And the world merely watches

"This is the last time you will see your family," police said as they marched him out of the house.

Rexhap was a 33-year-old ethnic Albanian accountant born in the province of Kosovo. He was reportedly pronounced dead because of severe beatings endured in Serbian police custody on Aug. 21.

Aside from Rexhap, since last March the Serbian officials, soldiers and police have massacred hundreds of innocent Kosovo Albanian men, women, children and elderly, displacing hundreds of thousands more from their homes, many of whom have been living in the forests and mountains as winter quickly approaches.

After looking at the tragic present and the bloody you are left to ask: How far will the blood-soaked boots of the Serbian butchers be allowed to march this time?

Left unchecked, the Serbs would likely ethnically cleanse the entire Balkan Peninsula.

For those not very familiar with the tactics of the Serbs and their history of atrocity, they only need think of the 200,000 massacred civilians, 600,000 raped women and children, thousands buried in common graves, and hundreds of thousands others tortured in concentration camps during the war in Bosnia to know about the nature of this beast and its devilish activity.

However, people who have been in contact with such actions during earlier periods have testified that the Serbs have committed brutal crimes since they settled on Ilirian (ancestor of modern Albanian) lands in southeastern Europe in the beginning of the seventh century.

Their killings reached a more barbaric and massive level during the Eastern Crisis, during 1875 to 1878. Under the maniac pretext that Serbia must have a big territory in order to be able to survive on its own and be a self-sufficient country, the Serbs killed thousands of innocent Albanians.

The orders given to Serb soldiers during the late 19th century were similar to this: The fewer Albanians left alive, the better.

The indifference of the world's political superpowers toward the Serbian snake contributed to continued injustices against the Albanian people.

Today in northeastern Albania, there is a place known as the Black Gorge where in 1912, Serbian troops marched across the border and butchered the entire 520-person population of the first town they entered.

The serpent is not afraid because it already knows the world does not do anything concrete to keep it from biting.

Besides blindly neglecting the situation, the world is wasting its precious time in deciding names for the Kosovians who have joined the Kosovo Liberation Army. Those people, who - left with no other solution - have taken up rifles to protect their families, lands and honor, the world, like Serbia, considers terrorists.

Dear world, what should the Kosovians do? Should they tie themselves down and watch the occupying Serbs kill the Albanian population, confiscate its property and stock, and then set all the houses ablaze?

Severed limbs, slashed abdomens, spilled brains and slit throats decorate Kosovo's landscape today. There are 300,000 Albanians who have been forced from their homes since last March and 50,000 of them have been living out in the open for many months, away from medical care and drinking water - and since March, at least 15 percent of the Kosovo Albanians' houses have been destroyed.

This is what the world should be noticing.

The superpowers have announced they back only a certain self-rule of the province and fall short of support for independence. Yet again, it seems the world has not learned any lessons from its previous mistakes.

Time has come for the world to open its eyes wide and read the message that the distant and present history brings and world leaders must start working right away by supporting the dream all the Albanians share.

The first step the world should take is to stop seeing Milosevic as a trustworthy negotiating partner.

Then, the world and its leaders should involve the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, Holland, and hold Milosevic accountable for the enormous crimes he has orchestrated.

These done, the serpent may finally begin to realize it can not commit barbaric crimes and manage to snake away unpunished.

Altin Alimehmeti is news editor at the Aztec Press, Pima Community College's student newspaper.