April 17, 2006
Both sides dragging their feet over Kosovo
By Nicholas Wood International Herald Tribune
MONDAY, APRIL 17, 2006
PRISTINA, Kosovo Two months after talks began in Vienna on this province's future, both sides appear to be maneuvering to change the facts on the ground to help determine whether Kosovo will become an independent state or remain a province within Serbia.The issue has been regarded as the most intractable in the Balkans since NATO bombers forced Yugoslav security forces to withdraw in 1999, halting what international war crimes prosecutors say was a brutal campaign to force ethnic Albanians to flee.Ethnic Albanians make up over 90 percent of Kosovo's population and want total independence. Serbs, within Kosovo and without, want a return to rule from Belgrade. With little progress in the initial phase of talks, the likelihood of an eventual imposed solution in the Albanians' favor grows ever stronger.The United Nations has been administering Kosovo since the Yugoslav withdrawal, but in recent weeks, Serbia, which finances many services in Serbian enclaves across the province, ordered all Serbian government employees in Kosovo to resign from any responsibilities with the United Nations or lose their Serbian paychecks.Serbia had continued to pay Serb public employees in Kosovo since 1999 despite the transition of the region's administration to the United Nations. Many Serb officials have therefore been able to earn two salaries, one from the Serbian government and another from the United Nations.Diplomats say that if Serbia were to find and arrest the leading war crimes suspect and former commander of the Bosnian Serb army, Ratko Mladic, its negotiating hand might be strengthened.At the same time Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership is trying to make the case that an independent Kosovo would protect and nurture its minorities. Kosovo's new prime minister, Agim Ceku, took office in March, after his predecessor, Bajram Kosumi, was forced to step down under pressure from international officials who considered his efforts at reconciliation with Kosovo's Serbs ineffectual.Ceku made his inaugural address to Kosovo's Albanian-dominated assembly partly in Serbian, to the astonishment of several members of Parliament."I want to be seen as the prime minister of all Kosovo's citizens, Serb and Albanian," he said in an interview. His primary challenge, he said, is to convince Kosovo's Albanian leaders and government officials to make changes that benefit the Serbs, rather than just pay lip service to foreign demands for multiethnicity.Ceku, a former Croatian general, was a wartime commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanian guerrilla group. Serbian government officials refuse to meet with him, but Western officials say he is one of the few ethnic Albanian leaders with the standing to convince local Kosovar authorities that they need to provide services to Serbian communities. He helped calm ethnic tensions at several critical junctures over the last six years.The negotiating teams - a Kosovar panel of ethnic Albanians, and a Serb group drawn from both Belgrade and Kosovo - are to return to the table in Vienna on May 4, where they will debate proposals to give more powers to local authorities. That measure would allow Kosovo Serbs a greater say in running their affairs. The following week discussions should start on the protection of religious and historical sites, in particular the Serbian Orthodox Churches and monasteries that are dotted across Kosovo.The diplomats have a genuine intent to find an agreement on issues which they believe could be negotiated before the issue of sovereignty, such as the devolution of powers to the local authorities, and the protection of patrimonial sites, but both negotiating teams have shown little room for compromise.Comments from representatives of the United States, Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Germany, who together make up the Contact Group overseeing Kosovo's negotiation process, indicate there is little alternative to granting the majority population its wish for an independent state.A statement issued by the group following meetings with Serbian leaders in Belgrade on April 6 called on Serbia to be "realistic" in its proposals and find a solution "acceptable to the people of Kosovo."The head of UN mission here, Soren Jessen-Petersen, said he expected Martti Ahtisaari, a Finish statesman and negotiator, to conclude the initial negotiations by midsummer, enabling talks on sovereignty to begin.Whatever course is taken on political authority, officials here expect the international community to retain significant governing powers.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/16/news/kosovo.php
Copyright � 2006 The International Herald Tribune www.iht.com
How to make a non-nationalist a Serb
17 April 2006 12:36
How to make a non-nationalist a Serb
I returned from Belgrade on 23 March, where I attended a conference on Kosovo (16-18 March) at the Serbian Academy of Arts & Scoences.
