Serbia shocked by video showing Srebrenica shootings

They are the images that have finally, 10 years later, shocked a nation. A man, several men, are unloaded from a truck, marched to a wooded hillside and shot, one by one, in the back. Two prisoners are ordered to carry the bodies to a barn. They too are then executed. The murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica in the summer of 1995 is well documented. But a video that emerged this week during the trial of the former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, has provoked a bout of soul-searching in Serbia, parts of which are still in denial over the horrors of the Bosnian war.

The footage was the first such graphic material from the massacre in Srebrenica to be shown in the country, where more than half of the population refuses to believe it even took place, according to a poll last month. "Serbia is deeply shocked," President Boris Tadic said. "Those images are proof of a monstrous crime committed against persons of a different religion. And the guilty had walked as free men until now."

Eight alleged former members of a Serb paramilitary group, the Scorpions, filmed actually carrying out the murders, have been arrested on the strength of the footage, officials said yesterday.

The faces of the perpetrators can be seen and their insults to the Muslims heard. The film was shot by a member of the Scorpions.

"The killers had walked freely among us, on our streets, behaving as if they were ordinary, honorable citizens," Mr Tadic said. "All those who committed war crimes must be held accountable; only in this way will we be able to have a future. We must not close our eyes to the cruelty that took place."

He added that the crimes at Srebrenica "were carried out in the name of our nation".

"But crimes are always individual and the perpetrators of these monstrous crimes must be punished."

Srebrenica was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995, with UN peacekeepers powerless to stop their advance. Some 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were led away to their deaths, survivors telling of how they were lined up and shot in several batches, then buried in mass graves.

UN prosecutors say the killings in the video footage took place on Mount Treskavica near the wartime Bosnian Serb capital, Pale, which is south-west of Srebrenica. The Scorpions were allegedly under orders from Serbian police in Belgrade and the link could directly tie Mr Milosevic with the crimes committed in Bosnia.

"Just wrong - the Serbs not only won the civilian bodycount sweepstakes in all their lost wars, but courtesy of their campaign against Croat Catholic churches, they won the title for Church destructions, and debased any subsequent claims as to their being "Christian" victims.

Seriously Cicero, who do you think you're going to fool with your revisionist garbage, other than fools?"

**** you forget, I was in Kosovo from 99-2004. Even as of this month, Albania extremist have been murdering Serbs.....starting in 99 all the way to 2004. Even the bus attack with the 250 pound bomb under the road.

Florim Ejupi was the criminal who did it, found by the Germans, after a cigarette but was found at his look out point.....they traced his DNA and proved that he was the one....The Brits arrested him and turned him over to Bondsteel..where he escaped with "wire cutters"...He was a member of SHIK, and SHIK was very close to CIA operations. This is a fact.....

A BUS WITH SERB CIVILIANS BLOWN UP BY ALBANIAN TERRORISTS
February 17, 2001 Ten Serb civilians (including a child) have died and 40 wounded

LATEST DISCOVERIES BY WASHINGTON POST AND THE SUNDAY TIMES, July 29 2001

The man against whom police had developed the best case, Florim Ejupi, escaped in May from a U.S. military prison in Kosovo, using a wire cutter allegedly passed to him in a spinach pie baked by his family. And charges against the three other suspects will be dropped if new evidence is not produced within the next month, U.N. officials say. A three-judge international panel has already called for their release on grounds of insufficient evidence.
Ties to Organized Crime Alleged
Officials say the bus case underlines one of the fundamental problems of building a stable, law-abiding society in Kosovo: frequent criminal activity by members of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC). The group, made up of former fighters in the Kosovo Liberation Army, is officially a civil emergency service, but is widely seen among people here as the nucleus for the future army of an independent Kosovo.

According to classified NATO reports, informers claim that KPC members not only attack Serbs but are also involved in illegal trade in prostitutes, cigarettes, fuel, weapons and appliances. "Many KPC members, in some cases high-ranking KPC officials, have ties with criminal organizations," said one classified NATO report prepared late last year.

The informants have alleged that commanders in the 5,000-member KPC have profited personally, for example, by forcibly seizing vacant apartments and reselling them or by extorting money from private companies, according to Western intelligence officials.

Muharrem Mahmutaj, a spokesman for the KPC, said the group was unaware of wrongdoing but welcomed investigation. He noted, moreover, that the KPC itself "is not being accused."

