, whether you agree or not.

However, as far as the subsidising of the Kosovar economy is concerned, we are not the only country in the region to enjoy foreign subsidies. So, there is nothing new here either. The current trend of events is that the foreign subsidies are falling down whereas the economy grew 5 percent last year thanks to the private sector.

The current economic situation is not good, however there is hope that in the next 5 to 10 years new massive power plants will be built and that Kosovo will be an exporter of energy again. With the ever-increasing price of energy the chances are that these massive projects will provide an impetus to other industries and the general economic outlook will change. A lot needs to be done, we are far from getting “there”, but the possibilities exist and they need to be seized. I think that Serbia will make a big mistake if it decides to play ugly games in the north of Kosovo since with the current climate trends and their heavy reliance on water-generated electricity they stand to loose a lot from the energy deals that will be done in Kosovo. Russia has a lot of gas, but a close neighbour is somewhat more reliable than political games that involve the entire Eastern Europe.

5. The Jewish card

The fact of the matter is that the tiny Jewish community in Kosovo were not targeted because they were Jewish, but rather because the individuals were seen as being close to the Serbian regime. The interview that was conducted back in 1999 was immediately after that man was forced to flee so a lot of emotions were involved, and on top of that the journalist was asking a lot of leading questions.

You say that there is “some truth to it,” but that truth does not go beyond the fact that a few people, who happened to be Jewish, were forced out of their homes. Saying that Jews were targeted as a community is something very different, and amounts to being very, very economic with the truth.

Even, say, in Bosnia where many people fled, there were Jews who were forced to leave, but that does not necessarily mean that the Croats, Serbs or Bosniaks targeted them as Jews. Todd, on the other hand, listed the Jews are the first community to have been “cleansed”, even ahead of Roma, Serbs or Bosniaks – and such a tiny community in question with not even a single synagogue — I was left with no other opinion other then Todd weaving the “Jewish card” and, thus, trying to gain the sympathies of people with memories of the worst crime in the history of the mankind, the Holocaust.

In Israel at the time hundreds of Kosovar Albanians were welcomed as refugees by the Israeli government, so I am not so sure where you got of the “a-lot-of-indignation” impression. The exception, not the norm, was Arial Sharon, who at the time was in opposition, which is not a surprise bearing in mind his hate and xenophobia of Muslims. On the other hand, the Jewish American community, or rather their representatives, have for a long time been sympathetic to the Kosovar Albanian cause and they have spoken in numerous occasions against the Serbian regime. This is best demonstrated with a lot of the charity work of the Jewish American organisations in Kosovo after the war. The Albanian caucuses in Washington has long been very close to the Jewish American groups, so much so that they organised a trip for Hashim Thaci to Israel where he met Simon Peres, the Deputy Prime Minister of the State of Israel, as well as a number of other more junior diplomats. It is true though, to a small extend, that the Serbian government has an ear in Israel, mainly in the far right and with people that frankly have some scary ideas about the world we live in.

6. Final note

As a final note, I would have liked you to have dropped even a single sentence about me touching a few important points, too. I was disappointed with a few terms that you used, the manner in which the questions were raised, as well as the fact that it felt that you shared some concerns with Todd, but not with the so-called “other side.” I am no concerned at all if you agree with my personal points of view or not, but as an editor I would expect you to be a bit more even-handed and maybe, just maybe, raise some questions and/or criticism for the other “other side” too.

I apologise for the (very) long replies.

Yours sincerely,

Filan Fisteku

You are a xenophobe. The deeper the discussion, the more visible your xenophobic views become. Your statements are so full of contradictions in terms that it I wonder if in fact I am discussing with an 8-year-old who was born on June 12, 1999.

You are a very weak, if not wicked, person Todd. So, you really do not have the courage to condemn the “apartheid” in Kosovo imposed by the democratically elected Serbian government during the 1990s.

You complain of “double standards”, but look in the mirror and start from yourself. What kind of a wicked person is not capable of condemning a massacre of only women and children in Podujevo (URL: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/balkans/crimesandcourage.html), just to mention one, but calls a policing operation by UNMIK police and KFOR a “torture.” If your statement were true, which of course it isn’t, why didn’t any international or neutral human right organisation protest? Or are you so blind and one-sided that whatever comes from the mouth of the Serbian propaganda you automatically believe it? For your information, the person who was detained had a number of illegal weapons in his house and that was the reason why he and his two sons were subject to a policing operation – Serbian propaganda never reveals the true story, does it? If you want to further discuss the case you must answer my questions, it’s no good lying and fabricating stories to backup your distorted views.

