Lies, Massacres and Shattered Dreams, 31 July 1999

By Nebojsa Malic, Washington DC

Lord Owen once said that everyone lied in the Balkans. He most likely meant that the people of the Balkans are unrepentant liars, which has been proven true on many occasions. However, it seems that this unfortunate patch of land is a magnet for liars and deceivers, in addition to the usual collection of murderers, rapists, thugs and robber barons. And let us not forget the carrion-eating pack of imperialists, militarists, smugglers, mafiosi and NGOs – missionaries of the new religion of Saint democracy and Holy capitalism. It makes sense for them to be drawn to the once prosperous and now bleeding Balkans. Sharks go for blood, after all. But it is the liars that bother me most, especially if they get so bold to pretend they are honest.

In a stark example of this phenomenon, Madeleine Albright spoke Friday to the crowds of cheering Albanians in Kosovo, reveling in the fact, as she put it, that the massacres and oppression were over. At the same time, the dirt covering the caskets of 14 Serbs shot then slaughtered by the KLA terrorists has not settled down yet. More than 60 percent of the Serbs living in Kosovo before the war had left already, and the remaining are suffering the indignity of being "protected" in ghettos by the very soldiers whose countries brought the KLA in power and replaced an alleged ethnic cleansing with a real, palpable one.

In the glorious days of NATO’s air blitz – both physical and metaphorical – every account of massacres told by Albanians was believed. No one even dared to suggest that some of the stories were invented to promote the cause of independence so many were fond of. But now, when the world has witnessed a massacre by those very same Albanians, of those very same Serbs, for Madeleine Albright this is not happening. The expulsions, massacres and oppression are over. Of course, Miss Albright. They are over because only the Serbs commit atrocities. Like in Croatia and Bosnia, ethnic cleansing is an exclusive purvey of the Serbs. Albanians are pure and innocent, and even if they do ethnically cleanse Kosovo, that would be understandable, given their self-professed suffering.

First of all, like most Serbs, I concede that the Albanians have suffered immensely, both as victims of barbaric treatment by the police and the militias, as well as the victims of their own clan chiefs and power-hungry mafiosi. But I cannot see that as an excuse to give them a free hand to summarily execute anyone they do not like and ethnically cleanse Kosovo once and for all.

Secondly, if ethnic cleansing is the sole purvey of the Serbs, how come that the number of Serb refugees in the former Yugoslavia equals that of the other ethnic groups? How come that in areas with traditional Serbian majority or substantial presence at least – such as Krajina, Kozara and Grmec, Drvar and Sarajevo, Tuzla and Mostar – there are no Serbs remaining? How come, if their foes are so tolerant, democratic and innocent, the ethnic cleansing of Serbs has been so brutally efficient?

In come the apologists, the most revolting breed of liars and deceivers. The Serbs left of their own free will, some say. They could not stand other ethnic groups, so they moved. They felt guilty for their crimes and ran away from justice. And, most recently, they killed their own people.

The most common strategy of such shameless propagandists is what we call "switching theses." So we have Muslims and Croats and Albanians who left in fear as well, though officially they have all been expelled at gunpoint – whereas all the Serbs left by themselves. Serbia is the most multi-ethnic part of former Yugoslavia, for the record – as opposed to such "jewels of democracy" as Croatia, the Muslim part of Bosnia and the ethnically pure Slovenia. And as for killing their own people, as Mr. Fron Nazi of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting recently suggested on the basis of apparently very credible Albanian café rumors, let us simply mention the three media-hyped massacres in Sarajevo, which have never been resolved. For the uninitiated, when cases are left unresolved, or the names of perpetrators are not made public, rest assured it was not the Serbs. What with all the media affinity to smear and demonize this nation, why would anyone pass up on a chance to break a story like "Serbs Stage Massacre to Justify Intervention?" But has that story ever appeared? No. Neither has the "[insert name of group at war with Serbs presently] stage massacre to provoke intervention," despite some very credible claims by neutral observers to the fact. What else should we expect of NATO’s peace, when NATO’s war was a Big Lie to begin with? The exodus started after the bombs. Bombs killed as many civilians as the Serbs are accused of murdering – with the difference that victims of bombs are known, while the thousands of victims of "cleansing" are still largely hypothetical. NATO’s casualty claims were proven false, and yet no one has apologized. Most notably, NATO has used the media to create the impression the G-8 deal was in fact its victory and Serbia’s capitulation.

Now that NATO is holding Kosovo and standing by while Serbs, Roma, Turks and all other non-Albanian "minorities" abandon their ancestral homes under the KLA gun and torch, we are supposed to share Albright’s exhilaration that the massacres are over and the terror has stopped. In reality, which NATO wants to hide for obvious reasons of embarrassment, the real massacres have just begun.

And while Slobodan Milosevic is definitely culpable of supporting nationalism and hatred, we cannot lay the responsibility for victims of Albanian terror at his doorstep. "Everyone must take responsibility for their actions," we are told. "The Serbs must come to terms with the genocide they have committed," thunders Washington with moral indignation. But God forbid that NATO takes responsibility for anything, especially keeping the peace. Or that the KLA answers for its campaign of creating a Greater Albania – while no one ver proved the existence of a plan to create a Greater Serbia, except as a fiction in Westerners’ minds to justify the anti-Serb crusade.

There is good and evil in every cause, in every people, in every region of the world. To believe any ethnic group is filled with hatred and lives solely to create trouble for the United States is racist and hateful in itself – not to mention untrue.

So I ask all the self-professed saviors of humanity – why are the deaths of Serbs, Roma, Turks, Kurds, Greek Cypriots, Sierra Leoneans and Rwandans somehow less worthy than the deaths of a single Kosovo Albanian? Not "Kosovar," mind you, for this is a nebulous, heavily politicized term created for the purpose of this province’s secession – just like "Bosnian." Why are Kosovo Albanian deaths so tragic, and everything else is a footnote. A murder is a murder. A hate crime is a hate crime, no matter of the perpetrator was black, white, purple, Serb, Albanian, American. The law should be equal for everyone, if one is to defend America’s values.

But that, of course, is part of the Big Lie. It was not values that America fought for, but the right to turn them off and on whenever it pleases, act wherever and whenever it wants. It was a war to show the world that cooperation will be rewarded, and resistance punished. That is why Madeleine Albright has to keep on lying, the KFOR has to keep standing by while the KLA goes about its ghastly business, and the world turns its attention to something less complex and more gratifying that justice.

The Serbs should have no illusions about the world. Not after five wars in this century, millions of victims, thousands of refugees and dozens of shattered dreams. Justice is only for the strong. Morals are the prerogative of the victors. And truth is always the first casualty of war.