American Council for Kosovo - All News http://www.savekosovo.org American Council for Kosovo - All News 14.5.2008. en 2006-2008 American Council for Kosovo The Slow Birth of a Nation http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=5&leader=0&sp=505 Two months after Kosovo declared independence, thousands of foreign experts are ready to descend on its capital to shape Europe's youngest republic into a constitutional state -- although its status is still disputed. Soon the EU will take over, and its team can expect a country ruled by corruption and organized crime.

It's 8 p.m., and Joachim Rücker, the highest-ranking representative of the United Nations in Pristina, is heading out for a bite to eat. Past Bill Clinton Boulevard, past three mosques, Rücker's Japanese jeep zigzags through the darkened city. His Albanian bodyguards, speaking English, constantly rattle off the vehicle's coordinates into their radio.

But where, exactly, is Rücker? What country is he in?

According to international law, Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, still belongs to Serbian territory. Rücker's boss at UN headquarters in New York, Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, has not said anything new to the contrary. Under UN Resolution 1244, adopted in 1999, Kosovo was placed under an interim UN administration, after enduring a 16-month war that claimed about 10,000 lives. The resolution makes no mention of Kosovo's right to secede from Serbia.

On the other hand, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence on Feb. 17. More than three dozen countries worldwide -- including the United States and Germany -- have recognized the tiny republic, whose population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian. There are now signs with the words "Republic of Kosovo" along the southern border and Kosovar customs officers at the Pristina airport.

But in the north and in the Serbian enclaves south of the Ibar River, separate elections will probably take place on May 11 -- for the Serbian parliament in Belgrade and for the local Serb government. Here, in the shadow of medieval monasteries, time seems to stand still. The Serbian dinar is the standard currency here, and wages, food and political directives come straight from Belgrade.

Kosovo's situation is complex. Two countries claim a territory that is about one and a half times the size of the US state Rhode Island (and has about the same population density). In the middle, acting as a UN referee in a diplomatic minefield, sits Joachim Rücker, 56, the former mayor of the small southwestern German city of Sindelfingen. At the request of the UN Secretary General and in response to pressure from Russia, Rücker is expected to continue behaving as if nothing had happened, as if Serbia's national borders had remained unchanged.

He's returning from a reception held by the newly appointed German ambassador in Pristina. Strictly speaking, according to diplomatic protocol, Rücker had no business there -- as the supreme UN administrator in Serbia's southwestern province. But he calls Kosovo's hermaphroditic condition "cohabitation," and manages to find complicated language to describe the future of this torn region.

In June, administrative duties are expected to change hands from the UN to the European Union, which plans to send 2,200 judges, prosecutors, police officers and customs officials to Pristina. But without the approval of the Russians and the Chinese in the Security Council, the UN will hardly be able to slip quietly out of Kosovo. Instead, says Rücker, it will have to maintain its presence, and its mission, "while keeping its status neutral." The UN will have to "reconfigure" itself and emphasize the "discontinuity" between the EU and UN mandates.

The UN will stay in Kosovo, in other words, and discreetly phase out its presence, hoping for a change of course in Moscow, Beijing and Belgrade -- so that the skirmishes over Europe's youngest state don't turn into a full-blown war.

For now, at least, life is still relatively good in Pristina. The penne arrabiata and chocolate tarts at "Il Passatore," an Italian trattoria, are exceptional. Rücker seems pleased as he leaves the restaurant.

Elephants at the Watering Hole

The UN's Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is the largest show of strength in the history of the world body. Rücker has led it since 2006. The multinational administrators oversee everything -- government, police, judiciary, customs, the economy. The goal of the now nine-year operation is to transform Yugoslavia's former poorhouse into a home for more than two million people that deserves to be called a constitutional state.

The UN has the active support of the EU, NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), each represented by its own substantial battalion in Kosovo, as well as several hundred non-governmental organizations. Like elephants at a watering hole, the giants of the global peacemaking trade huddle in this disputed corner of Europe and naturally step, now and then, all over each other's toes.

Kosovo's foreign rulers -- especially the French, Americans and Germans -- are wrestling for billions in reconstruction contracts, for key positions in the new government and for influence over the Kosovar parties and clan leaders. The region is awash with intelligence agents and soldiers of fortune, idealists and professional adventurers. This constellation could, of course, hinder the planned birth of democracy here, rather than help it.

The UN has spent an estimated €33 billion ($53 billion) for its mission in Kosovo since 1999, when a NATO bombing campaign drove out former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's murderous troops. This corresponds to €1,750 ($2,800) per capita, annually -- or 160 times the average yearly per capita aid for all developing countries combined.

Nevertheless, UNMIK isn't wanted by everyone here. The streets to UNMIK headquarters in Pristina have been known to be blocked by protest banners reading: "No access. Criminal zone." Stickers are affixed to some traffic lights in the city, displaying "No to EUMIK" when the lights are red and "Independence" when they turn green. At the Strip Depot café, a philosopher called Shkelzen Maliqi, surrounded by disciples lounging on couches, jokes: "Kosovo is a bastard country. You fathered it, and now it's your job to care for it."

