American Council for Kosovo - Meet the Muslim Albanian Leaders

Kosovo leader implicated in organ trafficking: report

STRASBOURG - Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was one of the key players in the traffic of organs of Serb prisoners after the 1998-99 conflict there, according to allegations in a draft Council of Europe report.

The report, by Swiss Council of Europe deputy Dick Marty, accuses Thaci and other senior commanders of the ethnic Albanian guerrilla group the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) of having set up the traffic.

The draft report was published on the Council of Europe website on Tuesday and will be considered by its legal affairs committee on Thursday.

In Pristina, the government of Thaci dismissed the report as fabrications designed to smear the country's leaders.

Marty wrote of substantial evidence that Serbians -- and some Albanian Kosovars -- had been secretly imprisoned by the KLA in northern Albania "and were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, before ultimately disappearing."

In the wake of the armed conflict, before international forces had time to re-establish law and order there, "organs were removed from some prisoners at a clinic in Albanian territory, near Fushe-Kruje..." he added.

Those organs were then "shipped out of Albania and sold to private overseas clinics as part of the international 'black market' of organ-trafficking for transplantation."

This was carried out by KLA leaders linked to organised crime, and "has continued, albeit in other forms, until today..." he wrote.

In this respect Marty cited an investigation by the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) into the Medicus clinic in Pristina.

EULEX said in October it had charged five people, including doctors and a former senior health ministry official, for trafficking in human organs, organised crime, unlawful medical activities and abusing official authority.

Marty specifically named Thaci, one of the KLA leaders during the conflict with Serb security forces in 1998-1999, in his report.

Thaci, he said, was "the boss" of the Drenica Group, a "small but inestimably powerful group of KLA personalities" who took control of organised crime in the region from at least 1998.

The diplomatic and political support the United States and other western powers gave him during the talks following the Kosovo conflict "bestowed upon Thaci, not least in his own mind, a sense of being 'untouchable'," he added.

"The signs of collusion between the criminal class and high political and institutional office bearers are too numerous and too serious to be ignored," wrote Marty.

Thaci also operated with the help not just of the Albanian government "but also from Albania?s secret services, and from the formidable Albanian mafia," wrote Marty.

The report's sources also implicated Thaci and his lieutenants in "assassinations, detentions, beatings and interrogations" in Kosovo and Albania between 1998 and 2000, he wrote.

Thaci's ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), which won the most votes in Sunday's general elections, denounced Marty's allegations as "fabrications" in a statement Tuesday.

The report's "goal was to disgrace KLA and its leaders," it added.

"It is based on groundless facts which are invented with a goal to harm Kosovo's image," it added.

It would "take all possible and necessary steps in order to confront Marty's fabrications, including legal and lawful ones," it warned.

Marty, a former prosecutor in Switzerland, will present his report to the Council's legal affairs committee in Paris on Thursday, when he will also hold a press conference on his findings.

If the legal affairs committee accepts his report, it will go before the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) -- of which Marty is a member -- in late January.

Claims of organ-trafficking in Kosovo first arose in the 2008 memoirs of former UN chief war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, prompting the Council of Europe investigation.

The conflict between Kosovo guerrillas and forces loyal to late Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic left around 13,000 people dead and ended by establishing the UN's administration over the territory.

Around 1,900 missing are still unaccounted for in connection with the conflict.

The draft report can be found at the Council of Europe's website: http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/APFeaturesManager/defaultArtSiteView.asp?ID=964.

Colombia deports ex-Kosovo PM sought for war crimes

COLOMBIA has expelled former Kosovo prime minister Agim Ceku, sought by Serbia for alleged war crimes, intelligence sources said.

The Administrative Department of Security - Colombia's intelligence service known as DAS - declined to detain Ceku because the crimes he is accused of took place prior to January 2005, when Colombia's current penal law took effect, the DAS said in a statement.

So Ceku was expelled on an Interpol request, the DAS statement added, without giving his destination.

Ceku, 48, arrived in Colombia last Sunday to attend an international meeting on disarmament and demobilisation which concluded Wednesday in the Caribbean port city of Cartagena.

Serbia accuses Ceku of crimes against humanity during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo when he was military chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army, made up of ethnic Albanian Kosovo guerrillas.

Who is Hashim �Snake� Thaci?

If we are to judge by individual reactions of countries that responded to Kosovo's declaration of independence, everybody has their own interests � but what is missing from global media reports dedicated to the precedents and separatism is terrorism, which was a constituent factor in creating the world's newest nation.

