According to Fr. David's report, at the city cemetery in Pec they observed that "grave markers are first broken; then, Albanian resellers of marble remove the costly marble plates which are then sold not far from the cemetery for the use of the Albanian Muslim population. The activities of these grave robbers, unfortunately, are ongoing and unobstructed, and there is a real danger that all the graves will soon be destroyed. The western part of the cemetery is covered with debris, earth and garbage to the point where the remains of the graves cannot be seen. Especially horrifying is the fact that some of the graves have recently been opened for unknown reasons. Open graves have also been found at the nearby cemetery church in the village of Bijelo Polje which has been leveled with the ground since the arrival of peacekeeping forces, and the church itself desecrated," the report states.
Signs of new damage and desecration have also been found in the village cemeteries in the villages of Nabrdje and Naklo near Pec, where it is difficult to find a single grave where the grave marker or cross has not been broken. In Nabrdje, the Orthodox cemetery has been transformed into a garbage dump. The two hectares [five acres] of cemetery land have been covered with large quantities of slag, iron and automobile parts and other junk so that most of the graves are completely hidden from view.
In the villages of Brestovik and Siga, targeted by UNMIK's program for return of expelled persons, cemeteries with many open graves were found last year, some even missing the bodies of the deceased. In the meantime, according to Fr. David's testimony, these cemeteries have been completely destroyed. Even Serb cemeteries more than 300 years old such as those in Saljinovica, Djurakovac and Pec have not escaped destruction. In the old Pec cemetery behind the present-day Roman Catholic church, the report describes, only a few stone grave markers have not been buried in debris and garbage.
"The systematic destruction of the traces of centuries of presence of the Serb people in Kosovo and Metohija continues. If the international community does nothing to stop this destruction, soon we will talk about Serbs from this region as an extinct people only on the basis of archeological remains of cemeteries and churches," the ERP KIM Info Service quotes Fr. David as saying. Documentary films will be made from the collected video material regarding the destruction of centuries-old Christian culture in an area under the administration of the United Nations, the Diocese of Raska and Prizren has announced. The first comprehensive report on this topic, entitled "War Against the Dead", appeared at the beginning of last year as the testimony of Decani monks who at the end of 2001 visited Serb cemeteries in Brestovik, Berkovo and Siga.
Last year horrifying reports were collected from many locations, including Kosovo Polje and Orahovac, where local Serbs, who waited for three years for KFOR permission to visit the Orthodox cemetery in the Albanian part of town, found weeds, desecrated grave markers and unidentified fresh graves whose origin, despite UNMIK's exhumations, has not been completely determined. Fr. Radivoje Panic and Dr. Gordana Subaric have filmed two documentary films on this subject, "Kosovo Requiem" on Serb cemeteries in central Kosovo and "Wind from the Grave" in the Pec area.
"These scenes of horror and pain do not originate from the war period but are testimony of the post-war, systematic destruction of everything Serb and Christian in this region," reminds the Diocese of Raska and Prizren. Fr. Sava (Janjic), the deputy abbot of Visoki Decani Monastery, has on many occasions brought to public's attention that "digging up of graves, breaking of coffins and scattering of bones [of the deceased] represents the highest degree of barbarism and madness on the part of the Kosovo Albanians".
The Diocese suggests the intention of extremists to prevent the return of the expelled Serb population to the Province at any price by sending a clear message that "if there is no peace for the deceased, what can be expected by the living" as a possible explanation for this hideous form of barbarism, unprecedented anywhere in the region of the former Yugoslavia. In Fr. Sava's opinion, especially worrisome is the fact that since the arrival of the UN mission no attempt has been made to stop the destruction of Serb churches and cemeteries by either the Kosovo Albanians, especially their politicians and intellectuals, or by the international community.