The USA and the Kosovo question (7): The first small victory of the "Serbian cause" before the Congress

Writing for Kosovo Online: Dragan Bisenic, journalist

The congressmen could ask us and the other witnesses, questions, but since no one asked us any questions, we retired to our seats, while Congresswoman Bentley, both before and after us, asked some questions to the witnesses from the Albanian side. That's how she asked Joe DioGuardi when he attacked the situation in Kosovo under Milosevic if that meant that the situation under Tito had been better and freer - which confused him and he could not answer, which weakened his position of defending the Albanians and even Azem Vllasi. Mrs. Bentley asked Shqiptar Ramadan Marmullaku (former Ambassador of Yugoslavia in Africa and the US): How is it that the Albanians in Kosovo "have no rights", and he was even the Ambassador of Yugoslavia? In general, it should be said that, this apparently small and modest woman, fought like a lion before the Congress for the truth about the Serbian cause and continued to do so because she informed us that, after the meeting of "Caucus", she sent all the material in English translation to 40 congressmen, with her cover letter.

After us, came a group of Albanians, available from Yugoslavia, headed by Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of the so-called "Albanian alternatives" from Kosovo. All the time before that, he was sitting "behind the stage", followed and guarded by the US federal security (which was later said "as proof of his lack of freedom in Yugoslavia, where they threaten to kill him"!). He and all the other Shqiptars spoke exclusively in the Shqiptar language, with an interpreter, which took much more time, and at the same time, exactly 13 of them spoke and "witnessed”! Rugova talked about the murder of 34 young Albanians in Kosovo (in a conflict with the militia during the last riots), and then told a series of notorious lies against the Serbs, without even mentioning any violence by Shqiptars against the Serbs in Kosovo. On the contrary, he said that it was all just "Belgrade propaganda" etc., and the like. Fr. Atanasije Jevtic reacted to his unscrupulous lying by sending a note to Ms. Bentley the chairman that he wanted to add something "about Serbian children in Kosovo". It was initially rejected by the chairman, but later it was allowed, so Fr. Atanasije in Serbian (with simultaneous translation) said the following verbatim, "Mr. President, listening to Congressman DioGuardi and others here (thinking of Rugova) about the suffering of Albanian children and young people in Kosovo at the hands of the militia, as a man and a Christian I want to say the following: I regret suffering and death of every human being, including the Albanian brothers in Kosovo because Jesus Christ died for every human being. But, I wonder: Do the Serbs in Kosovo have children, girls, mothers, young people? What about them? - Where are they? Where were all these current "fighters for human rights", who now present themselves here as such, when, not only during the war but from the war until 1988 and until today, Serbian children in Kosovo and Metohija suffered, Serbian girls were raped, dead children were taken out of the grave, young Serbian people were killed. Where were Mr. Ibrahim Rugova and Azem Vllasi, for whose human rights the aforementioned gentlemen are fighting here, and their ilk, "democrats", to ask themselves and their supporters here, how under the rule of those same communist Albanians, and especially Azem Vllasi, precisely under his autonomous Shqiptar rule in Kosovo, the Albanian majority tyrannized the innocent Serb neighbors and their children in Kosovo for decades? - It is true that now the communist authorities of Yugoslavia and Serbia, but not the authorities of the Serbs, have responded with violence and killing to the rebellious and aggressive demonstrations of the Shqiptars in Kosovo when the Shqiptars apparently decided to sacrifice the lives of a certain number of their young people. But we from the Serbian people, who were never communists, say: that these same Albanians, who now suddenly changed their mind, i.e. who were communists for decades and only yesterday returned their party communist cards (as well as Mr. Rugova, whom we heard here a little while ago), how these same current "democrats" used the same communist government for decades to tyrannize and persecute the Serbs from Kosovo. By using that violence against the Serbs, under the communists, they acquired everything they have now and which they are now determined to defend by sacrificing their children. - It was said here a little while ago (as proof that Albanian children have no rights in Kosovo) that Serbian and Shqiptar students are now separated in schools in Kosovo. We wonder, however, why? Because for decades, and until recently, those same Albanian children, under the leadership of their teachers and leaders, tyrannized Serbian children in schools in Kosovo. In the end, I just wonder: when, and if, the famous Shqiptar "democracy" in Kosovo, which they are now planning here, is realized tomorrow, what will happen to the Serbian children in Kosovo under such a "democracy" of theirs? And what will happen to the joint future of Serbian and Albanian children in Kosovo?"

