Serbs living in LV protest NATO actions

From an open letter to Americans from Boban Klasnikov, a Serbian Las Vegan:

"Fifty years from now, when this day becomes history ... our children will learn that Wednesday, March 24, 1999, was the day of the biggest shame in American history: a brutal attack on a sovereign, friendly country, a country that was never an enemy to the U.S., a country that lost one-third of its male population in WWI, a country that held back 20 German divisions in WWII fighting against Nazis, Italian fascists and their collaborators ...

"American people, do not be remembered as aggressors. Your sweet-talking president is doing worse than Milosevic -- he is killing innocent people that were never a threat to him or the U.S. ... (President Bill) Clinton is opening a new leaf in the old Book of Genocide."

More than 100 local Serbs protested the bombing of their native country Thursday in front of the Foley Federal Building in downtown Las Vegas.

Among them: A woman whose 66-year-old father reports via telephone that bombs are falling in his back yard; a man whose family reports that their church -- an Orthodox Christian church that stood for 600 years -- has been leveled; and a Serbian Army World War II veteran who once saved the lives of shot-down U.S. pilots and now hears that his family and friends are fleeing Serbia -- running from bombs dropped by U.S. pilots.

"Stop the bombing. That's all we're saying," Klasnikov, who has been in Las Vegas for nine years, said.

Yugoslavian immigrants moved to the United States for opportunity and prosperity. Now they find themselves caught in a web of conflicting ideals: The country that offered them a welcoming hand is bombing their homeland, where many of their families still live.

Despite the U.S. and NATO goal of preventing further atrocities by Yugolsav President Slobodan Milosevic in his campaign to rid Kosovo of ethnic Albanians, local Serbs say the bombing has made a bad situation worse.

Further, they say that their innocent families have been caught in the cross fire.

The Las Vegas protest was led by the Rev. Uros Todorovic, a priest at San Simeon Serbian Orthodox Christian Church, who left Serbia seven years ago. Todorovic said the Serbian-American population in Las Vegas is more than 4,000 people.

With a gold crucifix clutched to his chest, Todorovic paced the sidewalk in front of the offices of the U.S. Defense Department, stopping twice to offer prayers for those people living in the war-torn region.

"Christians are against bombs and against war of any kind," Torodovic said. "Christians support peace." Splintering from Torodovic's measured words, some members of the crowd shouted angrily about politics and history, military strategy and economic interests.

Others cried.

"My family has literally been getting bombs in the back yard," said Ksenija Simpson, a Yugoslav immigrant who was born in Kosovo and who has family living in Serbia and the province of Montenegro. She has been in Las Vegas for four years.

Simpson knelt on the sidewalk during the prayers and let her tears fall to the ground.

"I talk to my family, and they are scared," she said. "I'm here to protest against this bombing policy. Milosevic is wrong, but Clinton is wrong, too. Two wrongs don't make something good."

Anti-Clinton sentiments abounded; anti-media sentiments also flourished. Many of the protesters said that Americans are not getting the full story of the region's disputes, and they blamed the national media for the breakdown in communication.

They said the real story is that ethnic Albanians in Kosovo once had autonomy, but they squandered it by claiming Serbian land. The U.S. media, many said, fail to accurately report the decades-old feud over the land.

One protest sign said, "CNN = CIA" and another said "CNN = Clinton News Network."

"We cannot fight the media. We hear only one side of this -- the side Clinton wants to be heard," protester Lisa Galbiso said. "We cannot get the real news from Serbia now. What we are getting here is not true, it is lies."

Kosovo is considered sacred to many Serbs because of the presence of many long-standing Serbian Orthodox Christian churches. Ninety percent of ethnic Albanians who occupied the land are Muslim.

"Americans do not know their history, and they are getting it from the TV who is not showing the other side," said Branko Cvijovic, a Serbian-American who has been in the United States for 10 years. "A lot of my family is still there, I've talked to them on the phone. They are in bomb shelters."

Other protest signs read: "Hitler 1940, NATO 1999" and "Kosovo = Vietnam."

Posko Katric, a U.S. Army veteran and former prisoner of war, carried a U.S flag in the protest. "I don't want to see U.S. soldiers live through this pain," Katric said.

The march lasted an hour and a half. Las Vegas Metro Police dispatched several officers on bicycles to oversee the protest, while security guards from the Foley building stepped outside to monitor the situation from the front steps.

"I love the U.S. This country has given me what Yugoslavia could not -- opportunity and prosperity," Simpson said. "I couldn't stand Milosevic, but this is not right. Innocent people are being killed. This is not right."

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