Kosovo & Metohija

The southern Serbian autonomous province of Kosovo and Metohija is under UN administration since 1999 following the war in which NATO sided with the ethnic Albanian terrorists against the Serbs. Since then more than 250,000 non-Albanians have departed from the province and the Serbs are left in fear of their lives. Their existence reduced to living in besieged enclaves and protected ghettos in the towns.

The two names of the province come from the two plains in which it is situated. In the east lies Kosovo with the rivers of Ibar, Lab and Sitnica. In the west lies Metohija where Beli Drim is the main waterway. The two are separated with the hilly area of Drenica and enclosed from all sides by high mountains. Looking towards Albania is Prokletije, whose peak Djeravica (2366m) is the highest in Serbia. To the north is Mokra Gora, to the east Kopaonik while the south side is sheltered by the imposing Sara Mountain and the Crna Gora hills north of Skopje.

The plain of Kosovo (“Field of Blackbirds”) north of the regional capital Priština, gave the name to the whole region. This is where the legendary battle took place in 1389 making it the cornerstone of Serbian epic poetry. The mountains surrounding it are rich in ore: Novo Brdo was the largest silver mine in Europe until its fall to the Turks in 1455. Today, ruins, though impressive, are all that remain above the small village. By Kosovska Mitrovica, a town divided into Serbian and Albanian parts, lay the famous Trepca mines.

Metohija got its name from the large monastic estates (metoh) that were granted by the Nemanjić rulers in this fertile region. The Albanians use the name Dukadjin derived from one of the tribes that descended from the Albanian mountains here in the 16th century and onwards. The twin names speak loudly about the divided identity of the region. The medieval Serbian legacy although persecuted and destroyed for centuries by Muslim domination is still alive in the monasteries of Peć, the traditional seat of the Serb patriarch, and Visoki Dečani, the largest surviving structure from the middle ages. As the monasteries needed wine, numerous vineyards embellish the landscape and local wines were well known for their excellence before the war. On the southern border lies Prizren, the main town of the Metohija region and once the city much frequented by the wandering Kings of the Nemanjić dynasty, with its many medieval churches, imposing mosques and attractive cityscape.

In most of the province all that is left from the Serbian people who lived there are the names and the ruins of churches: more than 93% of the names of the places and more than a thousand medieval monuments are proof of their lively ethnic and cultural presence. Since the 7th century the region has been inhabited almost exclusively by Serbs who were incorporated into the Serbian state in the early 13th century. In the following two centuries the region flourished due to its central position in Serbia. In 1455, Turkish dominance prevailed and, due to its favoring of Muslims over Christians, the influx of Albanians into Kosovo began. In spite of their utter deprivation the Serbs were the majority in the population until the mid 19th century when the real terror, funded by the Ottoman administration began. From here on the history of Kosovo is a sad story of how violence, dishonesty and money rule our world. Stripped of all their rights and property by the Albanian feudal lords, the Serbs fled in large numbers until, in 1912 Serbia managed to recover its ancient lands. However, the rich and conservative Albanian leaders that won and preserved their possessions by force were not willing to succumb to a Christian state where everyone would have equal rights. They opted for violent resistance. In both World Wars the Albanians aligned with the losing sides and suffered little consequences. After the war, the communist regime provided the Albanians with the status of an autonomous province, the equal use of language in all institutions, a university, TV and radio stations, all but total independence. From the 1960s there has been a boom in the birthrate of Kosovo Albanians. They had the highest annual growth rate in Europe – 2,68 percent in 1990. By 1981 the Serbs made up a meager 11% and the Albanians now making 82% of the populace began to make ever more vocal demands for a republic (since the autonomous provinces of Yugoslavia did not have the formal right to secession). The deprived conditions the Serbs were experiencing in Kosovo and Metohija were used by Milošević to obtain his first major political successes. The Milošević police regime that terrorized all of Serbia was made to look even worse there. As the whole world turned against this dictator, it was only the Albanians who were made to appear as the victims. In 1997 the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army began attacks on the Serbian police, the army, Serbian civilians and on Albanians who did not approve of their methods. Legitimate reprisals against these terrorists by police were shown as ethnic cleansing and NATO intervened (without a UN resolution) by bombing Serbia in 1999. The Serb army and police withdrew and the province became occupied by NATO forces with a UN mandate. The Albanian terrorists were legalized and transformed into the Kosovo Protection Corps and the province was divided into five sectors: US, British, French, Italian and German. Since the arrival of the NATO forces more than 950 Serbs were killed (one percent of the remaining number) and hundreds of churches, graveyards and other Serb-related monuments were destroyed. The organized attack on Serbian villages and churches in March of 2004 showed clearly that no progress has been made at all. The Serbs of Kosovo are today the only people in Europe that do not have a single of their basic rights even though they live under direct UN supervision. They have no certitude for their lives outside of the UN protected enclaves, neither the right to move, nor the right to work. This disorganized province is Europe’s black hole of drugs, arms and human trafficking controlled by Albanian mafia.