Page 451 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

clergy. The perpetrators of this attack have never been found and the entire incident, like so many others, was hushed up. at the end of the same month the albanians blew up several empty Serbian houses on the outskirts of the village of Klokot, municipality of Vitina. On that occasion a Serbian shepherd was killed and three or four U.S. soldiers wound- ed. Unfortunately, after the incident KFOR saw fit to search only the remaining Serbs in Klokot and not one albanian was arrested. (Sadly, this practice of searching Serbs who have been attacked instead of pursuing and capturing their attack- ers is a frequent occurrence in Kosovo and Metohija).
During fall and winter 2002 and throughout 2003 there were numerous armed attacks as albanian extremists sought to frighten the Serbian population and expel it from its cen- turies old home. The areas surrounding Vitina and Оbilić were especially targeted. at the same time, the municipal authorities in Dečani in September 2002 initiated in court against all UNMiK regulations a case in which they attempt to take away a part of the property owned by the monas- tery of Dečani, which was returned to the monastery by the Serbian Government before the beginning of the con- flict, and which has been a part of the monastery estate since time immemorial but was illegally confiscated in 1946 by the Communists. a group of some 50 Serb pensioners from the village of Osojane transported by UNMiK to Peć on October 11, 2002 to pick up their pensions at the bank was attacked by over 600 albanians in the streets of Peć. Their bus was completely demolished by stones and Molo- tov cocktails and some 15 Serbs were injured by stones and were subsequently evacuated along with the others by Spanish KFOR to a nearby building and then back to their village. Not long after this attack, whose perpetrators were not punished, on November 20 albanian extremists blew up the church of St. Basil of Ostrog (built in 1939) in the vil- lage of Ljubovo near istok, and seriously damaged the new and still incomplete church of all Serbian Saints in Djura- kovac.
in the first months of 2003 frequent attacks and provo- cations of Serbs throughout the Province continued. The remaining Serbs in the municipality of Obilić came under attack after first being attacked in October and November 2002 (a total of six attacks just in October) with grenades and stones; luckily, there were no casualties. On january 20, 2003 the albanians threw two grenades at the house of Slaviša Vukadinović in the village of janjine Vode near Obilić. No one was harmed in the attack but there was great mate- rial damage. just a few days later, on February 6, 2003, the albanians threw a grenade at the house of Slobodan Todo- rović in Obilić, and on april 10 the house of Serb Pavle Milić was set on fire.
On april 12, 2003 albanian terrorists planted 40 kg of powerful explosive under the railroad bridge near the vil- lage of Ložište near Banjska (municipality of Zvečan). How- ever, due to an error made during placement and activa- tion, the explosive only damaged the bridge but killed both
MeMORaNDUM onKosovoandMetohija
albanians, members of Cheku’s “Kosovo Protection Corps” and the so-called albanian National army. an UNMiK police investigation established that the purpose of the at- tack was to blow up the bridge when a train carrying Serbs from the central Kosovo enclaves to Leposavić and in the direction of Belgrade was passing over it. after this attack UNMiK chief Michael Steiner proclaimed the so-called albanian National army a terrorist organization, thus di- rectly acknowledging the existence of albanian terrorism in the Province.
On Great Friday, april 25, 2003 albanian aggressors brutally beat up a Serb woman, Smiljka andjelković (age 66), in her home in Lipljan. Smiljka’s husband Ljubinko found his wife, who was alone in the house at the time of the at- tack, lying in the kitchen in a pool of blood with serious head injuries. The chair used to repeatedly hit her in the head was also covered with blood. The investigation deter- mined that the most probable cause for the attack was the intent to force the andjelković to sell their home to alba- nians, which they persistently reject as they wish to con- tinue living where they have spent their whole lives.
On the same day, shocking news came from Gnjilane that the albanians had thrown approximately 1,000 books written in the Serbian language from the City Library into the garbage. among the books found in garbage dump- sters were works by Serbian Nobel Prize winner ivo an- drić, Njegoš and poetess Desanka Maksimović. Unfortu- nately, this barbaric act, which brings to mind the burning of the books during the period of Nazism in Germany, is not the only incident of its kind in Kosovo and Metohija. immediately after the end of the war in 1999 and the ar- rival of KFOR and UNMiK international missions, thou- sands of Serbian books were destroyed after being thrown out of libraries. The same thing happened with books in private libraries that the Serbian owners did not have time to evacuate.
Only a few days after the Resurrection, on May 3, 2003, a series of incidents occurred in the village of Suvi Do in the municipality of istok. Serbs Milan and Milorad jeftić, residents of Suvi Do, were injured when they were inten- tionally run over by an albanian bus. just three days later, on May 6, a Kosmetprevoz bus transporting Serbian stu- dents on the route Kosovska Mitrovica—Suvi Do was stoned by albanians. When local Serbs protested against these attacks, KFOR threw tear gas at them to disperse the dem- onstrators and seriously injured a Serb woman, Gordana jeftić. On the same day the albanians attacked taxi driver Dejan jeftić from Suvi Do who sustained serious injuries.
On May 11 the Diocese of Raška and Prizren condemned the stoning of the church of St. Nicholas in Priština and warned that the removal of security checkpoints near churches located in high risk zones is “a dangerous experi- ment that can lead to serious and unwanted consequenc- es.” On the same day, Serbian refugees from Peć on an es- corted visit to the graves of their loved ones in the city for
449