WASHINGTON, June 19, 2006 – The American Council for Kosovo protests the official visit to Washington, DC, of Agim Ceku, an indicted war criminal and former commander of the jihad terrorist organization, the so-called “Kosovo Liberation Army.” According to the Associated Press, Mr. Ceku is scheduled to meet today with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and with officials at the White House, before proceeding to New York for a United Nations Security Council meeting on the future of the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija. Mr. Ceku is styled “Prime Minister” of the local institutions operating under the authority of the United Nations, which has administered the Serbian province since 1999.


In a statement issued today, Rada Trajkovic of the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija said: “Speaking on behalf of a community that has been the victim of outrages committed by jihad terrorists under the command of Agim Ceku, we, the Christian Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija, fail to see how officially receiving such a person in Washington is consistent with America’s professed war on terror or with an honest effort to reach a just and equitable settlement in our province. Agim Ceku is an indicted war criminal in Serbia for crimes committed in Kosovo and Metohija, not even accounting for his previous crimes in Krajina. He should be standing as a defendant before a court of law, not being received with honors in the capital of any civilized democracy.” The Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija is an officially registered non-governmental organization representing both Christian Serbs still living in Kosovo and the more than 250,000 that have been driven from the province by Muslim Albanian violence.


According to the 2002 Serbian indictment for genocide and other grievous offenses, Mr. Ceku bears command responsibility for the murders by KLA terrorists of 669 Serbs and 18 members of other ethnic groups, 518 counts of inflicting serious bodily harm (including torture) and wounding, and 584 counts of abduction, many of the victims of which are presumed dead. Mr. Ceku was named military commander of the KLA in May 1999. The following month, after the end of hostilities between Serbia and NATO forces, KLA terrorists under Mr. Ceku’s command intensified their attacks on civilian Christian Serbs, driving two-thirds of them from the province, as well as against Roma (Gypsies), Croats, Jews, Ashkalis, Gorani, and other non-Muslim or non-Albanians in Kosovo. Over 150 Christian monasteries have been demolished or desecrated.


“The crimes of jihad terrorism in Kosovo against Christian Serbs, as well as against holy churches continue without interruption until the present day. Even those churches that have allegedly been reconstructed with the help of the European Council, again have been desecrated and are being destroyed over again,” said Bishop Artemije of Raska and Prizren, the spiritual leader of Kosovo’s Christian Serbs. “This very day we have received the news that the Church of the Nativity of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos in Obilic has been the latest victim, since four crosses have been removed, along with part of the church roof’s lead cover.”


Among the characteristic jihad terror practices of the KLA is the beheading of victims, as seen in other countries with active jihad terror movements, such as Iraq, Indonesia, Israel, and Pakistan (American reporter Daniel Pearl), India (Kashmir), and Russia (Chechnya). (For photographs of uniformed KLA terrorists – whose identities are known but who have never been brought to justice – with heads of their Christian Serb victims, see http://www.kosovo.net/kladecapit.pdf. WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING IMAGES. For an account of the torture and beheading of a Christian Serbian Orthodox priest, Hieromonk Hariton (Lukic), in 1999, soon after the beginning of the international administration in Kosovo, see http://www.decani.org/hariton.html ; Fr. Hariton’s head has not been found.) The jihad in Kosovo officially was launched in 1995 at a meeting in Tirana, Albania, between Osama bin Laden and Mr. Ceku’s KLA accomplices Ramush Haradinaj and Hashim Thaci.


Prior to his service with the KLA, Mr. Ceku served in the Croatian army. He presided over the 1995 “Operation Storm,” which drove virtually the entire Serbian population from the Krajina region in Croatia and killed several thousand Serbian civilians. Earlier, in September 1993, he became notorious for atrocities committed against Krajina Serb civilians, as witnessed by Canadian soldiers serving with the U.N.: “As a colonel in the Croatian army, Ceku commanded the notorious 1993 operation in what is known as the Medak Pocket. It was here that the men of the 2nd Battalion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry came face to face with the savagery of which Ceku was capable. Over 200 Serbian inhabitants of the Medak Pocket were slaughtered in a grotesque manner (the bodies of female rape victims were found after being burned alive). Our traumatized troops who buried the grisly remains were encouraged to collect evidence and were assured that the perpetrators would be brought to justice. . . . Hopefully, Canada at least will respect the eyewitness testimony of our own peacekeepers and finally insist that Ceku face the same justice that was demanded of Slobodan Milosevic. Presenting the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry with a belated Governor General’s unit citation for the Medak Pocket battle will remain a hollow gesture until Ceku is held responsible for his atrocities.” Scott Taylor, “Ceku must face justice,” Esprit de Corps military magazine (Canada), March 27, 2006, http://www.espritdecorps.ca/Ceku%20must%20face%20justice.htm).


The American Council for Kosovo (www.savekosovo.org) is a U.S. nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting a better American understanding of the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija and of the critical American stake in the province’s future. The Council’s mission is to make accurate information and analysis about Kosovo available to officials of the Executive and Legislative branches of the U.S. Government; to think tanks, media, NGOs, religious and advocacy organizations; and to the general public. In particular, the Council’s educational activities will generate a heightened American awareness that an independent Kosovo – forcibly and illegally detached from Serbia, as is now being contemplated by the international community – would be harmful to U.S. national interests and to European and global security. The American Council for Kosovo is an activity of Venable LLP and Global Strategic Communications Group, which are registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as agents for the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija. Additional information with respect to this matter is on file with the Foreign Agents Registration Unit of the Department of Justice in Washington, DC.


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