I have followed with great interest the events in Kosovo this past year and I was particularly intrigued by both accounts written by Officer Vincent duCellier that were published in the Washington Times. Officer duCellier, a former Maryland police officer, has selflessly volunteered his time and separation from his family to command the prison in Mitrovica, Kosovo. The first article appeared as a touching letter written to his wife titled, "Lessons of a lifetime," dated as a 3 August editorial. The second article published in The Metropolitan Section of the Times is dated 21 August and titled, "’We are the police’ in war-torn Kosovo, Maryland cop learns the value of America from volunteer mission," and was almost identical to the first article, which aroused my curiosity as to why the Washington Times would give second coverage to identical reports in so short a time. This is in response to Officer duCellier’s observations as a police officer commanding the Mitrovica prison in Kosovo.
Officer duCellier alluded many times in both letters to the "hatred that is clearly evident between Serbians and Albanians." However, what appears to have made the greatest impression on him, and perhaps exposes his pro-Albanian sentiments, was the tragic fate of a young 16-year old Albanian boy who was totally paralyzed on the right side as the result of a beating by the Serbian police a year earlier, which left him with only limited use of his left side. Officer duCellier writes, "He is Albanian. This was his crime, and so the Serbian police under [Slobodan] Milosevic broke his neck." I certainly do not defend this act of cruelty, but Officer duCellier neglected to relate even one of the incidents where Serbs were the victims.
A FEW EXAMPLES OF THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
Unfortunately, there are many tragic stories such as the one told by Officer duCellier. As an example, the tragic death of the Bulgarian staffer working for the U.N. civilian mission in Kosovo who was shot and killed after his first day on the job. (AP, U.N. Official killed in Kosovo). The AP writes: "According to Inspector Gilles Moreau of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, now serving with the UN in Pristina, a group of ethnic Albanian youths followed him and asked him what the time was. When Krumov replied in Serbian, the youths began to kick and punch him. A large crowed gathered, separating Krumov from his colleagues. "’All of a sudden, a shot was heard, the crowd dispersed and the body of Mr. Krumov was on the ground, lifeless,’ said Inspector Moreau. Krumov had been shot in the head."
And what was this young man’s crime, I would like to ask Officer duCellier? The Guardian of 13 October 1999 writes that "Mr. Krumov, a Bulgarian, was killed because he spoke a simple phrase in Serbian." I repeat: "He spoke a simple phrase in Serbian."
Another example of injustice was done to a Serbian man and his two sons who spent over a year in prison [was it in Officer duCellier’s prison?] after having been accused of killing an ethnic Albanian. The Washington Times reported on 9 August that a "Serbian man, two sons acquitted, slaying case seen as test of Kosovo justice for minorities." [LOL. "Kosovo justice for minorities?"]. An Associated Press article on 21 July writes, "the murder trial of a Serb man and his two sons, accused of killing an ethnic Albanian in a shootout in Kosovo, took a dramatic turn Friday when the trial judge said American troops confirmed they killed two people at the scene that day. Judge Patrice De Charette said the admission was contained in a 103-page report submitted by U.S. authorities Friday to the court trying Mirolub ‘Mirko’ Momcilovic, 60 and his sons Jugoslav, 32, and Boban, 25." Is this what Officer duCellier considers to be justice by keeping innocent Serbian men in prison for over a year before being released?
Staff Sgt. Frank Ronghi, the U.S. soldier who received a life sentence without parole for killing an 11-year-old ethnic Albanian girl while on peacekeeping duty in Kosovo, bragged to his fellow soldiers that he was going to pin this one on the Serbs. If the Sergeant had not taken along one of his buddies while in the process of dumping his young victim’s body in a field, innocent Serbs would be rotting in jail for the rest of their lives at this very moment and Sgt. Ronghi would be walking around scot free to perhaps rape and murder another young girl and blaming it on Serbs, and why not? After all, the name of the game is, "blame it on the Serbs!" when considering the Serbs have been accused of other atrocities for which they were not guilty.