Officially, close to half of Kosovo's residents live on less than €3 ($4.80) a day. Kosovo's per capita gross national product is lower than that of North Korea or Papua New Guinea. It has one of the worst balances of trade worldwide and Europe's highest fertility rate. Youth unemployment hovers at 75 percent.

But as long as Albania's young people, equipped with their bulky sunglasses and tiny mobile phones, can camp out in all of Pristina's cafés before the third call of the muezzin, poverty alone won't explain the local population's growing discomfort with the international presence. Studies by scientists, intelligence services and EU panels seek to examine the deeper-seated reasons for this phenomenon.

These Kosovo analysts have one thing in common: They paint a picture of a clan-based society in which a handful of criminal leaders controls the population -- and are tolerated by bureaucrats from Europe and the rest of the world, who have come here under the guise of enlightening the Kosovars.

'Leading Political and Criminal Figures'

The international community and its representatives in Kosovo bear a significant share of responsibility for the alarming proliferation of Mafia-like structures in Kosovo. As a result of their open support for leading political and criminal figures, they have harmed the credibility of international institutions in numerous ways. (From a study by the Institute for European Politics in Berlin, completed for the German military, the Bundeswehr, in 2007)

UN special envoy Rücker wants nothing to do with "leading political and criminal figures," at least not as long as they've been convicted by a court of law. But not one of the former heroes of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerilla force -- who liberated Kosovo in their battle with Serbian troops -- has so far been sentenced. Now they control Kosovo's politics and economy.

Ramush Haradinaj is a former KLA commander who later became prime minister of UN-administered Kosovo. His indictment in The Hague consisted of 37 charges, including murder, torture, rape and the expulsion of Serbs, Albanians and gypsies in the weeks following the end of the war in 1999. Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor of the UN War Crimes Tribunal, called him a "gangster in uniform." He returned to Kosovo this spring, after his acquittal on April 3.

Haradinaj received a hero's welcome, complete with pistol shots and motorcades through a sea of Albanian flags. But there was also an announcement from UNMIK referring to reservations from The Hague: "The court was under the strong impression that witnesses in this trial did not feel safe."

Steven Schook, Rücker's American deputy at UNMIK's fortress-like headquarters in Pristina, was already out of office by then. The former American brigadier general said he left because he loved his job too much, but that wasn't the real reason. It also wasn't because of his supposed weakness for beautiful Kosovar women, or because he considered it useful to "get drunk with Ramush Haradinaj once a week," as described in a German situation analysis.

No, Steven Schook's contract was officially "not extended" after the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) investigated his administration and looked into (unproven) reports that the American had revealed the whereabouts of a man who had testified against Haradinaj. The man was living under a UN witness protection program.

Even before that, though, Schook's boss at UNMIK -- Rücker -- had given Haradinaj an exceptional private audience before his departure to a prison cell in The Hague. Rücker still insists this treatment was justified for a political alpha dog. "It's a completely normal order of business for a former prime minister and party chairman to pay me a visit before embarking on a longer journey."

As a result of his suspended sentence, Haradinaj's "longer journey" ended up being shorter than expected. During the trial he was even permitted to run as a candidate in the elections for the Kosovar parliament -- with UNMIK's blessing. Because of Haradinaj's background, this attracted attention far beyond the borders of his native region.

Wanting to be Boss

The family clan structure in the Decani region from which Haradinaj derives his power is involved in a wide range of criminal, political and military activities that greatly influence the security situation throughout Kosovo. The group consists of about 100 members, and deals in the drug and weapons smuggling business, as well as in the illegal trade in dutiable goods. (From a 2005 report by the Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany's foreign intelligence agency)

These charges weren't brought up in The Hague. But now that Haradinaj, dressed in a suit and tie, has returned to the political arena, he can call for new elections and consider himself officially confirmed as the guiding figure of an independent Kosovo. The need for politicians with an untarnished name in Kosovo has grown considerably -- because according to a study completed last year, "mafia boss" is the most commonly cited dream profession among children in and around Pristina.

More Greed Than Pioneer Spirit

It's estimated that 20 percent of Kosovars are illiterate, while more than 90 percent have a minimal education. The consequences of Serbian colonial policy under Milosevic have left their mark. Kosovo's three-percent economic growth is insufficient to provide adequate employment for the new crop of young people entering the labor market every year.

According to economist Muhamet Mustafa of the Riinvest Institute for Development Research in Pristina, the black market economy is responsible for 30 to 40 percent of Kosovo's gross national product. The path up the economic ladder is as good as blocked for the country's youngest and most hopeful.

"We must keep our best people in the country, but we lack young elites," says Harvard graduate Shpend Ahmeti, who heads the Institute for Advance Studies (GAP) and plans to establish an academy for future business leaders. Kosovo's main export is still scrap metal, but Ahmeti mentions what politicians intend to ask for at an upcoming international donors' conference -- a subway in the small industrial city of Ferizaj, for €36 million ($58 million), and an opera house dedicated to the now-deceased former president, Ibrahim Rugova, for €25 million ($40 million).