Now, just take a second to think. For once, use your brain. You say that the UNSC will show the “lies” perpetrated by the UN. UNSC stands for United Nations Security Council, i.e. it belongs or is part of the United Nations (UN). So, UN will show the “lies” perpetrated by the UN. Wow! I look forward to the day when Todd Thompson will show the lies perpetrated by Todd Thompson!

Again, don’t fabricate statements just so that you can backup your extremely weak arguments. I did not ask you how many synagogues were in Kosovo before 1999 to imply that there were no Jews in Kosovo, you made this up yourself, but rather to open your eyes for you to see how big that community was/is and to illustrate that you use extremely cheap cards – remember, you listed Jews before Serbs, Roma, Turks, Goranis etc. Since Jewish ethnicity and religion of Judaism are strongly interrelated, the fact that there were/are no synagogues in Kosovo demonstrates the real size of the community and that you were using the “Jewish card” to imply a pre-loaded image of Albanians as some sort of Nazi-like people.

However, your very own double standards were best illustrated by the one Jewish person, who unfortunately was forced to leave his home in Prishtina. He says the following two lines which I feel you do not appreciate:

“They [KFOR] didn’t ask which nationality you are”, i.e. he was not targeted because he was Jewish.

“Israel: Did you ever experience anti-Semitism from the Serbs?

Prelincevic: Never. Neither from the Albanians.” Oops, aren’t the Albanians supposed to be anti-Semitic Todd? Or it is another one of your lies?

The bottom line is that a man who is married to a Serbian woman was targeted in a post-war situation; there is absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing to indicate that he was targeted because he was Jewish, and is being interviewed by a person who has a lot, a lot of leading questions. That establishes nothing other than there was a level of anarchy in the post-war Kosovo, like in every other post-war country, and it shows that you are ready to sink to the lowest possible levels just to get some wobbly basis for your fundamentally flawed argument.

You sank to your lowest levels so far by going back to WW2 to try and somehow, again, link Albanians and the Nazis. Well, I have a response for you; there is no denying the fact that 100 percent of the Jewish population in Albania survived the Second World War and that Albania had more Jews within its borders at the end of the war than at the beginning. Now, put that in your pipe and smoke it! The capital of Serbia, your best friends who can do no evil – well, other than the worst atrocities and war crimes in Europe since WW2 – was the first city in Europe that was declared free of Jews. Are you going to blame the Albanians for that too? Are you going to blame the Albanians for Holocaust, Rwanda, Khmer Rouge – because from what I have read so far, I would not be surprised?

Read this: http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/10989/edition_id/210/format/html/displaystory.html

I will finish my comments by, again, reminding you of the facts and truths that you are simply not capable of handling since they spoil your xenophobic views:

1. Serbian forces have made at least 2-4 times more Albanian refugees than any other figure of non-Albanian refugees.

2. Over 16% of seats of the Kosovar parliament are reserved for minorities. Half of these seats are taken by non-Serb minorities – no problem there – and, in addition, the health minister is Bosniak. Furthermore, one member of the Kosovar government is Serbian. This means that the Kosovar institutions are guaranteed by constitution to be multi-ethnic, something that really does not sit well with your ideas about mono-ethnic Kosovo.

3. Kosovo government is poor; nevertheless, every year it spent in excess of 2 million Euros to provide free transport within Kosovo for the minorities, mainly Serbs. The free of charge transport is very popular with the Serbs, but some outsiders like you Todd don’t like to be reminded of these facts.

4. Every single house that was damaged or destroyed during the March 2004 riots has been rebuilt with the money from the Kosovar taxpayers. A poor government yes, but still paid over 10 million Euros to rebuilt homes as well as other infrastructure that was never there, such as sewage, running war and some bridges just so that the refugees return. The number of houses rebuilt by the Serbian government in Kosovo: zero!

5. Treatment of Kosovar Albanians north of river Iber is by far worst than the treatment of Serbs south of river Iber. I was born in the northern part of Mitrovica, if I was to walk north of the bridge I would be attacked straightaway.

