Page 898 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

Metropolitan amfilohije (Radović)
june 23, and killed by the albanian bandits, after being beat- en, tortured, tied to a chair, and then burned down.
Four elderly men from Muharem Beg Gashi Street beg for help, for somebody to take them to the monastery. it was...
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There have been announcements from the eU High Representative, Carl Bildt, to come to the Patriarchate of Peć. There are many journalists in the yard. They question the people... Cars with albanian license plates already run through Priština, which means that the immigration of citizens from albania and their usurpation of abandoned Serbian homes have begun.
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a truck with humanitarian aid collected in Zeta is on its way from Montenegro. it passed by Berane at 2 pm. it needs a route security in Savine Vode.
We are informed that Luka Petrušić, Mihajlo and Rad- mila, Vujačić Slobodan, Dragana have found shelter in a Vitomirica school.
On the way to Savine Vode we look for the murdered Bora Stanimirović. We do not find him. Old Kosovo fami- lies—Šantić, Mihailović, Cvejić—are moving out of Koso- vo. is it for good?
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On the way back from Savine Vode we meet a convoy of our cars from Vitomirica. Happy and joyful “UCK” ban- dits welcome them on the way with the arnaut flags ... at “Drvoimpeks” we try to find the pit with the killed ones, but we do not manage. They tell us that it is most likely lo- cated in Radavci, a few miles away.
On our way back, we do not manage to bury N Jan- ković, Milorad Jovićević and others. They refused to give us their bodies... On the road to Savine Vode we run into a dead, crushed donkey. There are burned houses by the road... To the right of Vitomirica, there are deserted Ser- bian villages of Siga and Brestovik. The villagers wanted to return yesterday, but there is no way back for them today. ...as we pass along, on the uphill toward Savine Vode, we spot a terrorist waiting behind a tree with a rifle... He aims his rifle at us... it is even today that i wonder why he did not fire. On the way back, we see broken, burnt cars. a burnt bus by the roadside gapes like a black skeleton. The cars full of joyful albanians come from the direction of Rožaje... The last columns of unfortunate Serbs slowly move away from Peć toward Kula.
Since june 22, all the people who gathered in the Patri- archate of Peć have been asking for the permission to leave, either escorted or unaccompanied. all these days we have been saving them in the city. The house robberies, intru- sions, lootings, threats, go on. a Serbian gasoline merchant, Milorad Rajević, brings new groups from Berane for slaugh- ter! On the other hand, we are aware of this, too: if the peo- ple leave now and if they do not come back now, they will never return out of fear. We float shipwrecked in a raging sea between Scylla and Charybdis, trusting in God only...
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We find out that six people have been kidnapped in Obi- lić and disappeared without a trace. in Donje Nerodimlje, Dinko Parlić (49) has been abducted. Radio Television of Serbia falsely announces that many buses full of people are returning to Peć. They hide the truth that even those who do briefly return, the very next night encounter intrusions in their homes, beatings or kidnappings and they flee again.
We spoke with the sisters, the nuns of the Gorioč Mo- nastery. There they came from Sopoćani with an elder, Hi- eromonk Fr. Sava. They are brave and they say they are well. We have asked for protection for them. They are protected by Spanish soldiers. We are worried about the group of people locked in the Serbian church in Djakovica. We should visit them, as early as tomorrow...
His Holiness Patriarch Paul has called. He asks if he should come again? But, it is better for him not to come now. it would be exhausting for him. if so, he’d better come around Vidovdan (St. Vitus Day). O, tell us, you flat Koso- vo? Do you cease to be Serbian? it is so sad and so sorrow- ful!
On june 23, two columns from the Patriarchate already left for Montenegro, and the infamous jovo Popović, pres- ident of the Peć district, and Paponjak, the last chief of po- lice in Peć, went together with them. What is left behind them, are new murders of the Serbs in the town, a constant onslaught of attacks on the last Serbian villages and homes in Peć.
The italians smile kindly and sometimes meet our needs, especially those who are most honest among them. Most of them are basically uninterested. “We did not come here to die for you,” frankly said one of their officers. This gives an answer as to the question why the italians, although be- ing most attentive of all other KFOR troops, defend us with such a delayed response, staying away from any conflict with“KLa.”
They clearly say themselves—because they did not come here to die for us, but to make sure they do not lose their heads.
it is cold, the wind does not stop. it woke me up this morning on June 11/24, the feast day of Saints Bartholo- mew and Barnabas. it blows and carries everything from Pećko Ždrelo, fatally ugly renamed the Rugova Gorge,25 a while ago. as if the wind also decided to sweep the last Serbs from Metohija. This morning, too, the last columns of the wretched ones are ready to leave for good from the Patriarchate, the city and Vitomirica. as it has always been up to now, the Holy King Stefan Dečanski will stay here to keep Kosovo without Serbs. The archbishops and Patri- archs of Peć as well as the elderly nuns remain without the flock. For the first time like this and in this way during the six hundred-year-old history of Kosovo and Metohija since
25 The author plays with words—the adjective “ugly” (rugobno) rhyms with Rugova, renowned albanian political leader from Kosovo after whom the gorge was renamed by albanians—transl note
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