What embitters the idealists among international aid workers and democratic lone wolves among Kosovo's ethnic Albanians is that the UN mission tends to encourage greed, rather than a pioneering spirit. "Ninety percent of the people here come for the money," says a police official with the UN's organized crime division in Pristina. "The motivation (among UN workers) is moderate, people are constantly rotated, and we don't get the really good ones, anyway." Tours of duty in Kosovo, he says, are detrimental to careers at home.

Ten-Figure Sums and No Electricity

The UN mission is variously described as anything from a "paper tiger" to a "bureaucratic monster" to a "colonial administration," while much of its international personnel has the reputation of being in Kosovo either to pursue an adventure or for personal enrichment (From a 2007 study completed for the Bundeswehr) In the upper management echelons at UNMIK, in the Kosovar government and in international consortiums, ten-figure sums of money are thrown around. For the planned Kosovo C brown coal heating power plant, a bidding war has reached €4 billion ($6.4 billion). The new plant is needed because the existing sections of the power plant, despite €1 billion ($1.6 billion) in investments in the power grid, can't deliver enough energy. Daily power outages last up to eight hours. Many people use diesel generators. But who's responsible for this electricity fiasco? Ethem Çeku is CEO of the current electricity monopoly. He's also the cousin of former Prime Minister Agim Çeku and has close ties to UNMIK Director Rücker. Çeku has also served as chairman of the steering committee in the race for the new €4 billion project. One of his former colleagues is part of the favored consortium, while other companies bidding on the power plant project include German energy giants EnBW and RWE.

Çeku and his lot, together with UNMIK leaders, form "a sort of Cosa Nostra for Kosovo," says Avni Zogiani, who heads the anti-corruption NGO called ÇOHU! ("Wake Up!"), despite risks to life and limb. He has received threats because he prepares dossiers on the sins of members of parliament, and because he, to the dissatisfaction of Western ambassadors of democracy, utters sentences like: "So far, UNMIK has worked primarily with criminals and made deals with the devil, merely for the sake of stability in the country." Zogiani's claim, says UNMIK Director Rücker, "does not coincide with reality."

In early April, Zogiani's organization filed a complaint with the special prosecutor in Pristina alleging favoritism within Kosovo's privatization agency. The accused is 39-year-old Hashim Thaçi, who, as one of the KLA commanders in the guerilla war against the Serbian army, was known by his combat name, "Snake." He is now Kosovo's prime minister.

Will his past matter? German author Jürgen Roth cites a 2005 intelligence study (from the Bundesnachrichtendienst) which asserts that as far back as 1999, at the time of the Serb-Albanian peace negotiations, Thaçi controlled "a criminal network active throughout Kosovo." According to the report, he is also suspected of having hired a "professional killer." Thaçi himself has declined to comment on these accusations. The prime minister is busy with governing and dealing with his party, the PDK. Thaçi -- with the support of Germany's left-leaning Friedrich Ebert Foundation -- is trying to establish the PDK within Europe's spectrum of leftist parties, where his old comrade-in-arms and former Prime Minister Agim Çeku also wants to build ties.

Women and Heroin

It is assumed that a corporate structure of organized crime and corruption is behind every political party in Kosovo. (The UN's Directorate of Organized Crime)

The UN special investigators for organized crime work in a dilapidated collection of trailers on the edge of Kosovo Field (Kosovo Polje), the historic site of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo between Serbs and the Ottoman Empire. Rain echoes on the corrugated metal roofs of the trailers while the officials inside drink thin coffee. Their weary faces reflect doubt in the purpose of their assignment.

We are fighting with wooden swords against an extremely well-armed opponent," says one of the investigators, who prefers to remain anonymous. "In 2005 and 2006, when the first locals were admitted into the Kosovo police, we suddenly found not a single gram of heroin. Our undercover investigators and informants disappeared. We know literally nothing since then."

According to law enforcement agencies, Kosovo is the most important interim destination for opiates and heroin coming from Afghanistan . It is believed that up to four or five tons of heroin are brought across Kosovo's borders every month. The drug then reaches the EU countries through Albanian distribution rings. (Rastislav Báchora, Notes from Southeastern Europe, 2008)

The central Balkans' drug smuggling route, under observation of international police since 1999, runs through Kosovo. According to Europol, ethnic Albanian organized crime groups now control 80 percent of heroin smuggling in some northern European countries, and 40 percent in Western Europe. Officials at UNMIK in Pristina are familiar with the reports, as well as the warnings of a "further aggravation of the security situation" -- now that the tiny republic's independence facilitates access to government business for the ruling clans.

But nothing is happening. The multinational apparatus is too large, too out of control and too involved with itself. The daily bureaucracy of compiling organizational charges, sending progress reports (known as "okay reporting") to New York, and preparing proof of activity, keeps people busy.

The UNMIK list of Kosovar brothels and bars suspected of promoting or tolerating illegal prostitution -- which are off-limits for UNMIK staff -- includes 138 establishments of various calibers. "Dodana," a dimly lit bar in the divided city of Mitrovica, sits just outside the French Kosovo Force (KFOR) barracks. It's not on the UNMIK list and, at first glance, doesn't seem to have any prostitutes, either. But the owner is a KLA veteran who did time in a German prison near Stuttgart for drug trafficking, and it doesn't take long for him to change his mind and say: "Come back tomorrow, and then you can get what you want."

