Naim Miftari responds to Serbian minister: KLA was not allowed to fight with military weapons

Serbian Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government Snezhana Paunovic has been declared persona non grata by Kosovo.

The decision came after her statement several days earlier that, had she been in Slobodan Milosevic’s position, she would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo in 1998.

Paunovic has been permanently banned from entering or transiting through the territory of the Republic of Kosovo. Her statement was also strongly condemned by acting Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla, who described it as a continuation of a state policy that, he said, for decades had brought violence, crimes and attempts to eradicate Albanians from their lands.

In a Facebook post, Svecla announced that he had signed the decision declaring the Serbian minister an undesirable person.

“As Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kosovo, today I issued a decision through which I declared Snezhana Paunovic persona non grata, undesirable, with a permanent ban on entry into or transit through the Republic of Kosovo. The era when Albanians were oppressed, massacred and ethnically cleansed has ended once and for all,” Svecla wrote.

He stressed that the Serbian minister’s rhetoric was unacceptable and incited hatred, calling for it to be condemned by all states.

According to Svecla, any attempt to revive ideologies of ethnic cleansing or threaten the Republic of Kosovo will receive a “firm, legal and institutional response.”

Naim Miftari, a KLA wartime fighter and commander, as well as a former KPC superior after the war, also spoke to “Bota so” about Paunovic’s statement.

Miftari said that the minister of what he calls the fascist state of Serbia had been fortunate, linking this also to the theft of funds by a clan of thieves.

“How fortunate you are, Minister Snezhana Paunovic of the fascist state of Serbia. You are fortunate because almost more than 90% of the war funds collected from our Albanian compatriots were stolen by Serbia’s allies, by the 3% clan of thieves, led by Bujar Bukoshi. Likewise, the ‘Homeland Calls’ fund was stolen by another clan, led by Hashim Thaci,” Miftari said.

He further stated that Serbia had also been fortunate, in his view, because the KLA was not allowed by other countries to arm itself with military weapons and fought mainly with personal weapons.

“Your greatest fortune, Serbia, was that your people managed to divide our clean war. Another stroke of fortune for you was that NATO and countries such as America, France, Germany and Great Britain did not allow the KLA to arm itself with military weapons, but it fought mainly with personal AK-47 weapons and armaments from Albanian territorial reserves from the 1960s and 1970s, often with only a few dozen bullets,” the former fighter stressed.

In conclusion, Miftari said that another stroke of fortune was that KLA members did not stain their hands with the blood of Serbian civilians.

“Once, the KLA tried to break through in Koshare to link the front with the Dukagjin Zone and, immediately, NATO’s French Mirage aircraft bombed KLA positions, killing dozens of volunteer soldiers, out of fear that the Albanian people might win the war on their own and would not remain dependent on the international community, which, according to you, was largely pro-Serbia.

And fortunately, KLA soldiers did not soil their hands with the blood of your civilians, did not kill Serbian civilians, did not rape Serbian women, did not disappear thousands of bodies of Serbian civilians, did not carry out ethnic cleansing and did not execute Serbian civilians and prisoners,” Miftari concluded.