After Sloba's death on 11 March, Austrian TV faked pictures showing him with eczema. When I saw him on 8, 9, and 10 February his color was excellent.
His mood was proud and confident, ready to give a thrashing to the post-Orwellian Mr Nice & Co. I was there to prepare testimony especially on the non-destruction of Dubrovnik.
While I was at Scheveningen, judge Patrick Robinson, instantaneously closed down testimony by Eve Ann Prentice that she and a correspondent for Der Spiegel, sitting in the waiting room for an interview with the Islamist Bosnian President, had seen Osama bin Laden enter and be escorted directly into the office of "our SOB" , Alija Izetbegovic.
-- Either the tame colonial boy is a quick thinker or Prentice and Sloba were bugged by the court while preparing her testimony. He had his instructions to throw the switch.
Unless we hold a tribunal on the Tribunal and publish our testimonies, the truth will be buried with him.
In Belgrade Sloba's body arrived from the Netherlands. I was at a rally in front of the Parliament, where 80,000 people assembled. The crowd was civil, disciplined, un-cowed. Peter Handke, Russian dignitaries and Ramsey Clark delivered eulogies. Handke spoke mostly Serbian.
Anti-Milosevic "protesters" at the Square of the Republic numbered 600, which was magnified with a zero or two by the BBC and CNN. They show-biz American eventwas like the "spontaneous" demonstrations in the Ukraine, Georgia etc. The props were green and blue balloons. They must have run out of orange T-shirts.
The citizens people filing past the coffin, in a minor museum, to pay their respects numbered 102,000.
The quislings blocked a proper funeral. The funeral at Pozarevac was huge.
Proof that Milosevic was no nationalist is that the priest (Father Filaret) who waited to perform the Orthodox burial ceremony at the grave was prevented from doing so, and the interment took place, against Orthodox rubrics, after sunset.
More proof: that Milosevic was no nationalist: the casket was draped with the communist Yugoslav flag, with red star. There was no Serb Orthodox cross for a grave marker, but the communist pentagonal wooden slab, the "pyramid".
Milosevic was an internationalist to the end. The only reason that Milosevic is dead is the malfeasance of the ICTY kangaroo court, with its Dutch cops and jail, British transvestites ambulance-chasers prancing about in effete silken robes and, as in a cheap TV docu-drama.
After the dirge, the band played the 1960s' pop song "Moscow Nights". This, I presume, was on Mrs Milosevic's orders. A nice piece of pop music, it was not the thing for the national moment.
Milosevic's daughter castigated her family for the whole affair. Burial in the family garden was something for the family canary, she said.
Milosevic was betrayed by quislings and kidnapped on the Serbs' most sacred day, the anniversary of the 1389 Battle on Kosovo Polje and the 1914 assassination of the universally unloved Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which Austria used as a casus belli to destroy and annex Serbia. -- Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf how relieved he was to hear it was "Slav fanatics" and not German students who had carried out the assassination.
The only reason Milosevic was in the Hague at all is that he was a Serb. They made him one.
j p maher
How to make a non-nationalist a Serb
I returned from Belgrade on 23 March, where I attended a conference on Kosovo (16-18 March) at the Serbian Academy of Arts & Scoences.
After Sloba's death on 11 March, Austrian TV faked pictures showing him with eczema. When I saw him on 8, 9, and 10 February his color was excellent.
His mood was proud and confident, ready to give a thrashing to the post-Orwellian Mr Nice & Co. I was there to prepare testimony especially on the non-destruction of Dubrovnik.
While I was at Scheveningen, judge Patrick Robinson, instantaneously closed down testimony by Eve Ann Prentice that she and a correspondent for Der Spiegel, sitting in the waiting room for an interview with the Islamist Bosnian President, had seen Osama bin Laden enter and be escorted directly into the office of "our SOB" , Alija Izetbegovic.
-- Either the tame colonial boy is a quick thinker or Prentice and Sloba were bugged by the court while preparing her testimony. He had his instructions to throw the switch.
