BALKAN BRAWL
IN HIS ARTICLE “Recognition Without Power” (March 31 / April 7), Stephen Schwartz joins the rest of the media in the collective international lynching of the Serbian people. For the past nine years, over 100,000 Serbs have been ethnically cleansed in Kosovo as a result of the campaign of terror that has occurred under the noses of UNMIK, KFOR, and the other observers. Over 150 Orthodox churches of immense spiritual and historic value have been systematically destroyed.
Despite all this, the international hatred of Serbia continues unabated because the Serbs refuse to surrender and accept the role of obedient slave that the “international community” would assign them.
Let the advocates of an independent Kosovo give up their own territories to set an example for the Serbs.
Schwartz seeks to minimize the role that radical Islam has played in Kosovo. While Orthodox churches have been burned or destroyed, the Saudis have been subsidizing the construction of mosques that display the Saudi flag. Russophobia, and a disguised animosity toward Eastern Orthodoxy, go hand in hand with the venom directed against the Serbs. The Russians were blocked from placing peacekeeping troops in Kosovo in 1999, and the result has been the near eradication of Serbian culture from Kosovo.
Schwartz also fails to mention Turkey’s support for Kosovo’s independence that signifies the growing re-Ottomanization of the Balkan peninsula. The corruption of the foreign policies of the West can be seen by the silence that has greeted the horrific treatment of Serbs since 1999. In most other countries, international sanctions would greet any kind of governing body that treated minority groups in the vile manner in which Serbs are being treated. Among the unpleasant facts that Schwartz omits from his analysis is the infamous March 2004 pogrom that was directed against the Serbs in Kosovo. The unrelenting bullying and demonization of Serbia is the end product of a foreign policy based on political correctness that is led by a president and secretary of state who are quite ignorant of their history.
THEODOROS KARAKOSTAS
Boston, Mass.
STEPHEN SCHWARTZ RESPONDS: The claims that the United Nations and the Kosovo Forces in which the U.S. military participated have presided over a nine-year expulsion of Serbs from Kosovo, systematic destruction of historic Orthodox churches, and widespread Saudi-financed construction of mosques in Kosovo are lies invented by Serbian extremists.
Some Serbs fled from the now-independent republic at the end of the 1998-99 war, but, as the whole world can see from television news, Serb enclaves are maintained in Kosovo, some under U.N. and KFOR protection. While a tiny number of significant Serbian Orthodox churches were damaged in the aftermath of the war, nearly half of the mosques in Kosovo were leveled to the ground by Serbian terrorists in the prewar period. In such circumstances it is hardly surprising that a limited retaliation took place.
The charge that the Saudis have financed numerous Kosovo mosques is false; no more than a handful of Gulf-financed mosques have been built in Kosovo. The allegation that Kosovo mosques display Saudi flags could only be made by someone who has not set foot in the republic; Albanian Muslims are well-known for placing their national flag on mosques.
As for Russophobia and the rest of the recitation of Serbian propaganda provided by Karakostas, the simple facts are that the whole world witnessed the attempted Serbian genocide of the Kosovar Albanians, and the United States and the democratic Western powers made their judgment to support the rights of the Albanians as the historic residents in the territory. That decision will not be reversed by tantrums from Serbs or their sympathizers.
I regret the unintentional omission of the Turkish, as well as Albanian, recognition of Kosovo from my article. Serbia’s Orthodox Christian neighbor, Bulgaria, has also recognized Kosovo, in an indication of sanity and maturity that other countries in the region would be advised to follow.
REMEMBERING BUCKLEY
TERRY EASTLAND’s remembrance of his friend William F. Buckley Jr. (“The Gift of Friendship,” March 10) beautifully depicts Buckley’s graciousness. Eastland’s recollection that Buckley took such great interest in a young writer “toiling in the newspaper equivalent of low-A ball” conveyed something that those who never had the privilege of meeting Buckley simply sensed about the man. I once heard a Christian pastor say that greatness is not measured by the number of your friends, but the number that you befriended. By that standard–and many others–Buckley’s was a life well lived.
BOB MYERS
Doylestown, Pa.
