Posted on 03/08/2005 6:43:08 AM PST by Jane_N
PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Kosovo's ethnic Albanian prime minister has been charged with war crimes by the United Nations tribunal and will resign his post Tuesday to answer accusations in The Hague, a senior government source said.
Rumours that Ramush Haradinaj was about to be charged by Hague chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte had circulated since before he became prime minister last December, raising fears of violence if NATO peacekeepers were forced to arrest him.
"Yes, the Prime Minister has been informed he has an indictment," a senior official in the Kosovo government told Reuters. "We have to face it.
"He has informed the President (Ibrahim Rugova). He will resign today...and will fly to the Hague tomorrow."
A year ago, mobs of ethnic Albanians attacked Serb enclaves in the United Nations-run province in two days of rioting which left 19 people dead and hundreds of homes in ashes.
Haradinaj had made clear he would not defy the tribunal.
But peacekeepers were taking no chances. Germany flew in extra soldiers to bolster its peacekeeping contingent in the NATO-led KFOR mission, and Britain deployed an extra 500 troops Monday after an urgent request from NATO, a KFOR spokesman said.
The force currently numbers nearly 20,000.
The United Nations mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, Monday raised its security threat assessment to "black" in western Kosovo, ordering non-essential staff to stay off the streets.
HARD MAN TURNED POLITICIAN
Details of the indictment against Haradinaj have not been made public. The U.N. court has investigated him over his role in the 1998-99 guerrilla war against Serb forces and the alleged murder of Kosovo Serb civilians and Albanian "collaborators."
Haradinaj, 36, spent much of the 1990s as an economic migrant in France, Switzerland, Sweden and Finland, drifting between jobs as a construction worker and nightclub bouncer.
He returned to Kosovo in early 1998 to command the western wing of the Kosovo Liberation Army, helping to mount what was to become a full-scale insurgency against Serb oppression and earning a reputation for ruthlessness.
Two of Haradinaj's brothers were killed fighting Serb security forces and a third was found guilty of war crimes against Serbs in 2002.
Haradinaj's political party, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) was the smaller of two parties to emerge from the ranks of the KLA.
He entered Kosovo's first interim government in February 2002 in a coalition with former guerrilla commander Hashim Thaci and veteran pacifist president Rugova, who leads Kosovo's largest political party.
In October 2004 elections, his AAK won nine seats in Kosovo's 120-seat parliament. Haradinaj later announced an surprise coalition deal with President Rugova, becoming prime minister in December 2004 and confining Thaci to the opposition.
ma bell,
she can be an alien as far as I'm concerned. I got no problem with that.
I have problem with LIARS.
Jawohl.
You are really trying too hard.
And.. you're a liar.
hey, mr/s albanian. I'll be in Leposavic and Mitrovic in August, care to discuss it over coffee near the Ibar River bridge on the Serb side?
How dear of me?
Yes, I am very dear.
But only to those who know me.
Of course I know you're a liar.
You're trying way too hard for starters, secondly your 'poor typing' is too purposeful and deliberate.
And you sign up simply to flame people and claim to know more than everyone else.
Ja?
At least I'm not claiming to be something I am not.
Have a nice, short, stay in forum.
If you need an intepreter, I can arrange one for you, deal? Let's hash out the details as we can make a day of it with media, video recordings, travel escort to areas you claim so i can videotape it and interview witnesses. If you are proven right, I will come on here and make an announcement.
What an exchange, the tears are blinding.....
yes sir, my basic lingual skills said the same thing. Must have been the Srebrenica Squawk?
Probably.
And it tried to sign back up today.
Using the *cough* unique name of "F.A.R.R."
As if we wouldn't notice that.
The "Srebrenica Squawker" AKA Ronly Bonly bin Laden has returned as the Great Prophet Zarquon.
http://www.freerepublic.com/~greatprophetzarquon/
Same anti-Serb rantings, same Science fiction obsession, same arrogance combined with ignorance, same wrong facts...
He used to be a taxi-driver in Bosnia who made quite a bit of money driving the NATO officers to the local houses of ill-repute, although he was personally more familiar with the kind that employed boys instead of women.
Ah yes.
Wonder who "F.A.R./ F.A.R.R." was and why they felt they HAD to troll here?
The mad moon-rock cult is filled with mentally disturbed people. Their actions are unfathomable to rational men.
I did like how they thought that we'd be fooled by them adding another 'R' to the handle.
*chuckle*
Like kids trying to be slick and the parents watching them knowing all the while what's goingon.
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