Unless we hold a tribunal on the Tribunal and publish our testimonies, the truth will be buried with him.
In Belgrade Sloba's body arrived from the Netherlands. I was at a rally in front of the Parliament, where 80,000 people assembled. The crowd was civil, disciplined, un-cowed. Peter Handke, Russian dignitaries and Ramsey Clark delivered eulogies. Handke spoke mostly Serbian.
Anti-Milosevic "protesters" at the Square of the Republic numbered 600, which was magnified with a zero or two by the BBC and CNN. They show-biz American eventwas like the "spontaneous" demonstrations in the Ukraine, Georgia etc. The props were green and blue balloons. They must have run out of orange T-shirts.
The citizens people filing past the coffin, in a minor museum, to pay their respects numbered 102,000.
The quislings blocked a proper funeral. The funeral at Pozarevac was huge.
Proof that Milosevic was no nationalist is that the priest (Father Filaret) who waited to perform the Orthodox burial ceremony at the grave was prevented from doing so, and the interment took place, against Orthodox rubrics, after sunset.
More proof: that Milosevic was no nationalist: the casket was draped with the communist Yugoslav flag, with red star. There was no Serb Orthodox cross for a grave marker, but the communist pentagonal wooden slab, the "pyramid".
Milosevic was an internationalist to the end. The only reason that Milosevic is dead is the malfeasance of the ICTY kangaroo court, with its Dutch cops and jail, British transvestites ambulance-chasers prancing about in effete silken robes and, as in a cheap TV docu-drama.
After the dirge, the band played the 1960s' pop song "Moscow Nights". This, I presume, was on Mrs Milosevic's orders. A nice piece of pop music, it was not the thing for the national moment.
Milosevic's daughter castigated her family for the whole affair. Burial in the family garden was something for the family canary, she said.
Milosevic was betrayed by quislings and kidnapped on the Serbs' most sacred day, the anniversary of the 1389 Battle on Kosovo Polje and the 1914 assassination of the universally unloved Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which Austria used as a casus belli to destroy and annex Serbia. -- Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf how relieved he was to hear it was "Slav fanatics" and not German students who had carried out the assassination.
The only reason Milosevic was in the Hague at all is that he was a Serb. They made him one.
j p maher
'Solution' for Kosovo
"acceptable to the people of Kosovo."
Serbs, in and out of Kosovo, want a return to rule from Belgrade. With little progress in the initial phase of talks, the possibility of an eventual solution imposed by the international community � in the Albanians' favor � grows more likely.
http://kosovareport.blogspot.com/2006/04/scant-gains-raise-chance-of-imposed.html
NY TimesApril 16, 2006
Scant Gains Raise Chance of Imposed Solution in Kosovo
By NICHOLAS WOOD
PRISTINA, Kosovo, April 9 � Nearly two months after talks began in Vienna in February on this province's future, both sides appear to be maneuvering to change the facts on the ground to help decide whether Kosovo will become an independent state or remain a province within Serbia.
The issue has been regarded as the most intractable in the Balkans since NATO bombers forced Yugoslav security forces to withdraw from Kosovo in 1999, halting what international war crimes prosecutors say was a brutal campaign to force ethnic Albanians to flee.
Ethnic Albanians make up more than 90 percent of Kosovo's population, estimated at more than two million, and want total independence. Serbs, in and out of Kosovo, want a return to rule from Belgrade. With little progress in the initial phase of talks, the possibility of an eventual solution imposed by the international community � in the Albanians' favor � grows more likely.
The United Nations has been administering Kosovo since the Yugoslav withdrawal, and as a result has been paying the salaries of many local officials. Meanwhile, Serbia has continued to finance many services in Serbian enclaves across the province, including paying those local officials a second salary. In early April, Serbia ordered all Serbian government employees in Kosovo to resign from any responsibilities with the United Nations or lose their Serbian paychecks.
Diplomats say that if Serbia were to find and arrest the leading war crimes suspect and former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, Ratko Mladic, its negotiating hand might be strengthened.
