[Prishtina-E] Are we awake? Let's open our eyes before the world media starts calling us terrorists!

[Mentor Cana]

Dear friends,

The article below talks about the fighting in Souther Serbia. From an
Albanian perspective the fight is against an oppressor (Serbia) of many
decades.

However, as you see in the article below the Serbs refer to Albanian
freedom fighters as terrorist. The term terrorist more and more is being
used by the western media (albeit in quotes). The very first use
of the word "terrorism" is used by washingtonpost.com as if they agree with
that - maybe they do maybe they don't.

If this trend of labeling continues without protest the media will see no
stop in referring to Albanians as terrorist. Hope I'm wrong in my
assessment. However, given the fact that the current Serbian government is
treated as democratic one by the west, what a paradox!, the west may give
them the "green" light to fight the "terrorism".

We need to start talking..... action is needed in educating the media
about the truth...

later,
Mentor

---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010219/aponline024703_000.htm

Yugoslavia Urges Action After Blast

By Suzana Popovic
Associated Press Writer
Monday, Feb. 19, 2001; 2:47 a.m. EST

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- Yugoslavia's leaders promised a crackdown on
terrorism along the Kosovo border and demanded action from NATO
peacekeepers following two explosions that left at least 10 Serbs dead.
    Serb authorities blamed ethnic Albanian militants for the mine that
killed three police officers Sunday and a bus bombing within Kosovo that
killed at least seven civilians Friday.
    The rebels denied responsibility and said one of their commanders
was killed by Serb police later Sunday in Lucane, just outside a buffer
zone separating Kosovo province from the rest of Serbia, the larger of
the two republics that make up Yugoslavia.
    Top Yugoslav and Serbian leaders met late Sunday to discuss the
mounting violence, and President Vojislav Kostunica's office released a
statement pledging a "series of measures against terrorism" in the area.
    Yugoslavia also urged NATO-led peacekeepers to stop the flow of arms
and guerrillas in the buffer zone, which rebels have used to stage
attacks on Serbian police and Yugoslav army troops.
    The militants want to join the zone with Kosovo as part of a push
for independence for the Serbian province, which has been run by the
United Nations and NATO-led peacekeepers since June 1999, when
Yugoslavia halted its crackdown on the Albanian majority after a NATO
bombing campaign.
    Friday's bombing of a bus carrying Serbs to visit the graves of
relatives in Kosovo killed at least seven people and wounded 43, the
deadliest attack in the province since 13 Serb farmers were
machine-gunned to death while tilling their fields in July 1999.
    "I think that the terrorists the other day were trying to send a
message to several constituencies at once," Brig. Gen. Rob Fry,
commander of the British peacekeepers, said Sunday.
    The three policemen died Sunday when their van was demolished by
what were believed to be anti-tank mines on a road near Lucane, a
southern Serbian village just outside the three-mile-wide buffer zone.
    The zone was created to prevent what officials feared would be
clashes between Serbian forces and the NATO-led peacekeepers patrolling
Kosovo under the 1999 peace deal for the province.
    Only lightly armed Serbian police are allowed to enter the zone, and
ethnic Albanian militants have taken control of most of the strip in
recent months.
    Yugoslav authorities say the peacekeepers have failed to fulfill a
mandate to keep the ethnic Albanian militants and their weapons out of
the buffer zone.
    Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic appealed Sunday to NATO
Secretary-General George Robertson to ensure that the peacekeeping force
immediately seal Kosovo's boundary with Serbia.
    The militants have attacked Serbian police inside the zone and
sometimes launch attacks across the line into Serbia proper. The
explosion Sunday took place about 200 yards outside the zone.
    Serbian police came under fire while trying to pull out the wreckage
of the wrecked police vehicle, a government statement said.
    No one was injured, but Serbian officials reported a further
exchange of gunfire between police and the rebels in the buffer zone
later Sunday.
    A spokesman for the ethnic Albanian militants, Jonuz Musliu, said
one rebel commander was killed by Serb police Sunday in Lucane and
another commander and a soldier were wounded.
    Musliu, the political officer of the Liberation Army of Presevo,
Medvedja and Bujanovac, denied the group was behind the policemen's
deaths and condemned the bus bombing.
    Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic, who submitted a peace
plan for the buffer zone to NATO earlier this week, said the
government's patience was wearing thin.
    "It is not permissible that such attacks continue," Covic said. "We
also demand from the international community specific decisions."
    Meanwhile, U.N. officials in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, said a
German forensic team had begun identifying victims in the bus attack by
examining bodies and body parts laid out in a large tent. There were
fears that the death toll could rise.
    Hundreds of Serbs gathered Sunday in the Serb enclave of Gracanica,
some six miles south of Pristina, to protest Friday's bombing.
    Tens of thousands of Serbs have fled their homes in Kosovo since the
United Nations and NATO took over, fearing reprisals following former
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on the province's
ethnic Albanians.

© Copyright 2001 The Associated Press