Russians are gone now....but here what Kosovar Albanians did to russians while they were there.


Kosovo Albanians Give Russian Troops No Peace

By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: August 16, 1999
As a Russian armored personnel carrier rumbled slowly through an Albanian village, the children on the street shouted and made mocking V-signs at them, for the Albanians' victory over the Serbs, Russia's fellow Slavs. The soldiers looked down at them, their faces blank.

Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo, part of the NATO-led peacekeeping force here, are having an unhappy time. Even in the rolling hills and woods of central Kosovo, where life is quiet and security is good, the Russians are being made to feel uncomfortable.

The personnel carrier pulled into a clearing to relieve a unit of paratroopers manning a checkpoint, who look tired after a sleepless shift. Several times during the night, prowlers had walked into trip wires, sending off the warning flares that the Russians had placed around the camp.

''We did not sleep all night,'' said Senior Lieut. Gennadi Kharitonov, of the 106th Paratrooper Division. The paratroopers had spotted at least one man running off in the night, and the next morning surprised another. They found a blanket where he had been lying in the woods and observing their post.

''He could be a sniper, or a scout -- we don't know what,'' Lieutenant Kharitonov said. Another post in their area had been fired upon, although it appeared to be just a warning shot, he said.

More than any other peacekeeping unit, the Russians have become a target of the local Albanians, in whose name they are keeping the peace. A Russian soldier was shot in the shoulder on Thursday by a sniper while on guard duty in Ropotovo, in eastern Kosovo. The men in Malisevo have had no casualties yet but are already feeling the local hostility.

The area they have been allotted in central Kosovo is easy in one respect: It is populated only by ethnic Albanians, and so there is no ethnic strife, as there is elsewhere.

But Malisevo and the surrounding wooded hills were a center of activity of the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army. It remains a stronghold of guerrilla support, and the local commander maintains an office in the police station in the center of the village.

The guerrilla army appears to run the show here, and its members are refusing to cooperate with the Russian troops at all. According to the local guerrilla commander, Pacarizi, Russian mercenaries fought alongside Serbian forces in the area and were involved in atrocities. Even if the Russian paratroopers had nothing to do with that, he said, they are of the same nation.

''The Russians are here against our wishes, and we will continue to be against that, but in a peaceful way,'' said a guerrilla commander in Malisevo, who gave his name only as Leka.

So they are ostracizing the Russians. Based in a camp between the hospital and school on the southern edge of the village, the Russian troops are treated almost like outcasts. The local commanders refuse to meet with them, and even the local hospital refused their assistance, says Lieut. Col. Nikolai Greshchnikov, the Russian liaison officer in Malisevo.

''The children shout, 'Russia kaput!' and more when we drive through the nearby village,'' Lieutenant Kharitonov said. ''We know it is because the adults say it at home, and they hear it and repeat it.''

The Russians know the stories about the mercenaries, and some say it is true that a unit calling themselves the Czar's Wolves, probably veterans from the Chechen war, were in Kosovo.

''Step by step we are showing them that we are not Russian mercenaries but people, and representatives of KFOR,'' Colonel Greshchnikov said, using the acronym for the peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

The Russians are treading carefully around local sensitivities. They are on their best behavior. In the street a soldier tips his cap at an old man.

The local Albanians, although unhappy about the presence of Russian troops, find little concrete to complain about. ''They beg cigarettes off us,'' complained Zulzim Javoli, a local trader who drives a Mercedes. ''And they wanted to swap some diesel for cigarettes.'' Yet Mr. Javoli and a cousin conceded that they brought a truck of produce through the region every day without problems.

And even the Kosovo Liberation Army has found little to complain about. The Russians took some chairs and tables from the local school, said Leka the commander. And they drive too fast, he added.

The Russians, despite a healthy suspicion of the guerrillas, are giving them an easy ride. Like other troops with NATO, they know that the fighters are failing to hand in weapons and disarm, as they are supposed to, yet the Russians are not conducting aggressive searches. They have confiscated some weapons and arrested a couple of highway robbers in the last weeks, but little more.

''If we go into houses and seize weapons, we would have a big problem here, and it would not solve the problem of disarmament,'' Colonel Greshchnikov says.

Lieutenant Kharitonov adds, ''Nothing is simple here.''

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Jesus beat the devil with two sticks. Colossian 2:13,15

Proud American!

Communism/Socialism is similar to legalizing burglary and murder!

An albanian peder who can not handle a rifle properly.

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US : Boombox (Ghettoblaster)
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'I trust no one, not even myself.'
Joseph Stalin
'Couldn't agree with you more!'
Sarah Palin

are saying hello to you, TrueAlbo

I guess that is part of Albanians democratic potential

'Albanians and democracy' is similar to Zulu tribe and quantum physics

Couldn't agree with you more!!!

__________________
EU : Portable Stereo AM/FM Radio Cassette Recorder
CIS (Russia) : АМ/ЧМ Stereo Magnitola
US : Boombox (Ghettoblaster)
----------------------------------
'I trust no one, not even myself.'
Joseph Stalin
'Couldn't agree with you more!'
Sarah Palin