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Ramush Haradinaj is the most senior ethnic Albanian indicted by the Hague tribunal Former Kosovan Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj is going back on trial at The Hague in its first-ever partial retrial for war crimes. He is due to re-appear before the UN War Crimes Tribunal after his 2008 acquittal was overturned on grounds of witness intimidation. The former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) fighter and two co-accused are being retried. It is the first partial retrial ordered by the UN War Crimes Tribunal. It follows an appeal by the prosecution against the acquittal in 2008 of Mr Haradinaj. The indictment...

BELGRADE -- Today marks the 16th anniversary since the beginning of Croatian army and police Operation Storm that led to the exodus of more than 200,000 Serbs from Croatia. Tadic and Krkobabic in attendance (Beta) Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Patriarch Irinej held a memorial service at St. Mark’s Church in downtown Belgrade for the victims of the 1995 military operation aimed against Serb areas of Croatia. The memorial service was attended by Serbian President Boris Tadic, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of refugee issues Jovan Krkobabic, and by other government officials. Representatives of more than 100 refugee and home clubs...

Zagreb/Belgrade 4 Aug. (AKI) - Croatia on Thursday celebrated the 16th anniversary of military operation “Storm” which crushed a Serb rebellion and sparked exodus of some 200,000 Serbs, while Serbia commemorated victims of what it calls the worst ethnic cleansing in Europe after World War Two. Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said operation “Storm” was a “brilliant military action” and a great victory which re-united the country. “The Day of Victory we celebrate in peace and freedom, taking our place in the European family of states and nations,” Kosor said. Serbiaian president Boris Tadic said the anniversary was a date...

Kosovo Serb orthodox priest conducts a religious service near the barricades in the village of Zupce near the town of Zubin Potok on August 1. Serbs vowed to press on with roadblocks and stop NATO's KFOR peacekeeping force from proceeding until Kosovo agrees not to station its police and customs officers at the sensitive border posts. Photo: Marko Djurica/Reuters ***** Paris NATO is sending several hundred German and Austrian troops to Kosovo to buttress peacekeeping forces there after border violence left a Kosovar policeman dead and inflamed tensions with Serbia. Fighting erupted after Kosovar special police units in armored cars...

The Kosovo Serbs in the north are defending the millennium old lands of their ancestors and the birthplace of Serbian Orthodox Christianity from the invasion of Hashim Thaci’s special police forces called ROSU to enforce a ban on imports from Serbia. These imports are a matter of elementary existence for the Kosovo Serbs, who have survived what Mary Walsh characterized as genocide on UN/NATO watch in her book Hiding Genocide in Kosovo: A Crime against God and Humanity.” She has also characterized Kosovo as the prison without walls. The Kosovo Serbs are also defending the UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution...

Aleksandra's Note: Today, July 17, 2011, marks the 65th anniversary of the death of General Dragoljub-Draza Mihailovich, Supreme Commander of the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland during WWII. Among the many honors of distinction that can be attributed to General Mihailovich is leader of the first organized and successful resistance to the Nazis in all of occupied Europe. The anniversary of a death can be marked in an infinite number of ways. On this day I've chosen to share the words of Mihailovich himself. It is my hope that those who aren't familiar with who General Mihailovich really was will...

Aleksandra's Note: Ironically, even though it was Great Britain who betrayed General Mihailovich in the Second World War, it was some of her officers, diplomats, and journalists who were fairest and most effective at pinning down and exposing the truth about what really happened in Yugoslavia during WWII and the British complicity in the consequences of what transpired during and after the war. A number of excellent and honest articles about the Mihailovich tragedy were published in independent British papers during and after his trial at the hands of Tito's Yugoslav communists in 1946. Of those, the following essay by...

It sure is a good thing we bombed those Serbs. And bought ourselves all that Bosnian and Albanian good will.

Dr. Archibald Rudolph Reiss Aleksandra's Note: Three proverbs capture the essential nature of how things work in the Balkans. They are: "History repeats itself", "The first casualty of war is truth", and "What's old is new again". The more one researches the history of the Balkans the more one becomes struck with just how relevant the past is to today's events. The unfortunate thing about this phenomenon is that those in power and the policymakers and the historians and journalists who evaluate what is going on presently never seem to pay attention to the fact that the same lies keep...

The government of Serbia have arrested Ratko Mladic who was the former Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army and some people are claiming that this will end the chapter of this brutal civil war. However, Srebrenica is complex because events did not happen because of one factor but were based on the cold reality of a complex civil war where innocents were killed on all sides. However, which Srebrenica is “real” and which is “unreal?” Srebrenica in all its complexity This topic is very complex and it is abundantly clear that the mass media is still playing a...

The government of Serbia have arrested Ratko Mladic who was the former Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army and some people are claiming that this will end the chapter of this brutal civil war. However, Srebrenica is complex because events did not happen because of one factor but were based on the cold reality of a complex civil war where innocents were killed on all sides. However, which Srebrenica is “real” and which is “unreal?” ——————————————– Srebrenica in all its complexity ——————————————– This topic is very complex and it is abundantly clear that the mass media is still...

