[NYC-L] Kosovo's Christian Serbs --Press conference in less than 2 hours

[Amustafaj at aol.com]

Dear All:

Firstly, thank you for forwarding this message. While the National Albanian 
American Council works hard to keep pace with all activities, issues and 
concerns that pertain to Albanians, it helps to have others monitoring as well.

As for this press conference today, NAAC will have a representative in 
attendance. In response, we will be dropping of information packets that more 
accurately portrait the reality of Kosova. The information are copies of briefing 
given at the Helsinki Commision.  

A few weeks back, the Serbian Unity Council placed an ad in Roll Call, a 
publication distributed on the Hill, in which it accused Albanians of being linked 
to Bin Laden, drug smuggling, muslim terrorists -- the usual nonsense we've 
all read before. Subsequently, along with Congressman Eliot Engel, NAAC held a 
press conference denouncing the ad; the use of such hate speech; called on 
Roll Call to not publish such ads; and asked that Venable, a PR Firm in 
Washington DC responsible for putting the ad together, to fire the person responsible 
for writing it. A few days later, Roll Call had a brief article including a 
photo of Congressman Engel holding the ad.

While it is true that the Serbian lobby has increased its activities in 
Washington DC, we have been assured by high reanking members of the US government, 
representatives of leading think tanks and others familiar and engaged in 
Albanian issues, that they are not having a serious impact. In fact, quite the 
contrary, the ad in Roll Call served more as a boomberang as it was full of 
outrageous false accusations which could not possibly be taken seriously.

It is important to remember that there is a great deal of good will for 
Albanians in Washongton DC, the international community is mostly in favor of 
Kosova's independence and, equally important, Kosova's independence is morally 
just. All of these came about because so many, have sacrifieced so much, for so 
long and we must not allow ourselves to be dragged into verbal skirmishes to 
take away the rights we have earned. We do not want to give them any 
justification to continue their desperate acts 

Please be aware that we will continue to monitor any and all activities and 
welcome your input.

Gjithe te mirat,
Avni Mustafaj
Executive Director
National Albanian American Council
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