Sgt. Ronghi was not dragged before the dock at the International Criminal Court (ICC) as is done to Serbs who, unknowingly have been secretly declared as war criminals and kidnaped under some of the most bizarre circumstances such as kicking down the door of a Kosovo Serbian medical center and yanking the patient from his hospital bed at 2:45 a.m. A military spokesman said that the man had been wounded by a British KFOR soldier during rioting in the Serbian enclave of Gracanica, just south of the provincial capital, after a grenade attack on a Serb market there. Father Sava of Decani Monastery, emphasized that he did not wish to address whether the patient should have been arrested or not but he condemned the manner in which this was done, calling it "unprecedented and unacceptable" and added, "We cannot tolerate this anymore! This kind of behavior on the part of British KFOR show us that the international forces are an occupying force, not peacekeeping forces acting in accordance with the UN Resolution."
Another assault by ethnic Albanians on Serbs was reported by Associated Press on 5 December 1999 when an American Professor from Berkeley was murdered. AP reported, "NATO peacekeepers and U.N. police only realized later what had happened: A crowd of ethnic Albanians had pulled [Professor] Basic, his 51-year old wife and her 74-year-old mother from the car, flipped it over and set it on fire. The mob kicked, punched and pummeled them. Basic was shot. Firecrackers were jammed in the mouths of the terrified women. Basic died en route to the hospital. The two women suffered critical injuries and remain hospitalized in the Serbian city of Nis." The Associated Press also reported that "His [Professor Basic] face looked as if it had been dragged across gravel. The medic who was present began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but couldn’t hear Basic’s breathing over the crowed’s shouting. He ripped open the man’s shirt. That’s when he saw the bullet’s entry wound."
But why am I not surprised at the Gestapo method of apprehending those bearing the Scarlet Letter "S" for Serb? Didn’t this sort of Nazi-type thuggery happen in the wee hours of the morning when storm troopers broke into the home where young Elian Gonzales was being protected by his Cuban Miami family from being returned to "Papa Castro?" Were Bosnia and Kosovo merely rehearsals for what occurred on that early morning raid in Florida?
I would like to ask Officer duCellier, are the KLA/Albanian thugs who committed these atrocities in his prison, or in any other prison for that matter? When incidents of this sort occur, most ethnic Albanians are questioned and then released without spending any time behind bars, unlike Serbs who are detained in prisons even after they have been proven innocent. The question should then be raised, where was the outrage from Professor Basic’s congressman and senators over his violent death and the brutality displayed against his family? Did that act of Albanian barbarity not warrant some condemnation?
R. Jeffrey Smith of the Washington Post Foreign Service reported on 12 June, 2000, "The killer stood ankle-deep in the mud of a stream bed on Sunday night two weeks ago and poked his AK-47 through a metal fence covered with camouflaging vegetation. He was close enough to get a clear view of 4-year-old Milos Petrovic and four Serbian men milling in front of the tiny grocery in this Kosovo village. Milos had come for an ice cream cone with his uncle, but his presence was no deterrent to the gunman who fired 21 shots at the group and then fled along the stream. Milos’ head was nearly gone, and two of the men also died quickly. U.S. troops flew the others by helicopter to a base camp for surgery." The report continues:
"The dead were among the more than 500 people who have been slain in Kosovo since NATO peacekeeping troops and U.N. officials arrived here one year ago to begin reconstructing this war-ravaged, ethnically riven Serbian province. In the last five weeks alone, more than 55 other serious, ethnically motivated crimes have been committed against Kosovo’s minority Serbian population." Very recently, two hand grenades were thrown at a group of people in the Serb area of Kosovo, wounding ten Serbian children ranging from the ages of five to 15. Are any of the Albanian terrorists who committed these atrocities languishing in Officer duCellier’s prison?
