Page 942 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

Dušan T. Bataković
“Vandalism with a mission”:
The orchestrated destruction of
the Serbian cultural and religious heritage
in parallel with the persecution of the Serb civilian popula- tion, the target of albanian retaliation were numerous Ser- bian Orthodox churches and monasteries, ranging from medieval Byzantine-style monuments to more recent churches built between the sixteenth and the twentieth century. Until the end of 1999, more than seventy Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries were plundered, des- ecrated and, in most cases, levelled to the ground. One- third of these churches were important cultural monuments dating from the medieval period with invaluable frescos, sculptures, and icons.17 as stressed by a Western eyewit- ness “...this demolition cannot be just ’revenge’—NaTO’s usual excuse for the destruction under its auspices. You do not just fill with rage and spend days gathering explosives to blow up churches. This is vandalism with a mission.”18
a renowned British war correspondent reported that “the Serb Church has issued its own list of destroyed or partly demolished buildings. Between 13 june—when Na- TO troops entered Kosovo—and 20 October, they say, sev- enty-four churches have been turned to dust or burnt or vandalized. The fifteenth-century monastery of the Holy Trinity above Mušutište, begun in 1465, has been leveled with explosives. The monastery of the [Holy] archangels near Vitina, built in the fourteenth century, has been loot- ed and burnt. So have the church of the archangels in Gor- nje Nerodimlje; and the church of St. Paraskeva near Peć: and the church of St. Nicholas in Prekoruplje—razed and its nine sixteenth-century icons lost, including that of the apostle Thomas. The rubble of Orthodox churches across Kosovo stands as a monument to albanian vandalism. af- ter declaring that Kosovo must remain a ’multi-ethnic so- ciety’, 40,000 troops from K-For cannot, it seems, look after its historical heritage against the violence of those whom its spokesmen treated as allies in the war against Yugosla- via’s President, Slobodan Milošević, only five months ago.”19 The destruction continued in the Suva Reka area: the Serb parish church in the town and the impressive medieval church in Mušutište, dedicated to the Mother of God and beautifully frescoed (built in 1315, immediately after the monastery of Gračanica), were both levelled to the ground.
During the second half of 1999, an additional number of centuries-old Serb religious centers were destroyed in a
17 Cf bilingual Serbian-english publication: Crucified Kosovo De- stroyed and Desecrated Serbian Orthodox Churches in Kosovo and Metohija (June-August 1999), ed. Fr. Sava janjić (Belgrade 1999); re- vised and updated internet edition: www kosovo net.; French and Russian editions are available at www yunet com/destruction html and www kosovo net.
18 Robert Fisk [from Djakovica], “NaTO turns a blind eye as scores of ancient Christian churches are reduced to rubble,” The Indepen- dent, 20 November 1999.
19 The Independent, 20 November 1999. 940
highly orchestrated action, focusing primarily on the living Serb communities around certain churches and monaster- ies. The church of Petrič near Peć, Nerodimlje near Uroše- vac, the monastery of Binča near Vitina, and another fifty churches and monasteries were destroyed or levelled to the ground, dozens of Serb cemeteries desecrated or dev- astated, in addition to an unknown number, mounting to thousands, of abandoned Serb homes routinely looted, torched and destroyed, in order to prevent the return of their rightful owners.
a series of renewed attacks on civilian convoys took place in February 2001 in order to reinforce fear and inse- curity within the Serb-inhabited enclaves of Kosovo. The most criminal, among several others, occurred on 14 Feb- ruary 2001 between Merdare and Podujevo, when alba- nian extremists, applying Sicilian-mafia methods, planted explosive beneath the road and destroyed a whole bus with 56 Serb civilians travelling home under the escort of Swed- ish KFOR troops. among 44 heavily injured victims, four- teen Kosovo Serb passengers perished, including two chil- dren. KFOR and UNMiK played down the whole incident, not naming the ethnic origin and number of the civilian victims of the “bus bombing massacre” near the village of Livadice.20
From june 1999 to june 2003 the number of destroyed and desecrated Serb Orthodox churches—at least one-third of them important Byzantine-type medieval Serbian mon- uments—amounted to 117, while the most important me- dieval monasteries, from the Patriarchate of Peć and Vi- soki Dečani to Gračanica and Prizren’s Cathedral of the Mother of God Ljeviška, were after june 1999 put under continuous KFOR protection. The general impression is that after the establishment of UN administration there was an orchestrated attempt by albanian extremists to evict not only all of the Serbs, but also to remove all traces of their cultural and historical heritage, something perceived by them as an important precondition for obtaining inde- pendence for an albanian-dominated Kosovo.
as stressed on many occasions by representatives of the Raška-Prizren Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church, this is a strategy of cutting off Kosovo Serbs from their his- torical and religious traditions. Only in November 2002, for instance, a day before UN Secretary General Kofi an- nan’s visit, two separate explosions blew up two Serbian Orthodox churches in western Kosovo: a church in Ljubo- va was razed to the ground, while the interior of the church in nearby Djurakovac sustained serious damage. in addi- tion, during the same month, several cemeteries in Dečani
20
a detailed report by Bishop atanasije jevtić in the Diocesan archive in Gračanica Monastery describes the attempt by UNMiK to scale down the number of Serbs killed in this albanian-organized attack. although it was known right away that eleven passengers died on the spot, UNMiK claimed only seven deaths. Less than ten killed is considered a crime, while more than ten is considered an act of terrorism.