At the same time, Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership is trying to make the case that an independent Kosovo would protect and nurture its minorities. Kosovo's new prime minister, Agim Ceku, took office in March, after his predecessor, Bajram Kosumi, was forced to step down under pressure from international officials who considered his efforts at reconciliation with Kosovo's Serbs ineffectual.
Mr. Ceku made his inaugural address to Kosovo's Albanian-dominated assembly partly in Serbian, to the astonishment of several members of Parliament.
"I want to be seen as the prime minister of all Kosovo's citizens, Serb and Albanian," he said in an interview on April 7. His primary challenge, he said, is to persuade Kosovo's Albanian leaders and government officials to make changes that benefit the Serbs, rather than just pay lip service to foreign demands for multiethnicity.
Mr. Ceku, a former Croatian general, was a wartime commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanian guerrilla group. Serbian government officials refuse to meet with him, but Western officials say he is one of the few ethnic Albanian leaders with the standing to convince local Kosovar authorities that they need to provide services to Serbian communities. He helped calm ethnic tensions at several critical junctures in the last six years, including during widespread rioting in March 2004 when 19 people were killed.
The negotiating teams � a Kosovar panel of ethnic Albanians, and a Serbian group drawn from Belgrade and Kosovo � are to return to the table in Vienna on May 4, when they will debate proposals to give more powers to local authorities. That measure would allow Kosovo Serbs a greater say in running their affairs. The next week discussions should start on the protection of religious and historic sites, in particular the Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries that dot Kosovo.
But the negotiating teams have shown little room for compromise even on these issues, and diplomats expect that they will have to be dealt with in the final phase of negotiations. And comments from representatives of the United States, Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Germany, who together make up the Contact Group overseeing Kosovo's negotiation process, indicate there is little alternative to granting the majority population its wish for an independent state.
A statement issued by the group after meetings with Serbian leaders in Belgrade on April 6 called on Serbia to be "realistic" in its proposals and to find a solution "acceptable to the people of Kosovo."
The leader of the United Nations mission here, Soren Jessen-Petersen, said he expected Martti Ahtisaari, the Finnish statesman and veteran negotiator, to conclude the initial negotiations by midsummer, enabling talks on sovereignty to begin.
Whatever course is taken on political authority, officials here expect the international community to retain significant governing powers. The European Union is expected to take a major role, while NATO will continue to keep the peace. It has 17,000 troops in Kosovo.
*********************http://kosovareport.blogspot.com/2006/04/kosovo-serbs-tell-us-envoy-they-fully.html
Kosovo Report
Sunday, April 16, 2006Kosovo Serbs tell US envoy they "fully agree" with Belgrade on status
Excerpt from report by Belgrade-based private BKTV on 15 April[Presenter] Representatives of the Serb List for Kosovo-Metohija [headed by Oliver Ivanovic] have told the special US envoy for Kosovo status talks, Frank Wisner, that they are against any kind of imposed solution for the future status of Kosovo, a member of the List, [member of Serbian Kosovo status talk team] Goran Bogdanovic, has said.[Reporter] Serbs noted their full agreement with the authorities in Belgrade as regards the manner of solving the Kosovo crisis and its final solution, a solution which envisages the greatest possible autonomy for Kosovo within Serbia and the Serbia-Montenegro state union.Wisner, who is in Kosovo on the second day of his visit, asked the Serb political representatives to join the interim provincial institutions. Wisner said that he did not agree with Belgrade's call to Serbs employed in the health and education sector in Kosovo to give up their salaries from the Kosovo budget. [Passage omitted]Source: BKTV, Belgrade, in Serbian 1655 gmt 15 Apr 06
posted by KosovaReport @ 12:15 AM 0 comments
Serbs, in and out of Kosovo, want a return to rule from Belgrade. With little progress in the initial phase of talks, the possibility of an eventual solution imposed by the international community � in the Albanians' favor � grows more likely.
http://kosovareport.blogspot.com/2006/04/scant-gains-raise-chance-of-imposed.html
NY TimesApril 16, 2006
Scant Gains Raise Chance of Imposed Solution in Kosovo
By NICHOLAS WOOD
PRISTINA, Kosovo, April 9 � Nearly two months after talks began in Vienna in February on this province's future, both sides appear to be maneuvering to change the facts on the ground to help decide whether Kosovo will become an independent state or remain a province within Serbia.