At the Buze Ibrit across the Ibar River, Fatmiri, who leases the establishment, offers his rooms for €5 ($8) for two-hour "relaxation" periods. Turkish, Albanian and Moldovan women are available in the bars further east along the river.

Bajram Rexhepi has himself driven past the Buze Ibrit in a Jeep every day. He's a slim, gray-haired man who carries a Croatian nine-millimeter pistol concealed in his suit jacket. He knew Mitrovica as a coal-mining town, before there were KFOR troops, UNMIK police and the attendant brothels. He's a former prime minister of Kosovo and the town's current mayor.

To be more precise, he's the mayor of South Mitrovica, the Albanian section. But his villa is across the river, on the city's Serbian side. This puts it in the future Serbian special administrative zone. But somehow the powerful Rexhepi has managed to have his house -- surrounded by Serbian neighborhoods and with a panoramic view -- assigned to the Albanian south.

Rexhepi trained as a surgeon. He served as a doctor at the front during the guerilla war, and as personal doctor of KLA co-founder Adem Jashari until Jashari was murdered. After the war Rexhepi went into politics. As prime minister he gained particular respect by denouncing the anti-Serb pogroms in March 2004 which killed 19 people, injured thousands and destroyed or damaged monasteries, churches and cultural sites.

The Serbian Orthodox cemetery in South Mitrovica, which is now cut off from the Serbian neighborhoods, is still seen as a memorial. Its chapel was desecrated, gravestones were disturbed and cow manure and bits of clothing scattered among the graves. But violence tends to be the exception now, says Rexhepi calmly, pointing to nearby Serbian houses. "Those people over there," he says, "want to create parallel structures."

The Multiethnic Future

A multiethnic Kosovo does not exist, except in the written pronouncements of the international community. (From a study by the International Commission on the Balkans)

Students at the technical university in North Mitrovica wear T-shirts reading "Kosovo is Serbia." The administration of Kosovo's recalcitrant north, funded by Belgrade, now resides in a small, cobalt blue house along the river. North Mitrovica is a planet with its own orbit, a collection of drab neighborhoods with apartment buildings dating back to the days of former Yugoslav dictator Josip Tito. It has shop-window portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin and perhaps 30,000 Serbian residents, who are being used as spearheads in the struggle over Kosovo's future.

Those who work in North Mitrovica's hospital, court system, schools and university are paid two to three times the standard salary, as compensation for living here. By simply persevering, the idea is, they embody Belgrade's legal claim to Kosovo. The leader of Serbia's Radical Party, Tomislav Nikolic, is greeted like the Orthodox Messiah in North Mitrovica, with bread, salt and folk dancing. He can except to capture 70 percent of the vote in this neighborhood.

Experts from the Institute for European Politics consider the dreams of a multiethnic Kosovo a "grotesque denial of reality in the international community," triggered by a "politically mandated pressure to succeed." It is not difficult to reconstruct the source of this pressure.

Washington's influence has been decisive, from the NATO attack on Serbian targets in 1999 to its leadership role in the peace negotiations in Rambouillet, France, and the road map for Kosovo's declaration of independence. "The Spaniards didn't want a decision before March 2008, because of their upcoming elections, but the Americans wanted February," says a UNMIK employee. "So February 17 it was."

The resolute phrase "no way" -- spoken into a mobile phone by an official at the American diplomatic mission in Pristina -- which barely prevented Kosovar Prime Minister Thaçi from declaring independence two days early (from an American perspective), is now one of the most colorful myths surrounding the establishment of the young republic. The Americans have reaped the rewards of their commitment to Kosovo: the Camp Bondsteel military base, arms deliveries for the future Kosovo army and a loyal community of fans among the Albanian majority.

And the Europeans? Javier Solana, the EU's chief diplomat and a dedicated supporter of trans-Atlantic cooperation, did not attract much attention with his moderate appeals during the gallop to Kosovo's independence. EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso is already suggesting that Kosovo could be offered "EU prospects." UNMIK Director Rücker takes it a step further, when he says: "I see both Kosovo and Serbia a members of the EU in 10 years."

What steps need to be taken before that can happen? A few bastions would have to be worn down and bridges built.

The Serbs, in their blossoming, rural landscape in the north, bordering on the wild Sandzak region, and with their fields, pastures and beehives, would have to learn to find a common language with the Albanians in the south, in their sprawling settlements of unfinished buildings and streets littered with garbage.

The old and new residents of Prizren, at the center of the Kosovo controversy, a medieval residence of Serbian kings and the birthplace of dreams of a greater Albania, will have to find ways to reconcile once again. They will have to clear occupied houses, repair desecrated mosques and churches, and allow justice to prevail.

There are currently 38,000 pending lawsuits for the restitution of property in Kosovo -- mostly fields and meadows. EU experts expect to encounter 180,000 court cases that have not been processed yet. Among 40,000 criminal cases still pending, 700 are classified as "top priority," because they lead directly into the heart of the clan system.

It is that system, and not the people, which is still the source of power in Europe's youngest republic.

