Re: Syndicate: Craig Goodrich on the War

[Thomas Keenan <tkeenan@binghamton.edu>]

I forwarded the syndicate post "Craig Goodrich on the War" to my
friend and colleague Andras Riedlmayer at Harvard, who's an expert on the
destruction of cultural heritage and property in former Yugoslavia. He
wrote back this comment, which you might consider posting on the list.  I
would post it myself but I'm not sure about your rules for posting stuff
by non-syndicalists.

Best, Tom

[abroeck: no rules; anything you feel is relevant; i do the same, trying to
limit cross-posting]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 18:10:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: Andras Riedlmayer <riedlmay@fas.harvard.edu>
To: Thomas Keenan <tkeenan@binghamton.edu>
Subject: Re: Syndicate: Craig Goodrich on the War (fwd)

Tom - if you want to post my response to the Syndicate list, it's ok
with me. If not, at least I got it off my chest ...
AR
================================================
Interesting, but not convincing. I've been following closely what's been
happening to cultural property in Kosovo and find it astonishing to see
Goodrich repeating uncritically information from official Yugoslav sources
( http://www.yuheritage.com ), including assertions such as

> the 800-year-old monasteries [in Kosovo] are being destroyed by the
> continuous pounding [of NATO's bombardment].
>
> We have flattened the old city of Pec, whose markets and workshops
> dated back to the 13th century. We have damaged the 16th-century
> Hadum Mosque in Djakovica ...

Interviews with refugees from Pec and Djakovica place the responsibility
for the destruction of these history urban centers and their monuments
on the torching of these sites by Serb forces, as part of the "cleansing"
of the entire ethnic Albanian population of these two cities.

The case of the Hadum Mosque in Djakovica (Alb. Gjakova) is particularly
instructive, given that NATO says it has infrared photographs corroborating
the numerous reports by Albanian refugees who saw the Hadum Mosque and
the surrounding old Ottoman market district (Serbian: Velika carsija,
Albanian: Carshiya e madhe) being systematically set on fire by Serb
paramilitaries.

A small selection of these reports should at least make readers examine
critically the Yugoslav authorities' assertion that it was NATO's bombs
that caused the destruction in Djakovica

     Reuters (3/29) cited a NATO source saying that after [Friday's]
     NATO attack on a military target in Djakovica, "the Serbs seemed
     to go kind of crazy. They went down the road to a mosque and set it
     on fire. Then they set fire to homes and buildings in a circle all
     around it... We think they were trying to make it look like either
     we missed or we shot the mosque deliberately... We've got pictures
     of it."

A report from Sevdie Ahmeti, a journalist in Prishtina (Albanews 3/25):
     So far there is no report from the field, but the one very
     confidential and fearful from Gjakova [Serbian Djakovica], where
     the old part of the town was set ablaze. [...] At about 02.00 CET
     [on the first night of the NATO air strikes], only some two hours
     after midnight, local sources say they heard some vehicles going
     through side roads, and then some running steps and the setting fire
     to the whole shops of the famous Carshia e Madhe (the old bazaar),
     the very picturesque part of the old town. Meanwhile they heard
     screams around some houses. Serb paramilitaries entered the home of
     Dr. Izet Hima, famous, respected and of advanced age, and killed him.
     Then they entered the two homes of the Zerka family and killed three
     people.
---------------
   The United Nations High Commission for Refugees Washington office
   March 28. 1999 said that "according to the latest reports, a section
   of the ancient city of Pec in western Kosovo has been set on fire
   and residents were ordered to leave...
----------------
   Human Rights Watch reported April 4 that "evidence began mounting
   Friday, April 2, that a violent form of ethnic cleansing is in its
   final stages in Djakovica (Gjakova in Albanian)... In a marked
   departure from the forced depopulations that have taken place
   over the last week in large cities such as Pristina, Pec and Prizren,
   Djakovica appears to have experienced violence above and beyond the
   forced depopulation techniques described in other locales.  Dozens
   of witnesses from Djakovica interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Krume,
   a small town north of Kukes, Albania, said that Yugoslav forces have
   been gradually destroying homes and neighborhoods in Djakovica since
   March 24. The pace of destruction picked up dramatically yesterday,
   April 1, with large-scale destruction of homes. Today, thousands of
   refugees flowed into Krume from Djakovica, saying that the town had
   been largely emptied overnight... The Djakovica refugees recalled
   seeing large numbers of corpses lying in the city streets. Refugees
   spoke of clusters of corpses numbering one to six in each cluster.
   In addition, the refugees from Djakovica all reported that large
   numbers of families had suffered at least one execution in their
   homes... In addition, refugees spoke of their homes being bulldozed
   by Yugoslav tanks or destroyed by security force mortar fire in a
   gradual, neighborhood-by-neighborhood destruction that began on
   March 24. In these incidents, residents were typically ordered
   out of their homes and then, within minutes, troops wearing green or
   blue camouflage opened fire on their residences. The residents were
   then ordered to walk to the Albanian border at Qafe Prushit... Many
   of the Djakovica refugees arrived without men aged between twenty and
   fifty. According to the refugees, many of the men had fled in the
   previous days to the mountains out of fear of police retaliation...
   Human Rights Watch is particularly worried about areas such
   as Djakovica where the men have been left behind."
-----------------------
   The Financial Times reported on April 5 that "the town of Djakovica...
   was, according to witnesses, the scene of widespread killing. Among
   the residents was Fatos Peni, who previously worked for the [OSCE
   Kosovo Verification Mission]... He says in a statement to the OSCE that
   on March 24... hooded Serb gunmen called on the families of doctors,
   teachers, lawyers and other educated Kosovars. They shot the men,
   led away women and children, and burnt the houses [as he left on
   April 2], bodies littered the streets, he says in his statement.
   His account is echoed by 15 year-old Blerta Kasumi, who also left
   Djakovica on April 2."
-----------------------
   (From a Human Rights Watch report April 10, 1999)
   ... In addition to the reports of killings, as described above, many
   refugees said that their homes had been looted and set on fire or
   destroyed by government forces.  Several refugees described the
   center of Djakovica as resembling Vukovar, the Croatian town that was
   totally demolished by Serbian forces in the fall of 1991.