NATO TERRORISM RESULTS IN AMPUTATIONS FOR INNOCENT CIVILIANS
Acts of brutality by NATO’s use of stun guns against the Serbian population resulted in the amputation of limbs. As reported in the Associated Press of 16 March, 2000, "Seizing control of a key bridge in a first step to reunite this ethnically divided city, NATO peacekeepers clashed Wednesday with angry Serbs in a confrontation during which two people lost limbs to stun grenades." It continues: "At least 15 Serbs and an undetermined number of peacekeepers and journalists were injured. Nine of the injured were hospitalized, said Dr. Radomir Jankovic, a chief surgeon at the Serb-controlled hospital. A mother of three and a diabetic man each had one foot amputated because of injuries suffered when stun grenades fired by French peacekeepers exploded near them, Jankovic said." Have charges been brought against the French peacekeepers for inflicting such pain and suffering on their Serbian victims? Agence France Presse reported that "a 70-year-old Serbian woman was dragged out of her house after being savagely beaten by unidentified assailants, the UN’s refugee agency in Kosovo said on Friday. The agency seized on the attack as an example of the ‘horrific lack of community initiative’ demonstrated by the overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian community in the southern Kosovo town of Prizren when it came to dealing with hate crimes. The woman was attacked in her Prizen home before her assailants dragged her outside and left her in the street." AFP reported from Pristina on 27 August that "a Kosovo Serbian child was killed and three others seriously injured when a car hit them Sunday, UN police spokesman Richard Graham told AFB. A car leaving the scene was stopped by KFOR peacekeeping troops and two Kosovo Albanian men were arrested by UN police in relation to the incident," and in another case, Fr. Sava reported that on the same day the Serbian child was killed, a 75-year-old Serb from Crkvena vodica was also killed by a machine gun fire from an unindentified car which immediately disappeared in direction of Albanian dominated Obilic.
As Patrick J. Buchanan says, "What is goin’ on here?"
Again, I would like to ask Officer duCellier, have any of these Albanian thugs been jailed and brought to justice? What was the Serbian child run down by a car, or the machine-gun death of the 75-year-old Serb guilty of other than being Serbs?
Jerry Seper of the Washington Times wrote on 4 May 1999, "KLA rebels train in terrorists camps, Bin Laden offers financing, too." During the first two months of KFOR’s occupation, more churches were destroyed by America’s buddies, the KLA mafia, than under 500 years of the Ottoman Empire, and the destruction of Serbian holy sites continues while Congress remains silent unlike their passionate display of condemnation on the floor of the House of atrocities allegedly committed by Serbs. It seems our good Congressmen couldn’t get on the floor fast enough to denounce alleged Serb atrocities. While all traces of Serbian churches and monasteries are being eradicated, the United Arab Emirates’ defense minister has offered to build 50 mosques in Kosovo at his own expense. (Reuters, 20 August).
I cannot stress frequently enough and strongly enough that the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has somehow been magically morphed into the peaceful Kosovo Protection Force, was armed and trained in Osama bin Laden’s camps and are engaged in sex slavery, ("Sex slave trade thrives among Kosovo troops," London Times, 5 February 2000), prostitution, ("Kosovo’s Flesh Trade, the San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, 2000), kidnaping, murder and drugs ("Albanian drug dealers and trafficers are flourishing in post-war Kosovo," by Imer Mushkola in Pristina, 23 May, 00). This is the nature of the KLA beast, and now that they have almost succeeded in ridding themselves of the Serbs, Roma, Jews and non-Albanians, they have already begun to kill their own. And after they have rid themselves of unwanted ethnic Albanians, who’s left to target? You guessed it – American GIs. Isn’t it comforting to know that our politicians and media have made a pact with these thugs on behalf of the American people? Christopher Lane and Benjamin Schwartz of the Washington Post say, "We were Suckers for the KLA," but were we? I think not. We have known all along exactly what our agenda was – to rid the world of those pesky Serbs and to take over their assets.