I apologise that I have revealed your xenophobic views.

Kind regards,

Filan Fisteku

One, the treatment of minorities in Kosovo is indeed troublesome. Kosovar Serbs still suffer from discrimination and sometimes physical attacks. Serbs do not feel safe entering Prishtina. Roma were ethnically cleansed in 1999, and are currently living in squalid refugee camps; there’s a lot of resistance to letting them come back. In fact, very few people who left in ‘99 have come back.

Two, the reservation of 20 seats for minorities is nice, but even if they wanted to participate they’d have to be bussed back and forth under armed guard. Also, the Serbs made the legitimate point that the Parliament building is full of art celebrating Albanian heritage, but has nothing depicting Serbia’s history in Kosovo.

Three, the pogrom of March 2004 was not an attack by “extremists”; it was well organized, and hundreds of people took part. The Serb civilians are still very nervous about that, and they have a point.

Four, Kosovo’s economy is indeed being heavily subsidized. The electrical system alone has soaked up half a billion euros without improving much. If the international community stopped paying tomorrow, the economy would collapse. This really deserves a thread of its own — it’s completely irrelevant to this post — but it is something to keep in mind when talking about independence.

Finally, the Jewish thing: that’s based on a 1999 interview with a Serbian Jew who was living in Prishtina and was driven out. There is some truth to it. There weren’t many Jews in Kosovo, but the ones who were there tended to identify as Serbs — almost all either had Serbian names, were married to ethnic Serbs, or both. So, they got driven out along with the Serbs.

There was a lot of indignation in Israel at the time. (Note that in the 1990s, Israel was pretty friendly with Milosevic’s regime. Tel Avic sold Slobo a lot of security equipment.) However, it has mostly died down, and Israel now seems to be pretty neutral on the Kosovo question.

cheers,

Doug M.

No. And there’s another yellow card, Todd — accusing people of sockpuppetry is bad form.

One more and you’re suspended. Play nice, please.

Doug M.

I almost didn’t send this given the above discussion…but given your ridiculous comments about fostering and rebuilding for refugee returns…..

Your arguments would be funny if they didn’t involve such a serious subject. Your writing smacks of Doug Muir. Are you one in the same?

Your twisted view of what’s acceptable and what’s not clearly shows the double standard presented in Albanian Kosovo and condoned by the UN, EU and US. Man, so many embellishments and so little time. Where to start? Oh yeah. The UNSC is coming to see the true situation for themselves. This visit will clearly show the lies perpetrated by the Kosovo Albanians, UN and NATO.

You say no Jewish in Kosovo because there are no synagogues? That explains why Kosovo Albanians are bombing and burning every Christian Church and Monastery they can. That way, using your twisted logic, they can make the same claim about Christianity and Christians in Kosovo later. Here’s the testimony of one Jewish Kosovar:

“The powers from Albania came inside the country. Their main purpose was to get all the non-Albanian population out. With help from Eliz Viza from Israel and from the Chairman of the Jewish Community from Skopia I was rescued, taken by Taxi together with my wife and my mother to Macedonia and from Macedonia I came to Belgrade. The whole rescue operation of my family was given to Israeli TV. Altogether there were 40 people of Jewish origin in Kosovo. They are of mixed marriage, Jewish-Albanian, Jewish-Turkish and Jewish-Serbian. All are prepared to go to Israel. To go back to Kosovo for us is too late. Even though we got a guarantee from Thaci which is the head of the UCK [KLA], that our homes would not be touched we have information that all our apartments and our houses were completely robbed and demolished.”

Funny you should remember the Nazis but forget that they were your real good genocidal friends back in WWII. Come to think of it, isn’t a Hilter living in South Mitrovica and didn’t the Albanians ship off 281 Jews to die in Belsen (200 did)? No wonder there were so few Jews in Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians have previously liquidated them. Sick that you would use that twist, given your history on this matter.

Kosovo Albanians have a history of persecution of non-Albanians and the trend continues to this day. Under the new Albanian leadership and UN rulers, there continue to be arrests and torture of Serbs and other minorities. Funny that your memory can’t even go back a week or two when a Serb forester and his two sons were detained, arrested, and tortured for no apparent reason, “investigation” ongoing. But that is just one on many that include the rape of nuns, the beheading of a priest, abductions and murders of the minority, so many in fact that the disappearance and killing is over 1,000 minorities.

