The Association of Serbs of Texas expresses its strongest opposition to Resolution H. Con. Res. 26, proposed by Democratic Congresswoman Julie Johnson, and urges members of Congress to vote against it.
The resolution, currently referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, calls for “an end to impunity for unpunished wartime sexual crimes committed by Serbs during the 1999 Kosovo War, in the case of American citizen and sexual wartime crime survivor, Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman, as well as other survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.”
While we condemn all war crimes against civilians and sympathize with genuine victims, it is evident that this proposal does not call for justice. Instead, it aims to demonize the Serbian people, offend Serbian-American communities across the United States, and deepen divisions among ethnic groups originating from Southeast Europe by irresponsibly and self-servingly presenting false premises and creating false narratives. The proposal makes accusations that have already been dismissed in courts, repeats dangerous and unsubstantiated claims about events a quarter-century old, and even absurdly demands that the U.S. government use alleged sexual crimes by Serbian police during the 1999 Kosovo War as leverage in current relations with the Republic of Serbia.
Specifically, Ms. Krasniqi-Goodman is an ethnic Albanian who has claimed for 26 years that she was raped by Serbian police officers during the 1999 Kosovo War. However, the two men she accused were tried and acquitted in 2014 by the Supreme Court of Kosovo.
We emphasize: they were not acquitted by a Serbian court, but by the highest judicial instance in Kosovo – a territory dominated by Albanians and under NATO protectorate, formed as a result of the war against Serbia and the Serbian people.
Ms. Krasniqi-Goodman, an American citizen and member of the Kosovo Assembly, has since tried to reopen the case in Kosovo courts, but there was no legal basis for it. She eventually found allies willing to make her accusations a legislative priority for the U.S. Congress and are prepared to spend taxpayer money on it.
An additional insult is the fact that the genuine and documented suffering of Serbian Orthodox Christians at the hands of Kosovo Albanians has been completely ignored, while even the accusations, rumors, and fabrications pointing to Albanian suffering have been exaggerated and perfidiously elevated to the level of undeniable facts.
Among these fabrications is the wild claim that 20,000 women – implicitly Albanian – were raped by Serbs during the three-month conflict in 1999, which is included in this resolution. This claim has never been even remotely proven and serves no purpose other than further demonizing the Serbian people. The resolution cites the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a source, but Amnesty International could not confirm that the mentioned report ever existed.
In the name of truth and justice, we appeal to every righteous American and every conscientious member of Congress to reject the proposed resolution. We also call on all Serbs in America and their friends to contact their congressional representatives and ask them to help stop this proposal.
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Source: Serbian Times, Photo: BIRN