The issue has been regarded as the most intractable in the Balkans since NATO bombers forced Yugoslav security forces to withdraw from Kosovo in 1999, halting what international war crimes prosecutors say was a brutal campaign to force ethnic Albanians to flee.
Ethnic Albanians make up more than 90 percent of Kosovo's population, estimated at more than two million, and want total independence. Serbs, in and out of Kosovo, want a return to rule from Belgrade. With little progress in the initial phase of talks, the possibility of an eventual solution imposed by the international community � in the Albanians' favor � grows more likely.
The United Nations has been administering Kosovo since the Yugoslav withdrawal, and as a result has been paying the salaries of many local officials. Meanwhile, Serbia has continued to finance many services in Serbian enclaves across the province, including paying those local officials a second salary. In early April, Serbia ordered all Serbian government employees in Kosovo to resign from any responsibilities with the United Nations or lose their Serbian paychecks.
Diplomats say that if Serbia were to find and arrest the leading war crimes suspect and former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, Ratko Mladic, its negotiating hand might be strengthened.
At the same time, Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership is trying to make the case that an independent Kosovo would protect and nurture its minorities. Kosovo's new prime minister, Agim Ceku, took office in March, after his predecessor, Bajram Kosumi, was forced to step down under pressure from international officials who considered his efforts at reconciliation with Kosovo's Serbs ineffectual.
Mr. Ceku made his inaugural address to Kosovo's Albanian-dominated assembly partly in Serbian, to the astonishment of several members of Parliament.
"I want to be seen as the prime minister of all Kosovo's citizens, Serb and Albanian," he said in an interview on April 7. His primary challenge, he said, is to persuade Kosovo's Albanian leaders and government officials to make changes that benefit the Serbs, rather than just pay lip service to foreign demands for multiethnicity.
Mr. Ceku, a former Croatian general, was a wartime commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanian guerrilla group. Serbian government officials refuse to meet with him, but Western officials say he is one of the few ethnic Albanian leaders with the standing to convince local Kosovar authorities that they need to provide services to Serbian communities. He helped calm ethnic tensions at several critical junctures in the last six years, including during widespread rioting in March 2004 when 19 people were killed.
The negotiating teams � a Kosovar panel of ethnic Albanians, and a Serbian group drawn from Belgrade and Kosovo � are to return to the table in Vienna on May 4, when they will debate proposals to give more powers to local authorities. That measure would allow Kosovo Serbs a greater say in running their affairs. The next week discussions should start on the protection of religious and historic sites, in particular the Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries that dot Kosovo.
But the negotiating teams have shown little room for compromise even on these issues, and diplomats expect that they will have to be dealt with in the final phase of negotiations. And comments from representatives of the United States, Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Germany, who together make up the Contact Group overseeing Kosovo's negotiation process, indicate there is little alternative to granting the majority population its wish for an independent state.
A statement issued by the group after meetings with Serbian leaders in Belgrade on April 6 called on Serbia to be "realistic" in its proposals and to find a solution "acceptable to the people of Kosovo."
The leader of the United Nations mission here, Soren Jessen-Petersen, said he expected Martti Ahtisaari, the Finnish statesman and veteran negotiator, to conclude the initial negotiations by midsummer, enabling talks on sovereignty to begin.
Whatever course is taken on political authority, officials here expect the international community to retain significant governing powers. The European Union is expected to take a major role, while NATO will continue to keep the peace. It has 17,000 troops in Kosovo.