Great Serbia and Great Albania � two sides of the same coin

The fate of the independent Kosovo is closely tied to the person and work by Hashim Thaci, who joined the Albanian political migration in Switzerland in the early nineties, where he founded the 'National Movement for Kosovo', the Marxist-Leninist political party whose only aim was to unite all of the regions where Albanians lived into one country, which in reality is nothing else besides copying the politics of Milosevic's efforts to create the entity 'Greater Serbia' on the regions of the former Yugoslavia.

In 1993, Thaci became a member of the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army), who according to BBC soon resorted to 'the most successful guerrilla movement in modern times' and/or a terrorist organization that reveals to the world the 'direct connection between Al Qaeda and Albanians'. Parallel with the foundation of the 'rebel guerrillas', Thaci (war name 'Snake') founded and organized the Drenica Group that soon rose as the dominant and best known criminal organization of the west-Balkans. It concerned itself with (and still does) weapons smuggling, heroin, cocaine and cigarettes, automobile theft, prostitution and other profitable jobs that are common for mafia groups. 'Drenica' soon made connections with key organizations in Albania, the Czech Republic, and Macedonia, creating a large-scale criminal organization, which according to Can Karpat's report, was sealed with a marriage between Thaci's sister and Sejdij Bajrush, one of the most infamous leaders of the Albanian mafia.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter

The first terrorist act that was directly blamed on the current premier of independent Kosovo happened on May 25, 1993. This is when Thaci, together with Rafet Rama, Jakup Nuri, Sami Ljustku and Ilijaz Kadriju, attacked the Serbian police at the railway crossing 'Glogovac', about which the respected Jane's Information Group reports. During the attack, two police officers were killed, and another five were injured.

In July 1997, the court in Pristina sentenced Thaci (in absence) to ten years in prison, because of which he, a members of the Drenica group hid in the forests. The legal prosecution of him was stopped in 1999 when Hashim was recognized as the political leader of the KLA.

Judging by newspaper reports, Thaci was not only unforgiving towards Kosovo Serbs, but towards mainstream Albanians as well. In June 1999, the New York Times published an article that accuses Hashim and two of his supporters for the murder of somebody that opposed Albanian nationalism. The author of the article Chris Hedges, at the time, interviewed Rifat Haxhijaj who lived with Thaci in Switzerland, who stated: 'When the war started (against the Serbian authorities), everybody wanted to be the boss. To get an idea of the kind of battle we are talking about, we only have to mention the murder of the Albanian reporter Alij Uka, a man that showed patriotism when Albanian nationalism/separatism is concerned. However, at the same time, he was a very harsh criticiser of people that were at the head of separatist currents. Uka was killed in his apartment in Tirana, and according to the words of former KLA members, that act was committed by his roommate at the time � Hashim Thaci, in cooperation with the secret police that Albania happily placed 'at the disposal of the rebel leaders'. The allegations were rejected by Thaci's representative in Switzerland, Jasha Salih who said:

- These reports are incorrect. Neither Mr Thaci, nor anyone else in the KLA were not involved in these activities. Our only aim is independent Kosovo.

On the other hand there are the statements by Bujar Bukoshi, the former premier in Ibrahim Rogov's exiled cabinet, who said in Hashim's rise:

- Cadavers have never been an obstacle to Thaci's career.

The inconvenient truth about Albanian ethnic cleansing

The massacre in the village Racak was by far the bloodiest incident that served as a prelude to 'Kosovo's war'. An alleged murder is in question, with 45 Albanian civilians whose death was presented to the West as the Serbian revenge for the actions taken by the KLA against Serbian security forces. 'Yugoslavia' then dropped all allegations, claiming that its forces were not responsible for the crime. However the same coalition led by the USA that recognized Kosovo have not backed away from their allegations, so the crime will remain on the conscience of the Serbs.

To make the historical line even more interesting, Thaci himself shocked the press, and then radio Voice of Russia � who first published Hashim's confession in March 2000. Hashim admitted that the KLA purposely demonised Serbia through its operations, provoking the military intervention of the West.

The Voice of Russia then cited Thaci who talked about a public secret, admitting that the KLA killed four police officers in the village Racak, with the intent of provoking action from the Serbian special forces. The Serbs did react, and the media immediately characterized it as a Serbian massacre of Albanian villagers, which was denied by Thaci himself, explaining that the bodies of KLA members were later found, which was later additionally analysed in great detail by the media.

Thaci talked about the idea of 'Greater Albania' until 1998, when Albania met with the 'pyramid scheme' which led to mass looting, which together with the war, homogenized the population in Kosovo. This caused Hashim to change to rhetoric, and start talking about the idea of independence for the region.

From a wanted terrorist to a loved premier

The KLA was on the list of the 100 most wanted and dangerous terrorist organizations in the world until 1998, when the US administration together with Bill Clinton, changed course and decided to support the 'guerrillas', by inaugurating Thaci as the 'spokesperson' for Albanian interests in Kosovo.