]]> The Kosovo effect http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=10&leader=0&sp=504 Kosovo's recent unilateral declaration of independence brought back memories. I publicly opposed Nato's attack on Serbia - carried out in the name of protecting the Kosovans from Serb atrocities - in March 1999. At that time, I was a member of the opposition front bench in the House of Lords. The then Conservative leader, William Hague, immediately expelled me to the back benches. Thus ended my (minor) political career. Ever since, I have wondered whether I was right or wrong.

I opposed military intervention for two reasons. Firstly, I argued that while it might do local good, it would damage the rules of international relations as they were then understood. The UN charter was designed to prevent the use of force across national lines except for self-defence and enforcement measures ordered by the security council. Human rights, democracy, and self-determination are not acceptable legal grounds for waging war.

Secondly, I argued that while there might be occasions when, regardless of international law, human rights abuses are so severe that one is morally obliged to act, Kosovo was not such a case. I considered the "imminent humanitarian disaster" that the intervention was ostensibly aimed at preventing, to be largely an invention. I further argued that non-military means to resolve the humanitarian issue in Kosovo were far from being exhausted, and that the failed Rambouillet negotiation with Serbia in February-March 1999 was, in Henry Kissinger's words, "merely an excuse to start the bombing".

This view was vindicated by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) report on human rights violations in Kosovo, published in December 1999. The report showed that the level of violence fell markedly when OSCE monitors were placed in Kosovo following the Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement of September 23 1998; and that it was only after the monitors were withdrawn on March 20 1999, in preparation for the bombing, that general and systematic violation of human rights began.

Between March and June 1999 - the period of Nato bombing - the number of deaths and expulsions in Kosovo shot up. The "humanitarian disaster" was in fact precipitated by the war itself. Despite this, the term "genocide", freely bandied about by western interventionists, was grotesquely inappropriate at any time.

Without doubt, Nato air strikes and the subsequent administration of Kosovo as a protectorate improved the political situation for Albanian Kosovans. Without Nato intervention, they probably would have remained second-class citizens within Serbia. Against this must be set large-scale deterioration in the economic situation of all Kosovans, Albanian and Serbian (44% unemployment), widespread criminalisation, and the fact that under Nato rule, Kosovo was ethnically cleansed of half its Serb minority.

Kosovo remains in political limbo to this day. Two thousand EU officials run the country, and 16,000 Nato troops guard its security. Its "independence" is rejected by Serbia, unrecognised by the security council, and opposed by Russia, China, and most multi-national states in Europe and Asia, which fear setting a precedent for their own dismemberment. Indeed, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was quick to blame the disturbances in Tibet on Kosovo's declaration of independence.

A Serbian insurgency and de facto partition of Kosovo remain possible, and we have yet to face the destabilising effects of Kosovo's claim to independence on other divided Balkan states such as Bosnia and Macedonia. But the balance sheet is even worse in terms of international relations. Kosovo was a stalking horse for Iraq, as the doctrine of humanitarian intervention morphed into George Bush's doctrine of "pre-emptive war", by which the US claimed the right to attack any state that it deemed a threat to its national security. As then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan rightly argued, this opened the door to the proliferation of unilateral, lawless use of force.

Not the least damaging consequence of the Bush doctrine is that it dispenses with the need for public proof of aggressive intent. The Iraq invasion was justified by the same use of fraudulent evidence as was displayed in Kosovo.

On balance, I believe that I was right to oppose the Kosovo war. It was a regressive answer to a genuine international problem: how to hold together multi-ethnic, multi-religious states in a reasonably civilised way. Since 1999, Kosovans have rejected Serbian offers of autonomy, because they were confident of American support for independence.

Western countries must consider more seriously how far they should press their human rights agenda on states with both the power and the will to defend their territorial integrity. Under American leadership, it is the west that has emerged as the restless, disturbing force in international affairs. China should certainly grant Tibet more autonomy; but is pumping up the Dalai Lama into a world leader or threatening to boycott the Beijing Olympics the best way to secure a better deal for Tibetans, or to obtain Chinese cooperation on matters that are far more important than Tibet's status?

Activists, impassioned by the justice of their cause, will not consider these questions. But world leaders should take them seriously.

]]> Our 'friends' in Kosovo http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=3&leader=0&sp=503

In 1999, the U.S., in collusion with its NATO allies, attacked the sovereign nation of Serbia, which posed no threat to America or Europe.

The excuse for the bombing campaign that killed thousands of innocent Serbs and destroyed civilian infrastructure was that Serbs were responsible for human rights abuses in its own province of Kosovo and that the government was responsible for backing a campaign of "genocide" against ethnic Albanians there.

It was all a lie, of course.

Serbia posed no threat to the United States whatsoever. Serbia had no weapons of mass destruction. Serbia did not support international terrorism. Serbia had no ill intentions toward the U.S.

It turns out that as few as 2,108 people were actually killed in Kosovo over a period of months leading up to and including the period of heavy bombardment of Serbia by NATO forces.

This is hardly "genocide," as it was billed by Clinton, Defense Secretary William Cohen, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., former Sen. Bob Dole and David Scheffer, U.S. ambassador for war crimes.

By whipping up hysteria for an illegal bombing campaign, all of these men have blood on their hands.