*********************http://kosovareport.blogspot.com/2006/04/kosovo-serbs-tell-us-envoy-they-fully.html
Kosovo Report
Sunday, April 16, 2006Kosovo Serbs tell US envoy they "fully agree" with Belgrade on status
Excerpt from report by Belgrade-based private BKTV on 15 April[Presenter] Representatives of the Serb List for Kosovo-Metohija [headed by Oliver Ivanovic] have told the special US envoy for Kosovo status talks, Frank Wisner, that they are against any kind of imposed solution for the future status of Kosovo, a member of the List, [member of Serbian Kosovo status talk team] Goran Bogdanovic, has said.[Reporter] Serbs noted their full agreement with the authorities in Belgrade as regards the manner of solving the Kosovo crisis and its final solution, a solution which envisages the greatest possible autonomy for Kosovo within Serbia and the Serbia-Montenegro state union.Wisner, who is in Kosovo on the second day of his visit, asked the Serb political representatives to join the interim provincial institutions. Wisner said that he did not agree with Belgrade's call to Serbs employed in the health and education sector in Kosovo to give up their salaries from the Kosovo budget. [Passage omitted]Source: BKTV, Belgrade, in Serbian 1655 gmt 15 Apr 06
posted by KosovaReport @ 12:15 AM 0 comments
"Preservation" of Serbian religious and cultural-historical monuments
Kosovo Serb home in Mitrovica attacked
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/rts041506.htm
Serb church vandalized in Kosovo
http://www.slobodanmilosevic.org/news/mina041606.htm
-----------------------------------
http://www.kosovo.net/news/archive/2006/April_17/1.html
KiM Info Newsletter 17-04-06Frank Wisner visits Visoki Decani MonasteryAmbassador Wisner stated that the purpose of his visit to Kosovo was to learn more about the situation under which various communities were living in order to better determine needs that need to be taken into consideration while resolving the future status of Kosovo. Bishop Teodosije emphasized that in addition to institutional protection for the Serb people and the return of displaced persons to their homes it is also necessary to find appropriate models for the protection of monasteries and other Serbian religious and cultural-historical monuments. The protection of holy shrines and cultural treasures should serve to bring us even closer in our responsibility for their protection instead of becoming an obstacle to reconciliation and common life among communities, concluded the BishopKIM Info ServiceDecani, April 15, 2006U.S. special envoy for Kosovo status Frank Wisner visited Visoki Decani Monastery today accompanied by the head of the U.S. office in Pristina Philip Goldberg and Steven Gee. Ambassador Wisner first visited Prizren, followed by the families of victims of war in the village of Mala Krusa/Krusha e Vogel near Orahovac, and after the visit to Visoki Decani the U.S. delegation continued its tour to Belo Polje near Pec, where they visited Serb returnees. Ambassador Wisner and his associated were received in Visoki Decani by the monastery's abbot, Bishop Teodosije of Lipljan, Fr. Sava and Fr. Nektarije, the director of KIM Radio from Caglavica.During the meeting, which was held in the monastery library, Ambassador Wisner stated that the purpose of his visit to Kosovo was to learn more about the situation under which various communities were living in order to better determine needs that need to be taken into consideration while resolving the future status of Kosovo. He demonstrated considerable understanding for the protection of Serbian Orthodox monasteries and other cultural-historical monuments, emphasizing that the U.S. Administration is firm in its determination that these sites must be preserved for the future. Ambassador Wisner also emphasized that the protection of monuments is not just the responsibility of the international community but also the local ones, which should be more active in their efforts to establish mutual confidence.Bishop Teodosije of Lipljan sincerely thanked Ambassador Wisner for his understanding of the present situation of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the region. He emphasized that in addition to institutional protection for the Serb people and the return of displaced persons to their homes it is also necessary to find appropriate models for the protection of monasteries and other Serbian religious and cultural-historical monuments. The Bishop pointed to the example of the Special Zoning Area (SZA) around Visoki Decani Monastery as a model that could be implemented in other locations, too. He explained that the SZA represents an attempt to preserve the monastery and its immediate environment, which represent a unified whole, in an appropriate fashion. He emphasized that the Serbian Orthodox Church does not want the protection its holy shrines to unnecessarily politicized. The protection of holy shrines and cultural treasures should serve to bring us even closer in our responsibility for their protection instead of becoming an obstacle to reconciliation and common life among communities, concluded Bishop Teodosije.After the meeting Ambassador Wisner and members of the U.S. delegation toured the monastery and learned more about the activities of the monks. Upon seeing the church Mr. Wisner said that he was deeply impressed by the beauty of the church and the artistic treasures guarded in Visoki Decani Monastery, which are the treasures of the entire civilized world.Prior to leaving Visoki Decani Monastery Ambassador Wisner made a statement for representatives of the Albanian and Serbian media in the monastery courtyard.