This course was followed by George W. Bush, despite the link between the KLA and Al Qaeda that is well known to the intelligence community.

Thaci and his party reject all of these allegations.

Secretary Rices Irresponsible Kosovo Remarks Undermine U.S. Security

During a recent visit to Portugal, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that were committed to an independent Kosovo and we will get there one way or another.

In the current delicate political juncture, when key international players (including UN Security Council members and EU nations ) involved in helping determine a fair resolution to the Kosovo issue have agreed that a new round of good-faith negotiations between the parties, with no fixed time limits or default solutions, is necessary to move forward from the current stalemate - the present statement amounts to a sabotage that mocks the process and dooms the outcome.

A similar - though less brazen - stance by the State Department at the outset of the 2006 Vienna status talks likewise wiped out any substantive negotiations between the parties and directly led to the current political impasse. With a continuing American responsibility for assisting a just resolution to this political conflict, its ability to act as honest and independent broker is virtually destroyed with such an irresponsible bias towards one particular solution.

Furthemore, the current insistence on this specific outcome compromises US foreign policy on multiple levels. Defying international law by pressing the dismembering of a state that has clearly committed to its territorial integrity is bound to open a Pandoras box of secessionist claims worldwide, resultant instability and sundry blowback of a kind historically poorly handled by the US. Moreover, the abandonment of the earlier sensible [human rights] standards before status policy for the province, in the face of naked threats of violence by a narco-mafia clique with reported Al-Qaeda ties, is certain to bode ill for both our ongoing efforts in the War on Terror and the perceived sincerity of our worldwide human rights agenda.

If there was any question about the effect of the Secretarys public comments, that was promptly removed when the provincial Prime Minister Agim Ceku stated he will call on the Assembly of Kosovo to have November 28th as the day when the province will unilaterally declare its independence. This plan (called Plan U for Unilateral Independence) was presented to the Kosovo Albanian delegation in advance of its trip to Washington DC this week, to meet with Secretary Rice.

This is sadly a very predictable outcome of a very irresponsible remark. We now have the Kosovo governmental institutions poised for a declaration of unilateral independence, an outcome feared by all other international factors, but with the explicit support of the United States. While the rest of the International Community is desperatly trying to figure out a sustanable solution and bring lasting peace to the region, the Secretary of State is presenting the United States foreign policy as one where terrorism is not only tolerated, but rewarded.

The Serbian Unity Congress strongly condemns such destructive statements, especially coming from a key player in the ongoing discussions on the future of this province. Furthermore, the Serbian Unity Congress calls on members of Congress and Senate to come out strongly against such acts, exerting their mandated oversight of the State Department, raise the level of scrutiny of the Administrations policy regarding Kosovo-Metohija, and its implications on US security and national interest.

Former Kosovo PM on trial for war crimes

Kosovo's leading politician and ex-prime minister went on trial on Monday at the United Nations tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 1998-1999 war for independence from Serbia.

Ramush Haradinaj and two other former guerrilla leaders under his command, also standing trial, are accused of organising the murder, rape, torture and intimidation of Serbs and other civilians seen as collaborators with the Serb-led regime in the mostly ethnic Albanian province.

Mr Haradinaj's trial in The Hague opens at a tense time, during the final phase of UN-brokered negotiations between the pro-independence Kosovo Albanian provisional government and Belgrade, where nearly all political parties refuse to agree to independence for Kosovo.

Mr Haradinaj, who resigned as prime minister upon his indictment in March 2005, has been instrumental in keeping the province calm until he returned to The Hague last week to stand trial. While on provisional release, he continued to advise the UN administration and UN officials are now worried about how to keep Kosovo stable in his absence.

Prosecutors seeking his conviction say the Kosovo Liberation Army's campaign in the Dukagjin area starting in March 1998 aimed to drive out the Serb population from local villages. A 78-day bombing campaign begun by Nato in March 1999 � spurred by Serb police and army atrocities against Kosovo Albanians � left the disputed province in the care of the UN pending an international decision about its future status.

The UN Security Council will next month consider the status plan prepared by Martti Ahtisaari, chief UN mediator, which would clear the way for Kosovo's declaration of independence while allowing several Serb municipalities to preserve their ties to Serbia .

Impatience with repeated delays, combined with fears that the plan gives too much power back to the Serbs, triggered violence last month between ethnic Albanian demonstrators and UN police in the provisional capital, Pristina.

The UN administration has opened an inquiry into the deaths of two protestors after Romanian riot police seconded to the Kosovo government headquarters opened fire with rubber bullets. UN and other international vehicles have been bombed.