"Real Heroes" 1942 "What Kind of Man is a Hero?"By George J. Hecht, President and Publisher "Real Heroes" Comics and Founder of "Parents Magazine""Does War make heroes? On first thought you say, 'Yes, of course, war makes heroes.' And in a way it is true. A great many famous men would never have been known as heroes if war had not brought them fame. But on the other hand, the uniform does not make the man. He has to have the stuff inside him, before he puts on that uniform....Most of the "Chetniks" in Mihailovich's growing army of guerrilla fighters...

The Krajina Chronicle By Srdja Trifkovic The Krajina Chronicle reviewed by Amb. James Bissett, Chairman of The Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies.Srdja Trifkovic is no stranger to Chronicles readers, many of whom have found his articles commenting on foreign affairs, with particular attention to the Balkans, to be insightful, penetrating, and written with authority. His latest book, The Krajina Chronicle, provides further confirmation of his extraordinary talent. The book is a history of the Serbian warrior-farmers who formed the first line of defense against Islamic invasions into the Habsburg Empire. It is a story of heroism and tragedy that...

A judgement handed down today by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicting two Croatian generals of responsibility for crimes against humanity is a strong victory for Croatia’s war victims, Amnesty International said. The ICTY convicted Ante Gotovina and sentenced him to 24 years. Mladen Markač was also convicted and sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment. A third general, Ivan Čermak, was acquitted. Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač were found guilty of having participated in a joint criminal enterprise during and after the military “Operation Storm,” carried out from August to November 1995 with the aim of forcibly...

The decision by Comedy Central, the television channel owned by MTV Networks, to censor an episode of “South Park” that alluded unflatteringly to Muhammad, and the terrifying case of Molly Norris, a cartoonist forced into hiding here in the United States for “insulting the Prophet,” are but two recent examples of how successfully the Muslims have instilled terror into the hearts of American unbelievers (as commanded by the Koran, 8:12). In Europe the situation is even worse, of course, and ranges from the ritual slaughter of Theo van Gogh in Holland and the terrorizing of the Muhammad cartoonist in Denmark...

In my December 2010 essay "Amorality of US Kosovo Policy: Friends with the Snake", I published reactions to the Council of Europe’s (CoE) 27-page report authored by the Swiss-Italian politician, senator and prosecuting lawyer Dick Marty. The report, which is the culmination of his two-year investigation, claimed that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) thugs headed by the current Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci, known as “the Snake”, abducted mostly Kosovo Serbs and also some Albanian so-called “collaborators,” transported them to northern Albania, murdered them, extracted their kidneys and other organs, and sold them on the black market. These macabre Nazi/Croatian...

Last Monday [March 21, 2011] marked the one-year anniversary of the death of Arthur “Jibby” Jibilian, the WWII O.S.S. radioman who risked his life in Operation Halyard to help rescue more than 500 U.S. pilots who were shot down over Yugoslavia. This was done with brave assistance from the Tuskegee Airmen. The operation was part of the largest WWII rescue from behind enemy lines, and since it couldn’t have happened without the Serbs, the story has been suppressed and remains largely unknown to Americans. Few people can boast Jibby’s patriotic credentials, yet when our fighting men and women were sent...

In the eyes of his family and friends, Arid Uka was a model youth... The young man, who was from Kosovo, helped his mother at home, cleaned floors, took out the trash and even gave her half his salary for the pilgrimage to Mecca. Mr. Uka, 21, was a devout Muslim who prayed five times a day, but also liked to play video games on a PlayStation and watch “The Simpsons” with his brothers, 27 and 12... But last Wednesday, that vision of normal life vanished, after Mr. Uka was arrested in connection with an attack on an American military...

Aleksandra's Note: As we enter the season of Christianity's greatest of holidays, it is appropriate to remember and honor one of the greatest sacrifices and triumphs in the name of Jesus Christ. Kosovo is once again in the news on a regular basis, and few have captured the essence of Christian Kosovo as beautifully, poignantly, and truthfully as Father Rodney Torbic of St. George Serbian Orthodox Church in Carmichaels, Pennsylvania. The following two tributes were recently published in the Serbian newspaper "Srbobran".Father Torbic, thank you for sharing your sentiments with us and for describing so perfectly what the Christian Serbs...

All the usual sympathies and buzz words begin re the Frankfurt shootings… Kosovo gunman’s father laments Germany killings PRISTINA - The father of the gunman who shot dead two US airmen on a US Army bus at Frankfurt airport said on Thursday…”I am still in shock; I can not believe what has happened,” Murat Uka told Reuters by phone from his home in Germany. “I am really, really sorry about what has happened. “I express my deep condolences,” said Uka, whose voice betrayed his emotion. … “The American people are the best friends of Albanians,” he said. One really has...