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/rts041506.htm
Serb church vandalized in Kosovo
http://www.slobodanmilosevic.org/news/mina041606.htm
-----------------------------------
http://www.kosovo.net/news/archive/2006/April_17/1.html
KiM Info Newsletter 17-04-06Frank Wisner visits Visoki Decani MonasteryAmbassador Wisner stated that the purpose of his visit to Kosovo was to learn more about the situation under which various communities were living in order to better determine needs that need to be taken into consideration while resolving the future status of Kosovo. Bishop Teodosije emphasized that in addition to institutional protection for the Serb people and the return of displaced persons to their homes it is also necessary to find appropriate models for the protection of monasteries and other Serbian religious and cultural-historical monuments. The protection of holy shrines and cultural treasures should serve to bring us even closer in our responsibility for their protection instead of becoming an obstacle to reconciliation and common life among communities, concluded the BishopKIM Info ServiceDecani, April 15, 2006U.S. special envoy for Kosovo status Frank Wisner visited Visoki Decani Monastery today accompanied by the head of the U.S. office in Pristina Philip Goldberg and Steven Gee. Ambassador Wisner first visited Prizren, followed by the families of victims of war in the village of Mala Krusa/Krusha e Vogel near Orahovac, and after the visit to Visoki Decani the U.S. delegation continued its tour to Belo Polje near Pec, where they visited Serb returnees. Ambassador Wisner and his associated were received in Visoki Decani by the monastery's abbot, Bishop Teodosije of Lipljan, Fr. Sava and Fr. Nektarije, the director of KIM Radio from Caglavica.During the meeting, which was held in the monastery library, Ambassador Wisner stated that the purpose of his visit to Kosovo was to learn more about the situation under which various communities were living in order to better determine needs that need to be taken into consideration while resolving the future status of Kosovo. He demonstrated considerable understanding for the protection of Serbian Orthodox monasteries and other cultural-historical monuments, emphasizing that the U.S. Administration is firm in its determination that these sites must be preserved for the future. Ambassador Wisner also emphasized that the protection of monuments is not just the responsibility of the international community but also the local ones, which should be more active in their efforts to establish mutual confidence.Bishop Teodosije of Lipljan sincerely thanked Ambassador Wisner for his understanding of the present situation of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the region. He emphasized that in addition to institutional protection for the Serb people and the return of displaced persons to their homes it is also necessary to find appropriate models for the protection of monasteries and other Serbian religious and cultural-historical monuments. The Bishop pointed to the example of the Special Zoning Area (SZA) around Visoki Decani Monastery as a model that could be implemented in other locations, too. He explained that the SZA represents an attempt to preserve the monastery and its immediate environment, which represent a unified whole, in an appropriate fashion. He emphasized that the Serbian Orthodox Church does not want the protection its holy shrines to unnecessarily politicized. The protection of holy shrines and cultural treasures should serve to bring us even closer in our responsibility for their protection instead of becoming an obstacle to reconciliation and common life among communities, concluded Bishop Teodosije.After the meeting Ambassador Wisner and members of the U.S. delegation toured the monastery and learned more about the activities of the monks. Upon seeing the church Mr. Wisner said that he was deeply impressed by the beauty of the church and the artistic treasures guarded in Visoki Decani Monastery, which are the treasures of the entire civilized world.Prior to leaving Visoki Decani Monastery Ambassador Wisner made a statement for representatives of the Albanian and Serbian media in the monastery courtyard.
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