It wasn't hundreds of thousands of dead in Kosovo, as some reports suggested. It wasn't even tens of thousands. It was, at worst, a couple thousand over a considerable period of time. That, of course, is still a dreadful and grisly toll. But, to put it in perspective, no global authority – not the United Nations, nor NATO – ever advocates intervention in the United States or anywhere else when the annual murder toll hits 2,000, which it does early in the first half of every year.

Think of the hyperbole we heard prior to the bombing campaign:

  • "By the time the snows fall next winter, there will be genocide documented on a large scale in Kosovo," said Biden.
  • "History will judge us harshly if we do not take action to stop this rolling genocide," said Hagel.
  • "What we have in Kosovo and what (we) had in Bosnia was genocide, and that's why I think we should intervene," said Dole.
  • "There are indications genocide is unfolding in Kosovo," said State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin.
  • Cohen characterized the bombing campaign as a "fight for justice over genocide."
  • Scheffer said Kosovo was one of the top three genocides since 1950, rivaled only by Rwanda and Cambodia.

But no one laid it on as thick as Clinton. He compared the atrocities in Kosovo to the Holocaust. Kosovo, he said, "is not war in the traditional sense. Imagine what would happen if we and our allies instead decided just to look the other way as these people were massacred on NATO's doorstep."

Nine years later, the true nature of our "friends" in Kosovo is becoming clear.

While the U.S. and NATO were pretending the bloodshed was all one-sided – conducted exclusively by Serbs – a new book reveals some of the hideous, provocative human rights abuses being conducted by the so-called "good guys," the supposed "victims" of genocide.

Investigators for the Hague tribunal for war crimes in the Balkans found a house where living Serb prisoners had their internal organs removed and sold by the ethnic Albanians. The money raised in this grisly trade supported the Kosovo Liberation Army, a Muslim band of terrorists allied with al-Qaida.

Today, the U.S. and much of Europe is supported the creation of an independent, breakaway, autonomous state of Kosovo, presided over by Hashim Thaci, a prominent leader of the KLA.

The allegations are hardly frivolous. They are made in "The Hunt: Me and War Criminals" by Carla Del Ponte, who stepped down earlier this year as chief prosecutor of the tribunal.

According to her sources, hundreds of young Serbs were taken by truck from Kosovo to northern Albania where their organs were removed. Some prisoners were sewn up after having their kidneys removed. They were then locked up again, inside barracks, until the moment they were killed for other vital organs. Other prisoners, aware of the fate that awaited them, pleaded in abject terror to be killed immediately.

The people who committed these crimes were backed up militarily by the U.S. Air Force, by NATO forces, with your tax dollars under the direction and leadership of President Bill Clinton.

How does that make you feel?

]]> Serbian Minister: No Kosovo Partition, No Separating Any Part of Our Country, However Small http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=9&leader=0&sp=502
Recognition of Kosovos Independence Lags Behind Western Sahara and Palestine
United Nations Role in Quandary: Whos in Charge?
NATO Blitzkrieg Solution Planned?
Albanian Terrorists Sale of Organs Torn from Living Serbian Prisoners
Editorial Comment from the American Council for Kosovo We apologize for the foregoing avalanche of headlines. But the rush of items needing urgent attention continues to grow, both in volume and in the number of interrelated topics all with one bottom line: the train wreck caused by Washingtons forcible and illegal attempt to separate the province of Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia is getting worse by the day. Not only are the destabilizing consequences continuing to reverberate across the globe despite the State Departments breezy assurance that Kosovo is not a precedent (evidently someone forgot to tell separatist groups all around the world explicitly citing Kosovo as justification for changing borders by violence and foreign intervention), the notion that an independent Kosovo magically has come into being just doesnt pass the laugh test.
Lets look at the math. On February 17, the criminal and terrorist leadership of the UN-supervised Albanian Muslim administration in Kosovo declared the provinces independence from Serbia. Both the terrorists and their foreign cheerleaders smugly predicted rapid recognition by 100 countries. In particular, Americas European allies were subjected to merciless arm-twisting with the assurance that if the U.S. and Europe presented a united front, Serbia (and Russia, whose veto in the Security Council was being circumvented) would have no choice but to accept Kosovos loss. But not only did Serbia refuse to give in, the predicted international support has not materialized. To date (April 16), only 36 out of 192 member states of the United Nations have extended recognition. Thats under 19 percent.
How does that stack up against other putative states? The former colony of Spanish Sahara, now styling itself the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (also known as Western Sahara), is recognized by somewhere between 43 and 47 countries. The exact number is uncertain because 30-odd countries have cancelled, suspended, or downgraded their ties, reducing Western Sahara from a high point of over 80 recognitions. Western Saharas experience is illustrative of another fact of international politics: countries can and do withdraw recognitions, when they believe it is in their interest to correct what they later decide was a mistake.