The United States has become the protection corps' most important foreign patron, providing at least $13 million in State Department and Pentagon aid in the past two years, covering more than a third of the group's total expenses. In May, when three officials of the KPC were arrested on charges of killing another KPC official -- who was allegedly cooperating with NATO to fight corruption -- the U.S. mission in Kosovo released a statement saying that "these arrests do not in any way reflect badly on the KPC and its important role in Kosovo."

NATO forces, including helicopters, were mobilized to arrest Lushtaku after a witness came forward, but at the last moment the arrest was halted at the insistence of high-ranking U.N. and NATO officials, according to three sources with knowledge of the incident.

Jock Covey, a U.S. diplomat serving as deputy head of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, was instrumental in blocking Lushtaku's arrest on at least two occasions, the sources said. He told colleagues that if Lushtaku, who is popular in Kosovo, were jailed, it could destabilize the province on the eve of municipal elections and bolster hard-liners in Serbian parliamentary elections in December. Covey, who has left the United Nations for private industry, declined to comment.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe cited the example in a report last month -- without identifying Lushtaku -- alleging "unequal treatment" of those accused of criminal activity.

Karphammar, the former U.N. judge, said NATO and U.N. officials also intervened in February 2000 to force the release of more than a dozen former members of the rebel army, including a man who was wanted by Interpol. The ethnic Albanians had been detained by French forces for organizing a riot in the northern city of Mitrovica. But French intelligence officers refused to give a local court information they collected in interviews. All the suspects were released "before the real court investigation started, because of a threat by rebel leaders that if they were not released, KFOR soldiers would come under threat," Karphammar said.

Tensions between police and NATO often surface in criminal investigations, sources say. Several police officers have reported being shooed away from crime scenes by NATO intelligence officers who insist on conducting the first interviews with key witnesses and then withhold the results.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/total_coverage/kosovo/ceku.html

http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/sept01/hed4073a.shtml

Agim Ceku, an Albanian Kosovar by birth, began his military career as an officer in the former federal Yugoslavian Army (JNA). When the initial Yugoslav break-up occurred in 1991, Ceku was quick to switch his loyalty to the Croatian cause of independence. As a colonel in the Croatian army, Ceku commanded the notorious 1993 operation now known as the Medak Pocket.

It was here that the men of the Second Battalion Princess Patricia´s Canadian Light Infantry came face to face with the vulgar savagery of which Ceku was capable. Over 200 Serbian inhabitants of the Medak Pocket were slaughtered in a grotesque manner (female rape victims were found after being burned alive). Our traumatized troops that buried the grisly remains were encouraged to collect evidence.

Nevertheless in 1995, Ceku, by then a general of artillery, was still at large. In fact, he was the officer responsible for shelling the Serbian refugee columns and for targeting the UN "safe" city of Knin during the Croatian offensive known as Operation Storm.

Just a few months after the Storm atrocities, Canada´s own Louise Arbour began making a name for herself as the chief prosecutor for The Hague tribunal. Despite the Canadian connection to these alleged crimes, Arbour and her lawyers chose instead to pursue more "politically prominent" individuals and seemingly little was done to bring Ceku to justice.

Fast forward to January 1999 and the world´s attention begins to focus on a war ravaged Kosovo. With the blessing of the U.S. State Department, Agim Ceku took his retirement (at age 37) from the Croatian army and was pronounced Supreme Commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK).

Throughout the air campaign against Yugoslavia, Ceku was portrayed as a loyal ally and he was frequently present at the NATO briefings with top generals such as Wesley Clark and Michael Jackson.

Under terms of the Kosovo peace deal, Ceku´s Albanian guerrillas were to be disarmed and re-constituted into a UN sponsored, (non-military) disaster relief organization known as the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC). ButCeku´s UCK never gave up their guns - nor their quest for a Greater Albania.

Although he is nominally maintaining an ´arms-length´ posture towards his former comrades, Agim Ceku is still worshipped as a saviour by both the UCK troops and Albanian-minority in Macedonia.

As this indicted war criminal continues to enjoy his freedom, bask in public attention, and collect a UN paycheque, our Canadian soldiers are risking their lives to disarm his UCK in Macedonia.