In addition, Kosovo Albanians have purged 250,000 minorities from Kosovo. How about you tell me how many Serb schools have closed since the Albanians have taken over? How about the main hospital in Pristina? How many minorities work there? How many minority patients are seen there? Just like Aparteid, I think it’s zero or near zero.

The seats reserved in government, guarantees on movement? That is simply lip service by you, the UN, EU and NATO. They may have seats but can’t get there without NATO escort, and still risk death by trying to attend sessions. Buses and trains purchased by the World are stoned and blown up by the new Albanian rulers and their children.

Rebuilding for minority returns? That is utter nonsense and clearly shows that you and the Albanian leadership you represent are clearly unavailable for any rational thought. In eight years, you’ve allowed less than one percent to return (or close to that). The Albanian leadership, supported by the UN, EU and NATO, is just letting time go by so that a whole generation is displaced and likely never to return. This is a true double standard regarding refugees.

It seems that you want me to believe that the Albanians have rebuilt Pristina for the 40 Serb residents (prisoners in their own homes) that remain guarded by NATO out of a prewar number of 40,000. Nonsense.

Albanian Kosovo is paying for nothing. The EU, UN and NATO are subsidizing the economy, paying the bills and fostering a mono-ethnic society of Kosovo Albanians. It’s unbelievable that they continue their path.

You can cling to the memory of Milosevic. As the spawn of Milosevic, the Albanian leadership and you can try to hide your ugly truth behind him, but ultimately, you will have the take responsibility for the last eight years plus of torture, murder, and ethnic cleansing. The UN, EU, US and NATO hold that responsibility too. But, it will be totally attributed to your culture. Kosovo Albanians should know this better than anyone, since they currently hold dearly a belief in collective guilt and the use scapegoats, children and the elderly, to justify their means. As a defender of them, you share the responsibility too.

Kindest Regards.

Just a quick note to say that I condemn in the strongest possible terms all criminal acts, more so if they are ethnically motivated, whether they are committed by Albanian criminals or Serb criminals. I condemn them with all my heart and soul. I cannot stand any criminal who destroys the future of ordinary people. I have always said and always will say “Not in my name”.

Having said this, I would like to say that I am sorry that you felt that I over-reacted, however since I was in a sensitive discussion with Todd your response led me to believe that you were accusing me of justifying crimes, something that I feel very passionate about because I am the last person in the world who will justify any crime whatsoever.

I would also like to let you know that I will celebrate every time in a free and fair court an individual or a group is found guilty of (war) crimes, be they Macedonian, Croatian, Albanian, Serb or Bosnian. I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone who has committed a crime, whether he was perceived as an aggressor or defending her/his home. In my eyes, a crime is a crime — there is no other name for it. And, I have no problem whatsoever discussing crimes committed in Kosovo by Serbian forces or Albanian forces. However, when a person raises questions or makes statements with the sole purpose of putting the blame on one side only (or simply to express her/his xenophobic views) I feel I must respond and, believe you me, I hold no punches. This is why I reacted the way that I did, and, unfortunately, you got on the way.

If one makes a groundless statement along the lines of “apartheid in Kosovo”, “double standards” or “you are now Milosevic” then they should be able to take on the criticism that follows.

Finally, yes, I totally condemn ethnically motivated crime that has happened in Kosovo after the war (post-1999) just as I totally condemned ethnically motivated crime that has happened in Kosovo before and during the war (pre-1999). I expect the same from all other people of good will.

Kind regards,

Filan Fisteku

I wasnt trying to accuse you of anything so its strange that you should reply in such a way. Perhaps its because you are arguing this issue with Todd that you over-reacted.

My only point is that we should argue for higher standards - not look around us for a similarly low or lower standard. This is the greatest problem I have with revisionist types (no I am not accusing you of revisionism, I feel I must write this because you might misunderstand) who always point to the error of others as soon as their own ‘house’ is criticised.

There is one point that I feel obliged to make though. The crimes such as freezer trucks and so on did indeed have an ethnic basis. I condemned it then and condemn it today. However, ethnic related crime continues in Kosovo today. That must also be condemned.