Meanwhile, a couple of dozen countries (not including the United States) formally accept the claim extended over Western Sahara by the Kingdom of Morocco, which took control of most of the former colonys territory after the Spanish withdrawal. It could be inferred that many other countries implicitly accept the Moroccan claim by withholding recognition of the aspiring independent Saharan state. Worthy of note is that due to Western Saharas membership in the African Union (AU), the Kingdom of Morocco is the only country on the continent that is not an AU member.
Another instructive example is the 1998 proclamation of a State of Palestine by the Palestine Liberation Organization, then in exile in Algiers. The State of Palestine, which never has had sovereign control over any territory, is recognized by about 100 countries -- more than half of the worlds total number -- and maintains embassies in most of them. Palestine also has a Permanent Observer Mission at the United Nations, the only non-sovereign entity to do so. So, does this mean there is a Palestinian state, and has been since 1988? Who knew?
The Saharan and Palestinian examples offer an interesting perspective on supposedly independent Kosovo. First, Kosovos number of recognitions lags behind both of the other highly dubious states, dramatically so compared to Palestine. Second, neither Western Saharas nor Palestines statehood claim involve separation from another state of which they were indisputably a part, as does Kosovos with respect to Serbia. Third, Polisario (the Algerian-supported guerrilla movement that proclaimed an independent Western Sahara) effectively controls at least some of the territory it claims, while even the part of Kosovo controlled by the Albanian Muslim regime remains under the tutelage of the UN, the EU, and NATO. Finally, some minimal level of international organization membership is held by Western Sahara (African Union) and the notional Palestinian state (Arab League, Organization of the Islamic Conference, and UN Observer), but Kosovo never will become a member of the Council of Europe, the EU, or the UN -- not even as an observer.
In short, for Kosovo its only a matter of time before the governments that were hoodwinked by the State Department into buying this dog decide they need to find a way out. With the feeble pace of recognitions slowed to a crawl, its only a matter of time before some countries pull back their recognitions, in fact if not yet in name.
Exposure of Kosovos bogus statehood claim goes hand-in-hand with Serbias increasingly effective presence in the Serbian enclaves in Kosovo, both north of the river Ibar in Northern Mitrovica and in the smaller pockets to the south. Those desperate to vindicate the Kosovo independence project recognize their efforts are doomed if the enclaves remain outside of the control of the administration of the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commanders and the illegally deployed European Union mission EULEX. No doubt partly for that reason, Serbias Minister for Kosovo, Dr. Slobodan Samardzic, proposed that Serbia and Serbs in Kosovo continue to work with the UN authority in the areas of the province where Serbs are concentrated.
If accepted, Dr. Samardzics proposal to the UN means the acknowledged authority of Security Council Resolution 1244, which was adopted at the end of the 1999 NATO war against Serbia and which affirms Serbias sovereignty in Kosovo, would remain in force despite the violations that have occurred to date. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stated that the UN will continue to exercise its mandate until a new Resolution to replace 1244 is adopted by the Security Council, which wont happen because of opposition from Russia, China, and most of the non-permanent members. The Samardzic proposal challenges the international community to abide by the principles it claims to uphold. Naturally, those hostile to Serbias sovereignty over Kosovo have tried to misrepresent what he had proposed. Wrote Dr. Samardzic:
Some observers have denounced our proposal as an attempt to partition Kosovo, or to have Serbs secede. Such accusations are knowing and malicious falsehoods. It is patently obvious to any fair-minded observer that we seek not partition or secession but maintaining the integrity of Resolution 1244 where possible (the areas where Serbs live) as opposed to the Albanian-dominated areas, where the U.N.'s authority under Resolution 1244 has been negated by the separatist declaration of Feb. 17, the illegal deployment of EULEX, and null and void foreign recognitions. Any suggestion of partitioning Kosovo which would be a partition within a partition of Serbia's sovereign territory contradicts every argument Serbia has made. We consistently have rejected any attempt by any party to impose an illegal and forcible separation of any part of our country, however small. Serbia will never accept an independent Kosovo, in whatever portion of the province it may consist. One must wonder if the real agenda of those talking about partition of Kosovo and then blaming it on the Serbs is further Balkanization in other regions of the world.
It remains to be seen whether the UN will take Serbia up on its proposal. However, if it is refused, or if UN authorities on the ground begin a stealth transfer of competencies to the Albanians and EULEX, Serbia would have no choice but to reassume direct administration of the enclaves. Such an action, which would be peaceful because it reflects the wishes of the Serbian areas where the KLA administration and EULEX currently have no presence, would be another nail in the coffin of the bogus, nonviable terrorist statelet.
It is no wonder, then, that ominous noises have been made about a possible NATO blitzkrieg to impose the authority of the KLA criminals in Serbian-inhabited areas -- and present their residents with the choice of submission, flight, or death. Most Americans would find it hard to believe our government would insist on such an option, but given the sheer illegality that has formed the basis of the State Departments policy toward Kosovo, no enormity can be considered beyond the bounds of credibility. The more problematic aspect is mechanical. First, with our worldwide commitments, notably in Iraq and in Afghanistan, it is doubtful the United States has the manpower -- oops, personpower -- to undertake such a task. Second, with so many of our European allies feeling burned over going along with U.S. demands of recognition, would they allow themselves to be browbeaten into starting a new Balkan war? For that matter, Washington is having little success in getting our allies to pony up troops for the NATO operation in Afghanistan. Hopefully someone at the Pentagon, if presented with expending U.S. political capital to get European help either to defeat a resurgent Talibanistan or to midwife a stillborn Kosovastan, would know which is the right choice.
Clearly, theres no moral inhibition on the KLA side. Nothing better illustrates that point than the horrible accounts in the recently published book by former war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte that Serbian prisoners of the KLA were held in special camps where their organs were removed and sold on the European black market. As described in the book:

These [i.e., Serbian] prisoners were initially held in sheds and other structures in Kukes and Tropoje [in northeastern Albania, near Kosovo]. According to the journalists' sources, who were only identified as Kosovo Albanians, some of the younger and fitter prisoners were visited by doctors and were never hit. They were transferred to other detention camps in Burrel and the neighbouring area, one of which was a barracks behind a yellow house 20 km behind the town. One room inside this yellow house, the journalists said, was kitted out as a makeshift operating theatre, and it was here that surgeons transplanted the organs of prisoners. These organs, according to the sources, were then sent to Rinas airport, Tirana, to be sent to surgical clinics abroad to be transplanted to paying patients. One of the informers had personally carried out a shipment to the airport. The victims, deprived of a kidney, were then locked up again, inside the barracks, until the moment they were killed for other vital organs. In this way, the other prisoners in the barracks were aware of the fate that awaited them, and according to the source, pleaded, terrified to be killed immediately. Among the prisoners who were taken to these barracks were women from Kosovo, Albania, Russia and other Slavic countries. Two of the source said that they helped to bury the corpses of the dead around the yellow house and in a neighbouring cemetery. According to the sources, the organ smuggling was carried out with the knowledge and active involvement of middle and high ranking involvement from the KLA.
No more damning commentary could be made on Americas clients in Kosovo. The question now is whether the State Department will heap further dishonor on our country by bringing American force to bear on behalf of people who have perpetrated such acts, or whether we will pull back our support and allow the misbegotten KLA project to grind down to its ignominious and foredoomed conclusion.
James George Jatras, Director
American Council for Kosovo

]]> Serb prisoners 'were stripped of their organs in Kosovo war' http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=3&leader=0&sp=501

Serb prisoners had their internal organs removed and sold by ethnic Albanians during the Kosovo war, according to allegations in a new book by the world's best known war crimes prosecutor.

  • Harry de Quetteville: Snippets from Carla Del Ponte's book

    Carla Del Ponte, who stepped down in January as chief prosecutor at the Hague tribunal for crimes committed in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, said investigators found a house suspected of being a laboratory for the illegal trade.

    Carla Del Ponte
    Carla Del Ponte: allegation

    A senior adviser to Hashim Thaci, Kosovo's prime minister and a leading member of the Kosovo Liberation Army which is accused of benefiting from the trade, yesterday denied the allegations.

    "These are horrible things even to imagine," said Bekim Collaku. "But this is a product of her [Miss Del Ponte's] imagination."

    Miss Del Ponte reports that the allegations were made by several sources, one of whom "personally made an organ delivery" to an Albanian airport for transport abroad, and "confirmed information directly gathered by the tribunal".

    According to the sources, senior figures in the Kosovo Liberation Army were aware of the scheme, in which hundreds of young Serbs were allegedly taken by truck from Kosovo to northern Albania where their organs were removed. Miss Del Ponte provides grim details of the alleged organ harvesting, and of how some prisoners were sewn up after having kidneys removed.

    "The victims, deprived of a kidney, were then locked up again, inside the barracks, until the moment they were killed for other vital organs. In this way, the other prisoners were aware of the fate that awaited them, and according to the source, pleaded, terrified, to be killed immediately," Miss Del Ponte writes.

    The claims in The Hunt: Me and War Criminals have renewed tensions between Serbia and its former province of Kosovo, which declared independence two months ago. In it, the Swiss ex-prosecutor reveals how her efforts to bring alleged war criminals to justice were stymied by lack of co-operation from all sides - Serb, Albanian and even Nato. But it is her report of the organ traffic that has caused most shock, even in a region long hardened to horror.

    Vladan Batic, Serbia's former justice minister, said: "If her allegations are true, then this is the most monstrous crime since the times of Mengele, and it must be made a priority, not only of the domestic judiciary but also of the Hague Tribunal." The book reports a visit by Hague tribunal investigators to a house south of the Albanian town of Burrel where they found traces of blood across a wide area, as well as medical equipment.

    "The investigators found pieces of gauze, a used syringe and two plastic IV bags encrusted with mud and empty bottles of medicine, some of which was of a muscle relaxant often used in surgical operations," she writes. However, she concludes that the finds do not amount to sufficient proof for a war crimes tribunal. In Belgrade, the Serbian capital, an association of families of Serbs still listed as missing since the Kosovo war, said it would sue Miss Del Ponte, alleging that she had failed to act over the alleged organ-farming scandal. Serbia's war crimes office announced it had opened its own investigation.

    The book has also prompted concern in Switzerland, where it has been criticised for tarnishing the country's celebrated neutrality, particularly as Miss Del Ponte has been named as the Swiss ambassador to Argentina.

    In Belgrade, Natasha Kandic, the highly respected head of the investigative Humanitarian Law Centre, said ordinary Serbs "welcome the publication of this book" but said allegations of organ-smuggling were "rumours". "I talked to her many times, she never told me about this," said Miss Kandic.

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