Some of you may recall the link to some pictures of the burning churches with KFOR troops (French) looking on. There are videos taken by the crowd of thugs on the net now.
Patriarch Pavle never did anything except denounce the evil actions of any person killing their neighbors. I remember a poster somewhere here posted something to the contrary. Fortunately, there is a web site dedicated to our Patriarch's statements during the war.
I would also like to point to another book,
Neighbors at War.
Some of the contributors are horrible and others helpful. The most interesting story was something that occurred in Medjugorje. A Croat Catholic family had created a way to make some money through the pilgrims. They lived up in the hills. A wealthy Croat Catholic family in the town thought these hillbillies were living higher than they deserved. Not only did they kill or remove this other family, but they went into their own Roman Catholic cemeteries and destroyed the grave markers of the family, as if to wipe them from the face of the Earth. So what happened when the smurfs came rolling in to town? They explained that there was a group of troublesome Serbs up in the hills, but they had left voluntarily.
This story is anecdotal, yes. But from what I've read and from those who escaped from Bosnia (yes, tens of thousands of Serbs were forced from their Bosnian homes by Agim Ceku), a lot of clan revenges were carried out and blamed on the war to hide vicious murders.
Have any of you been watching or reading the transcripts of the "trials" at the ITCY? Let me give you a taste.
This is a question from a prosecuting attorney, Mr. Geoffrey Nice (who really isn't) and Mr. James Jatras, witness for the defense in the Milosevic trial.
23 Q. And of course, it's very important, isn't it, Mr. Jatras, that any
24 particular interests that a witness such as you have are properly
25 presented to the Tribunal?
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1 A. Certainly.
2 Q. So if we can just look at a couple of matters of detail. A bit
3 more about your father, please. He is, I think, by origins, an American,
4 full American, by birth, or what?
5 A. Are you trying to qualify me in ethnic terms?
6 Q. Yes, that's right.
7 A. I was born in the United States, and my parents were born in the
8 United States.
9 Q. Yes. Going back?
10 A. My grandparents were born in Greece.
11 Q. And your parents are still, I think, of the Greek Orthodox faith?
12 A. Yes, as am I.
13 Q. As are you. And that faith, to some degree, informs your
14 judgement, doesn't it?
15 A. I would say it does, yes.
16 Q. Before we move on to see whether it does and to what extent it
17 does, tell us this: There are, of course, Serb communities in America,
18 aren't there?
19 A. There are.
20 Q. And you mix with them, don't you?
I'll skip down to some more questions regarding Mr. Nice's "whether it does and to what extent it does" questions.
Mr. Nice, reading from an article Mr. Jatras had written for an Orthodox Journal printed in America in English begins to ask about why he writes certain opinions about the validity of theological claims of Islam.
9 MR. NICE:
10 Q. This is part of your approach to the divisions or separateness of
11 religious in our world?
12 A. I'm making a theological observation regarding the assertion,
13 which I believe is unfounded that Islam shares a common origin with
14 Christianity and Judaism but rather is an outgrowth of indigenous
15 polytheism on the Arabian peninsula.
16 Q. Let's look at the foot of the page, indeed, to see how you
17 depicted it on this paper. Last two lines: "In short, Islam is a
18 self-evident outgrowth not of the old and new covenants but of the
19 darkness of heathen Araby. Beside ludicrous historical suggestions to the
20 contrary (such as that the Ka'bah was built by Abraham, which would have
21 been news to him), Muslim apologists have strained to find in the Bible
22 evidence that a new prophet would arise after Jesus, seeing Muhammad in
23 obvious prophecies of the Holy Spirit," and so on.
24 And if we go to the next paragraph, beginning, "Saint Gregory's,"
25 this: "...answer is no less devastating to Islam's fraudulent
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1 self-depiction as a pacific creed. Islam was born in violence, from
2 Muhammad's sanction of raids of pillage and plunder (starting with attacks
3 against his own Quraysh tribe, which initially rejected his revelation) to
4 his savage execution of hundreds of men on the Qurayzah clan (which
5 professed Judaism) and the enslavement and enforced concubinage of their
6 women and children."
7 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speakers please pause to let the
8 interpreters catch up, thank you.
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, you're again being asked by the
10 interpreters to slow down.
11 MR. NICE: Apologies.
12 Q. And if we look down to the next paragraph and to the middle of it,
13 we see these views of yours expressed in the form of a rhetorical
14 question --
15 A. Which page are we on, sir?
16 Q. Page 4 of 8, the paragraph in the middle headed: "In the
17 application of Jihad." You say: "The parallels are unavoidable to the
18 similarly Manichaean communist concepts of the socialist camp as the zone
19 of peace and the capitalist camp as the zone of war. I will leave it to
20 the specialists to calculate which Islam or communism can claim the
21 greater achievement as gigantic Christian-killing machines."
22 I must ask you, Mr. Jatras, whether it has ever occurred to you
23 that expressing views in such a way is irresponsible.
24 A. Would you like me to supply the documentation for my assertions?
25 Q. I'm asking you whether you -- it's a simple question. Do you take
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1 the view that expressing opinions in this way is responsible?
2 A. I think it is responsible to give testament to something that is
3 historically accurate. There is a reason why there are no indigenous
4 Christians in north Africa west of Egypt, there is a reason why there are
5 longer indigenous Christians in Anatolia. They did not disappear because
6 of earthquake.
7 Q. If I ask you the question of responsibility, you think it's a good
8 idea to draw these facts, if they are facts, and I'm not here to debate
9 them, in this way?
10 A. I think facts are their own justification, whatever they may say,
11 however unpleasant they may be. I would note that what may seem shocking
12 here - and perhaps I think you would suggest somehow not responsible - are
13 commonplace on many expressions of Islamist ideology, stating them in
14 terms not too different than I have stated them here except in a positive
15 and proud way.
The transcript in full is here.
http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/040909IT.htmTell me that persecution of Orthodox Christians isn't heading west.
