8 hours agoFormer BBC reporter: Tanks that had attacked Yashaws had been stolen in Bosnia I escaped after the bullet hit my phone
Periskopi(3 years ago)
(3 years ago)Former BBC reporter Vaughan Smith, who during the war shot the Jasharaj family massacre, has confessed to Online Economy, the horror he saw on the 5th and 7th March of 1998. He has said that the brutality he has seen in Kosovo had no chance to see anywhere else. Speaking [...]
Speaking of the war in Prekaz, Smitt said Serbs had tried to kill him, but had managed to escape after the bullet had hit the mobile phone.
As part of the Bosnia and Herzegovina war, Smith has said the tanks that attacked the Jasharaj family have been stolen by the Dutch in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
I remember coming to Kosovo with a guess. Then I didn't fully understand what's going on, but I saw Serbian forces entering Prekaz, hiding and starting with the action, there was a lot of fire. Much later I realized the importance that was taking place that day on March 5, 1998. I had come from Bosnia to cover Kosovo's war, and when I closed the footage, I see that some of the tanks the Serbs had stolen from the Dutch in Bosnia, had taken to attack Yashaw, and at that time I started to dig and frown at the Serbs that I was shooting from the top of the hill, and they shot at me, and I survived only because the bullet ended on my 14x1> mobile phone, he told EO.
Although he had heard of the KLA, Smith did not recognise anyone from its leaders. He says he met a man in Switzerland who had told him about the organization taking place in Kosovo.
I had heard of the KLA that I had gone to Switzerland and had met a man named Pleave Sejdiu, told me about The KLA and it showed me what's going on and it put me in touch with the KLA here (in Kosovo), but I didn't know all the details, but I had just heard, and later I realized when I came to Kosovo, and today I'm very happy that Kosovo Airport is also named Adam Jashari”, Smith says.
Smith has said that mobilizing the population he has seen in Kosovo has not seen in any country where there is war.
What surprised me is the brutality of that massacre, how they kill the whole family, not just those who were armed, then what surprised me that I was in other wars in Iraq and Bosnia, I didn't see the way that massacre mobilized the entire population. That massacre has mobilised all people, outside Kosovo people are beginning to come. So it has had the opposite effect of what Serbs wanted, so it's demoralized this population, in fact it has mobilized”, he said.
