Page 452 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

Bishop atanasije (jevtić)
the first time in four years found the graves destroyed and dug up and the cemetery chapel destroyed. On May 15 UNMiK advised that despite three days of searching it had failed to locate Vučko Kostić (age 52), a Serbian man from Zubin Potok, who disappeared on Monday, May 13. The night of May 17 KFOR found the body of Zoran Mirković (age 41), a professor of Serbian language, in the river basin in the village of Vrbovac near Kosovska Vitina. Mirković had set out by bicycle the afternoon of the previous day to visit his property just outside the village. Multiple gun- shots had been fired in his chest. Serbian sources said that a note with the inscription aNa (albanian National army) was also found near the body, while international police denied finding any evidence that the murder was ethni- cally motivated. On May 21 Slavko Stamenković, a 90 year- old Serbian man, was severely beaten in his house in Ko- sovska Vitina by Kosovo albanians after the attackers first gagged his wife jelka and locked her in another room. The following day three albanians beat up Milan Pavić, a 17 year-old Serb from the village of Klokot near Kosovska Vi- tina. Serbs from Kosovska Vitina and the surrounding area addressed an open letter to the international community, emphasizing that assaults on them in the Pomoravlje re- gion were becoming more and more violent. On May 28 unknown assailants opened fire on Spanish KFOR troops guarding the monastery of Gorioč near istok. The soldiers returned fire and the attackers fled into forest.
The night of june 3 in Obilić albanian extremists mur- dered three members of the same family: Slobodan and Radmila Stolić, both over 80 years old, and their son Ljubi- nko by brutally bludgeoning them to death. The attackers then unsuccessfully attempted to burn down the Stolic house to cover up the murder. Despite calls by the Serbs for justice and condemnation by the international community of what UNMiK chief Michael Steiner described as “a hei- nous crime” the perpetrators were never caught. The Dio- cese of Raška and Prizren and Serbian National Council of Kosovo concluded that UNMiK and KFOR have no desire or intention to stop the terror against Serbs because the departure of the remaining Serbs from the Province is ac- cepted as the cheapest solution.
These most recent crimes in Kosovo and Metohija clearly confirmed that the situation in the Province had not improved in the least and that the Serbs and their Holy Shrines were still exposed to an open pogrom and terror in the international presence. at the time of writing of this review of the situation in Kosovo and Metohija (june 2003), the prospects for the survival of the Serbs were fairly bleak unless there were serious changes in the stance of the al- banians and their leaders in Kosovo and Metohija and changes in the stance of the so-called international com- munity, i.e. those who have authority in it. according to information from the Coordinating Center for Kosovo and Metohija “in four years of UNMiK administration in the Province, from june 10, 1999 to june 10, 2003, there have
been 6,392 attacks on Serbs. Of these, 1,197 Serbs were killed, 1,305 Serbs were wounded and 1,138 Serbs were kidnapped. Out of the total number of abducted Serbs, we know today that 155 were killed, 13 escaped and 95 were released, while the fate of the remaining 863 Serbs remains unknown.”
The attacks of albanian extremists on Serbs in the period between june 2003
and March 17, 2004
early in the morning on june 19 about 10 medical staff of the Serb-run Kosovo Polje Health Center were injured dur- ing an attempt by UN and Kosovo police to evict the Serbs and 25 patients from the building of the former Russian field hospital in the village of Bresje. On june 22 Serb Sta- niša jeremić (age 53) was arrested by UNMiK and Kosovo police while traveling by train through Vučitrn solely on the basis of an albanian man’s claim that jeremić knew the identity of another man who had allegedly physically ac- costed him. On the same day three young albanians at- tacked a Serb woman, Živka Delić, in the village of Rabovce near Lipljan as she was going to a nearby store. They began to beat her and she sustained injuries before local Serbs ran to her aid. The incident was reported to Kosovo police, who refused to press charges on grounds that the perpe- trators were minors. On june 30 the Diocese of Raška and Prizen advised that unknown perpetrators had again des- ecrated the Serbian Orthodox cemetery in Kosovska Viti- na and damaged 15 new grave markers. On the same day, a hand grenade was thrown at a Serbian-owned commercial truck near Uroševac, destroying the truck’s trailer; the driv- er, luckily, was unharmed.
On july 5 the Diocese of Raška and Prizren reported that the church of St. Nicholas and its parish home had once again been stoned. The Diocese also sharply protest- ed against the proposal of Kosovo premier Bajram Rexhepi that KFOR turn over protection of endangered Serbian churches and monasteries to the Kosovo Protection Corps. On july 7 the house of Serb Nebojša Stamenković was set on fire in the village of Devet jugovića for the second time in two weeks after an albanian family illegally living in the Stamenković home was evicted. On july 16 a Serb truck driver ran over a landmine on the road from Dren to Suvo Grlo and on the morning of july 17 Mihajlo Tomašević, a Serb from Suvo Grlo, was attacked by two albanians. On july 20 the Coordinating Center for Kosovo and Metohija advised that two Serbian houses in the Potkaljaja quarter near the church of St. Kyriake in Prizren were torched. The owner of one of these houses returned days ago intending to resume residence in her home. The night of july 30 the parish home of the church of St. Nicholas in Priština was stoned yet again.
On the night of august 3 assailants opened machine gun fire on the family of Zoran Milić in Obilić before toss- ing a grenade at it shortly thereafter. Milić, his wife and
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