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To: A. Pole
Tell me did KLA lose any fighers at all? Or were they all civilians?

Here's the indictment for Racak:

Paragraph 66.a. On or about 15 January 1999, in the early morning hours, the village of Racak (Stimlje/Shtime municipality) was attacked by forces of the FRY and Serbia. After shelling, the forces of the FRY and Serbia entered the village later in the morning and began conducting house-to-house searches. Villagers, who attempted to flee from the forces of the FRY and Serbia, were shot throughout the village. A group of approximately 25 men attempted to hide in a building, but were discovered by the forces of the FRY and Serbia. They were beaten and then were removed to a nearby hill, where they were shot and killed. Altogether, the forces of the FRY and Serbia killed approximately 45 Kosovo Albanians in and around Racak. (Those persons killed who are known by name are set forth in Schedule A, which is attached as an appendix to this indictment.)

Follow the link above and the names are listed at the bottom. Those are civilian noncombatants and killing noncombatants is murder--that is what the indictment addresses.

There were KLA in Racak also. Nine were killed and I believe one died later of wounds. Their names are not included in the above as they were combatants and legitimately killed as part of a pretty successful and well conducted operation by the Serb security forces the first thing that morning. The KLA commander, Shukri Buja, describes what happened here. (Scroll down to page 6297) Its a long read. The bodies of the KLA soldiers who were killed were evacuated that day and buried in the village of Mullopolc.

Their names were Kadri Syla, Skender Qarri, Ismail Luma, Enver Rashiti, Mehmet Mustafa, Sadik Mujota, Ali Beqa Nazim Kokollari, who was also known as Budakovc, and Skender Jashari. Those names are not included on the list of civlians in the indictment.

The Racak incident took place in three general phases. First was the early morning attack in which the KLA garrison on the edge of town was surprised and suffered 9 killed. They were legitimate battlefield casualties. Second was the house to house search through the village by Serb forces while other Serb elements continued to exchange fire with the KLA who had regrouped outside the village. During this time, about twenty Albanian villagers were killed at various spots in the village as they hid or tried to flee from the Serbs. Some were certainly murdered, but it is possible that others were either accidentally caught in a cross-fire or killed by Serbs who weren’t taking any chances in a combat situation. Finally, in the afternoon, a group of close to 30 Albanian men was separated from the women and children of the village and taken by guards up a hill outside the village where 25 of them were shot dead by the Serbs—an obvious case of mass murder. Numerous eyewitnesses saw and heard the Serbs take the murdered men away. Four men from the group escaped and reported what happened.

There's been a lot of commotion made about peripheral issues at Racak, but any fair-minded person who reads the accounts either in the ICTY transcripts or else as collected at the Human Rights Watch site can come to no other conclusion than that the Serbs committed mass murder. Now, when Slobo does his defense, perhaps he will present witnesses who saw the KLA shooting the civilians, etc. That would change everything, but so far there has been no hint of any such witnesses.

79 posted on 05/30/2004 2:50:02 PM PDT by mark502inf
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To: mark502inf
The indictment in itself does not prove anything. There are plenty of indictments which do not end in convictions, even at show trials like Reichstag Fire, Moscow in 1930s etc ... so the show trial in Hague has some chance not to fall below the Nazi and Commie examples.

Also look at the fact that the report by Finnish experts was delayed on demands coming from the Western sponsors of KLA as it contained some indication of a fraud(so the attcak on Serbia could go on).

Another interesting fact is that this "massacre" appeared gradually under the supervision of William Walker - "humanitarian" expert has curious background of being in Central America at the time of death squads epidemic.

80 posted on 05/30/2004 4:13:49 PM PDT by A. Pole ("Stating the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." George Orwell)
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