In an incredible report, the Washington Times of August 22, World Section headlines, "Violence against minorities no longer stuns Kosovo." It goes on to say, "Violence against minority groups is so common place it appears to be regarded as normal, often met with a resigned shrug of the shoulders from U.N. police officers and members of the NATO-led Kosovo Force (Kfor) peacekeeping." The "civilized" community was more than willing to accept some retribution, some form of revenge by ethnic Albanians against the minorities who were left in Kosovo, as though two wrongs DO make a right, but the question should be asked over and over again, revenge for what? Retribution for what? And for how long? More and more reports are finally beginning to surface that there were no mass graves in Kosovo, nor was there a genocide and that rumors of atrocities committed by Serbs had been greatly exaggerated. The BBC World Service reported on 17 June, 2000 of the huge arms find in Kosovo and writes that K-For British-led peacekeepers in Kosovo have uncovered the largest store of illegal arms found since fighting ended in the province a year ago. Six tons of arms have so far been removed from the bunkers. "You’ve got enough here to start a small war," said British Major Simon Marr. AP further substantiated ownership of the cache of weapons when it wrote, "NATO said Friday that a huge cache of weapons including mortars, mines and machine guns found last week belonged to the Kosovo liberation Army." Are these arms violators serving time? Not in Officer duCellier’s prison, I would venture to guess.
Am I to assume that as a "volunteer," Officer duCellier is not being financially rewarded other than having the satisfaction of helping to keep order in a prison in Kosovo? Is it compassion alone that he feels the need to extend his services in Kosovo until September of 2001? If so, he is certainly to be commended for his humanitarian desire to bring law and order to a lawless nation, one created by NATO and our politicians. Or is it possible that there is a $$$$ factor which enters the picture? Officer duCellier states that there are "36 International Police Officers on my staff and 65 detainees in the jail. The detainees are mostly Serbians [a little over half, he states] accused of various war crimes such as mass murder, [apparently, charges of killing just ONE ethnic Albanian is considered to be "mass murder," such as in the case of the Serbian father and sons], genocide and arson top the list. They each profess to be innocent. The Roma here face similar charges, while the Albanians are charged with minor theft, weapons possession and attempted murder." "Minor theft? Weapons possession and attempted murder?" It appears that KLA/ethnic Albanians who commit atrocities such as raping a Serbian nun while Kosovar rebels looted her monastery after NATO troops refused a mother superior’s plea for protection, or "Grannies" who have been targeted for special horrors, such as decapitation, drowning in bathtubs, stabbing or raped, [their crime of being Serbs], are considered to be lesser crimes than those allegedly committed by Serbs accused of "mass murder," [mass graves that have been proven to be non-existent?] Or "genocide," yet the Wall Street Journal reported, "War in Kosovo was Cruel, Bitter, Savage; Genocide It Wasn’t," (31 December 1999). Could it be that Serbs in Officer duCellier’s prison are accused of war crimes that do not exist?
Bob Djurdjevic’s Truth in Media (TiM) reported on 14 August that "Hashim Thaci, the Kosovo Albanian terrorist-in chief and (thus) Madeleine Albright’s good pal, attended a gala luncheon on Monday (Aug. 14) at the Democratic Party convention in Los Angeles. A TiM source who was also there said that when Albright and Bill Clinton showed up, "before they spoke, Thaci went up to Albright, had a brief talk, and then kissed twice on the cheeks." It was during her last visit to Kosovo that Madeleine Albright was greeted with kisses from Thaci, after he had just executed six of his officers. It appears that Senator Lieberman shares views of Madam Albright, for it was he who said, "The United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same human values and principles…Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values." (Washington Post, April 28, 1999).
By now, we have all heard the joke of how the war in the Balkans began. During a meeting of Madeleine Albright with the all-male NATO ministers, she asked the question, "Well gentleman, do we make love or do we make war?" Of course, the answer was unanimously for war.
And what a lovely war it is, Officer duCellier. Money and all.
As a career military officer’s wife, Stella Jatras has traveled widely and has lived in many foreign countries where she not only learned about other cultures but became very knowledgeable regarding world affairs and world politics. Stella Jatras lived in Moscow for two years where her husband, George, was the Senior Air Attaché), and while there, worked in the Political Section of the US Embassy. Stella has also lived in Germany, Greece and Saudi Arabia. Her travels took her to over twenty countries. She is the author of the "Open Letter to General Michael Short," which antiwar.com carried on 11/3/99, "From Camp Swampy to Camp Bondsteel!" on 4/6/00, and “Srebrenica” – Code Word to Silence Critics of US Policy in the Balkans" on 7/31/00.
