Sort of like when the Nazis made the Jewish citizens wear the Star of David on their garments; so that the SS could then recognize and protect them...
glb
Doug Henwood wrote:
> Independent (London) - November 20, 1999
>
> Nato turns a blind eye as scores of ancient Christian churches are
> reduced to rubble
>
> By Robert Fisk in Djakovica
>
> A DAY after Nato forces entered Kosovo in June, I discovered an
> abandoned Serb Orthodox church in a field 10 miles north of Prizren.
> It was a small, box-like building and its doors were open. I gingerly
> walked through a steel gate and into the small field in which it
> stood and entered the building. It had been left in haste, its doors
> unlocked, its priest's clothes thrown over a bible stand. Icons of
> Jesus and the saints stared down at me in a passion of expression and
> colour.
>
> Outside, Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas were strolling past the
> church in the company of German troops from Nato's peace-keeping
> force (K-For). "See how we leave their churches untouched - after all
> that they did to us?" a middle-aged Kosovo Albanian woman asked me
> later in the city. I was suitably impressed. "They burnt our mosques.
> But we protect their churches." Not any more, they don't.
>
> Last week, I drove down the same road to Prizren and sought out the
> same church. I found the field and steel gate. But the church was a
> ruin. A single wallstood. The rest was pulverised stone. Goodbye,
> then, to the icons and the saints with the staring eyes. Goodbye to
> Jesus. Goodbye to the Serb Orthodox church. All across Kosovo I found
> identical scenes, places of worship - sometimes 600 years old -
> levelled with explosives and hammers, the very identity of Serb
> history turned to dust amid fields and hillsides by Nato's Kosovo
> Albanian allies.
>
> The Serb church has issued its own list of destroyed or partly
> demolished buildings. Between 13 June - when Nato troops entered
> Kosovo - and 20 October, they say, 74 churches have been turned to
> dust or burnt or vandalised. The 15th-century monastery of the Holy
> Trinity above Musutiste, begun in 1465, has been levelled with
> explosives. The monastery of the Archangel near Vitina, built in the
> 14th century, has been looted and burnt. So has the church of the
> Archangels in Gornje Nerodimlje. And the church of St Paraskeva, near
> Pec. And the church of St Nicholas in Prekoruplje - razed and its
> nine 16th-century icons lost, including that of the apostle Thomas.
>
> The rubble of Orthodox churches across Kosovo stands as a monument to
> Kosovo Albanian vandalism and to Nato's indifference or - at the
> least - incompetence. After declaring that Kosovo must remain a
> "multi-ethnic society", 40,000 troops from K-For cannot, it seems,
> look after its historical heritage against the violence of those whom
> its spokesmen treated as allies in the war against Yugoslavia's
> President, Slobodan Milosevic, only five months ago.
>
> True, K-For soldiers are now billeted beside Orthodox and Catholic
> churches across the province. Floodlights haunt the sepulchres of
> ancient keeps, and in the Serb town of Gracanica, Swedish troops
> order Kosovo Albanians to strip off the least offensive bumper
> sticker advocating independence for the province. Two soldiers from
> north of Stockholm guard the entrance to Kosovo's most famous
> monastery.
>
> But elsewhere, religious desecration is Nato's shame. When I turned
> up in Djakovica to find its Orthodox basilica blown up by bombs,
> Italian troops - now guarding the rubble from anyone idiotic enough
> to try to demolish the wreckage - instructed me to put down my
> camera. They were under orders to prevent all pictures being taken,
> they said. Back I went to Pristina, to K-For's local office, to an
> Italian officer who said that, yes, I could return to Djakovica and
> take any pictures I wished. And back I went.
>
> The Italians were now courtesy itself. They even wished me to
> identify correctly the Italian tank - a Centaur - that stands outside
> the demolished church. And I could take all the pictures I wanted of
> K-For troops guarding the integrity and sanctity of a church that had
> already been blown apart. This time the soldiers were more than
> friendly. Watch out for the dangerous walls, they warned me. Would I
> like a picture of the soldier in front of the tank with the destroyed
> church in the background? What on earth was going on?
>
> Now, I truly believe that the Italian peace-keepers in Kosovo, like
> their opposite numbers in Beirut in 1982, are among the best
> peace-keepers on our planet; even if their Ariete brigade at Pec does
> celebrate its campaign against Montgomery in the North African
> Egyptian desert until "unfavourable wartime events" - El Alamein,
> perhaps - caused its disbandment.
>
> But this demolition cannot be just "revenge" - Nato's usual excuse
> for the destruction under its auspices. You do not just fill with
> rage and spend days gathering explosives to blow up churches. This is
> vandalism with a mission.
>
> Outside Klina last week, I came across another blasted church, blown
> to pieces just two months ago. Its shattered dome lay over walls and
> crosses and iconstasis. And wandering amid the rubble was a Kosovo
> Albanian, Ymer Qupeva. What on earth was he doing here? I asked.
> Sympathising with the Serb worshippers? "I have come to view the
> professionalism of the destruction," Mr Qupeva said. "They did very
> well - they planted explosives against all four walls."
>
> Mr Qupeva was a graduate of "pyrotechnics" at the University of
> Zagreb and wanted to make sure the Kosovo Albanians had done their
> job well. It was, he said, a "Karic" church - the Karic brothers in
> Belgrade are reputed mobsters - and one of many built across Kosovo.
> "They used the stones from the Klina Partisan memorial to build the
> walls," Mr Qupeva said. "The Serbs claimed someone had a dream that
> they should build a church next to the old tree by the road." And
> blowing up the church? Did he agree with that? "It was good," he said
> bleakly.
>
> Now the church is finished. Blown up with great professionalism. And
> - for good measure - so is the old tree beside it.