These words of Fr. Atanasije were greeted tumultuously by the Serbs present in the hall (to which the Shqiptars in the corridor in front of the hall told our Serbs: "Your priests are lying to you all, because the situation in Kosovo is not like that", from which, among other things, it can be concluded that to the Albanians the testimony of the Serbian Church from Kosovo is the most difficult and unfavorable because it is neither communist nor in power, but it is a witness of the centuries-old presence and suffering of the Serbs in Kosovo and is indestructible).

Then the "testimony" of the other Shqiptars continued: 8 professors from Pristina, 1 woman, and the former Ambassador of the SFRY, Ramadan Marmullaku (who, it turned out, wrote a book about Enver Hoxha in his time!), all of whom belong to the squad, especially Shqiptar Pula (the same one who recently spoke on TV Belgrade about the "mass poisoning" of Albanian children by the Serbian authorities), uttered hundreds of lies and slanders against Serbia and the Serbs, presenting themselves as "innocent victims" and "democrats". They said, for example, that the Albanians in Kosovo had their language rights revoked, whereupon Rector Milutin took out his identity card and passport and informed Mrs. Bentley that his documents, although he is a Serb, were first written in Albanian and only then in Serbian language, which Mrs. Bentley subsequently took and photocopied and attached as evidence for the "record" (official minutes). The Shqiptars told how they were allegedly prevented from coming to the US; Rugova even said: "I didn't write a report, because the Serbian militia in Belgrade would have taken it from me at the airport", which turned out to be funny when Mrs. Pula then took out a whole basket of "evidence" and even a recorded videotape about the “poisoning" of Albanian children, which means that she brought all that freely from Yugoslavia. We do not think it is necessary to dwell further on all the "testimonies" of the Kosovar Shqiptars before the US congressmen, because it was clear to any conscientious and honest listener, apart from the preconceived, that they were well taught and prepared what and how to say - "in the face of lies", similar to what certain pro-Albanian-minded congressmen, a Serb Bogdan Maglic, who attended this session, told us at the end, that several congressmen were "well paid" by rich US Albanians and that the main leader of that pro-Albanian propaganda was Senator Bob Dole, but that Mr. Maglic hoped that he would soon be exposed, because he was lying. Mr. Maglic also added that his and some other people's impression was that this was the first small victory of the Serbs and the Serbian cause before the Congress, but that the further fight against the Shqiptar and anti-Serb conspiracy should be continued in the US and the world and to support Mrs. Helen Delich Bentley in her efforts to slowly make the truth about the Serbs in Kosovo and to come to the US public. Let us mention that, after us, they spoke in front of congressmen and Radoslav Stojanovic, a Professor from Belgrade, and Slobodan Vuckovic, a lawyer from Belgrade, who explained the current true situation of Kosovo in Serbia and Yugoslavia from the legal and political side, and a letter from Ambassador Dzevad Mujezinovic arrived from the Embassy of the SFRY in the USA, reporting to the Congress that the state of emergency had been lifted in Kosovo and political prisoners had been released, and Azem Vllasi had been absolved, which had a certain positive impact, although Kosovo Shqiptars and some pro-Albanian congressmen continued to talk about the "occupation" of Kosovo by Serbia. It was more than clear to all unprejudiced listeners that the Albanians and their tutors and patrons in the US have an almost pathological hatred of Serbs and everything from Serbia. To be fair, it should be said that it was not only the anti-Serb propaganda that went out to the world public from Slovenia and Croatia but also the lack of work of Yugoslav diplomacy in the world and also the kind of blindness of the Serbian communists, before and now. In our statement before the Congress, it is therefore stated, among other things, that the tragic problem of Kosovo was, to the greatest extent, a product of the communist anti-Serb policy until now, and that the solution to the Kosovo issue lay primarily in the decommunization of Kosovo and the establishment of truth, freedom and justice for all who lived in Kosovo.

At the end of this tiring Congress session, around 8:00 p.m., the chairman thanked everyone. Then Mrs. Bentley took about 20 of us Serbs to dinner at the "Republican Club" in Washington, at her own expense, for which we sincerely thanked her, as well as later in a special letter, for all her efforts for the Serbs and the Serbian Church.

In the end, as we have repeated many times before and now here in the US, we repeat it now, after this experience in Washington. Belonging to the martyred Serbs of Kosovo, we testify that it is better to perish as human beings than to survive as non-humans, because a dead man is better than a living non-human, because even dead people are alive to God, while non-humans are dead before Him while they are still walking across this country.

Tomorrow: Conversation without Tito's picture