   It is unknown how many ethnic Albanians remain in Djakovica.  Most
   refugees report that the city was largely emptied. As Human Rights
   Watch previously reported, there are numerous unconfirmed reports
   that some men of military age were taken out of the refugee column
   as they tried to flee.  Their whereabouts are unknown.

   Yugoslav forces began destroying homes and neighborhoods in Djakovica
   around March 24 but the intensified depopulation of the city began
   in earnest on April 1.  According to refugees, Yugoslav tanks
   and mortar fire destroyed ethnic Albanian homes in a systematic,
   neighborhood-by-neighborhood manner. Residents were typically
   ordered out of their homes before troops wearing green or blue
   camouflage opened fire on their residences. Ethnic Albanians were
   then ordered to walk to the Albanian border at Qafe Prushit, where
   their identity documents were destroyed and they were expelled
   from the country.
-----------------

On the subject of the Kosovo monasteries, we have Hieromonk Fr. Sava
Janjic's e-mail reports from Decani, dated March 26-27 when, according
to information on the Yugoslav heritage site, Gracanica was hit and
"already seriously damaged" and "close to its final destruction."

>By Fr. Sava@telecom.yu Fri 26 Mar 99
>   The day before yesterday Gracanica monastery area was attacked.
>   Thank God there is only  a slight damage on the monastery roof but
>   on the other hand several family homes were burned to ashes.

In a follow-up message:
>By Fr. Sava@telecom.yu Fri 26 Mar 99
>   PS I have just contacted Gracanica monastery again. In yesterday's
>   attack several windows of the monastery were broken and one wall
>   in the Patriarchs appartment was seriously damaged. The Gracanica area
>   was attacked yesterday again and the attacks were allegedly directed
>   against military targets. The result is as usual, damage on civilian
>   facilities.

I've been keeping a close eye on both media reports and other sources
of information on events in Yugoslavia and have seen no further first-hand
information about damage to Gracanica. One would assume that if there had
been any damage from NATO air strikes (to Gracanica or any of the other
medieval monasteries) since late March, it would have been given the
widest possible publicity by the Serbian authorities.

Given the potential propaganda value of any damage to such sites, one may
also safely assume that NATO is going to great lengths to avoid hitting
them. Unlike the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the monasteries have been
around for longer than two or three years. Their locations are well-known.
While one can never rule out an accidental strike (like the missile fired
over Serbia that landed in a suburb of the Bulgarian capital Sofia), it
seems thus far at least the monasteries have not been hit. If they had
been, we can be sure the damage would have been filmed and broadcast
on SRT and CNN within hours and shown first-hand to foreign journalists.

Andras Riedlmayer
riedlmay@fas.harvard.edu

==================================================


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