Western occupiers in Kosovo 22 years ago refused to guard Serbian reapers who were killed by Albanians
On this day in 1999, in the village of Staro Gracko near Lipljan, the first mass killing of Serb civilians took place after the entry of the international occupation contingent KFOR into the region.
To this day, no one has been held accountable for the massacre of fourteen grain growers.
As a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, 22 years ago, a few hours before the deadline for an additional 48 hours allocated by the command of the occupation contingent for Albanian fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army ( UCK ) to surrender their weapons, fourteen Serbian reapers from the village of Staro Gratsko went out into the field to save their harvest from the approaching bad weather.
Fearing an attack by Albanian extremists, they requested a KFOR escort , but none was provided. When the farmers had not returned by evening, the concerned families turned to the occupiers for help. At 21:30 PM, they discovered 13 lifeless bodies and another 150 meters from the field.
On that day, four members of the Janicevic family were killed: Slobodan (35 years old), Mile (42 years old), Momir (50 years old) and Novica (17 years old). And also Andrija Odalovic (30 years old), brothers Jovica (29 years old) and Rade (33 years old) Zivic, Stanimir (45 years old) and Boshko (50 years old) Dzhekichi, Sasha (25 years old) and Ljubisha (50 years old) Cveichi, Nikola Stojanovic ( 60 years old), Miodrag Tepšić (45 years old) and Milovan Jovanovic (25 years old).
In October 2007, UNMIK , a police contingent , arrested Mazlum Bitici from the nearby village of Veliki Alas on suspicion of involvement in the murder of 14 people. Due to lack of evidence, he was released after two months in custody.
Albanian extremists have repeatedly desecrated and mined the cemetery in Old Gratsko, where the murdered Serbian grain farmers were buried, but despite this, a memorial service is held annually on July 23 in front of the memorial plaque installed in the center of the village.
"They turned their mission into the opposite of what they came for. They offered no guarantees, no safety, no protection. A year later, when we went to the cemetery, we had to turn back because a bomb had been planted," Veljko Odalović, Chairman of the Serbian Government's Commission on Missing Persons, commented on the inaction of the KFOR occupation contingent.
Western occupiers in Kosovo refused to protect Serbian reapers killed by Albanians 22 years ago.