All in the name of peace and justice.

http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/july00/hed292.shtml

The man chosen to head the KPC is well-known to Washington: Gen. Agim Ceku, former military Chief of Staff of the KLA. Ceku refined his brutality as a general in the US-backed Croatian Army during the Balkans war and was trained by Military Professional Resources Inc., a private paramilitary firm founded in 1987 and based in Alexandria, Virginia, with former high-ranking US generals and NATO officials on its board [see Ken Silverstein, "Privatizing War," July 28/August 4, 1997].

In 1995, armed with a contract authorized by the Clinton Administration, MPRI officially began to train Croatian forces.

Just months after MPRI arrived on the scene, Croatian forces carried out the notorious Operation Storm. In a brutal four-day blitzkrieg in 1995, these forces expelled some 200,000 Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia after their villages were mercilessly shelled.

Jane’s Defence Weekly reported that Ceku was "one of the key planners" of the operation that the New York Times called "the largest single ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the war."

The criminal tribunal has been investigating Operation Storm for years. The Sunday Times of London recently reported that Ceku is also suspected by the tribunal of war crimes committed during raids he led in the south of Croatia in September 1993, when he was commanding the feared 9th Brigade. Spokeswoman Manuel says the UN is "aware" of Ceku’s history and the accusations against him but placed him at the head of the KPC "because he was the leader of the KLA when we arrived, and he wanted to contribute to the transformation of the KLA to a constructive force for the future of Kosovo."

Washington, maneuvering to reward the KLA in the "new" Kosovo, has sacrificed human tights and ethnic tolerance to a desire to maintain a close relationship with the forces it hopes to do business with for years to come.

In legitimizing Agim Ceku and thousands of other KLA members by putting them in positions of authority, Washington is giving ethnic cleansing a green light. Not criminally charging KPC members sends a clear message to those in and outside the KPC that crimes may continue with impunity. It’s not surprising that some of the worst brutality against Serbs has occurred in the US sector of Kosovo.

The only way the UN can begin to have credibility with minorities, particularly Serbs, is to remove Ceku from any position of authority within Kosovo and to dismantle the KLA, both in name and force. KPC members who commit crimes should be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned, not just fired or internally disciplined. The United States should immediately cut all funding of the KPC until it is verified that it is no longer engaged in murder, torture, kidnapping and other atrocities.

since there are crickets, let's make some noise....

Circa 1998:

There's a military insurrection that is taking shape, backed by the members of the Albania Diaspora in Germany, Switzerland, and right here in New York City, where a lot of Albanians and Albanian-Americans are sending a lot of money and support to Kosovo. (Gosh - NYC? -SG)

Holbrooke: An independent Kosovo would "unravel Southeastern Europe."

and......

One Year Later Diplomacy and Tracking Terrorists
With The Hon Richard C. Holbrooke
Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2002; Noon ET
Shortly after the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September, military leaders, diplomats and policy experts began debating the U.S.'s course of action. How should we answer the attacks? Should we send in troops? How do we find an elusive enemy?
The Hon. Richard C. Holbrooke, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, was one of the first U.S. experts and the first of the diplomatic community, to discuss not only terrorists as a threat to U.S. security, but also the threats posed by the states who sponsor them. Holbrooke was online Tuesday, Sept. 10, to discuss the ongoing war on terrorism, impending U.S. involvement in Iraq and our strategy for dealing with nations where terrorists operate.
Holbrooke served as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. from 1999-2001. During the Clinton administration, Holbrooke was assistant secretary of State for Europe (1994-1996) and was the chief architect of the 1995 Dayton peace agreement that ended the war in Bosnia. He later served as President Clinton's special envoy to Bosnia and Kosovo and special envoy to Cyprus, and served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany from 1993-1994. During the Carter administration (1977-1981), he served as the assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and was in charge of U.S. relations with China at the time Sino-American relations were normalized in December, 1978. Holbrooke joined the foreign service in 1962, working in Vietnam, the State Department, the Johnson White House and as a Peace Corps director in Morocco. Holbrooke has written extensively about foreign policy, serving as managing editor of Foreign Policy and writing numerous articles and two books: "To End a War," a memoir of the Dayton negotiations, and co-author of "Counsel to the President," Clark Clifford's memoir, as well as one volume of The Pentagon Papers.
Holbrooke has received 18 honorary degrees and numerous awards; including six Nobel Peace Prize nominations. Currently in the private sector as vice chairman of Perseus, he serves on the boards and is active in many global organizations focusing on cultural and business exchange. He is a counselor at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
________________________________________

washingtonpost.com: Good afternoon, Ambassador Holbrooke, and welcome. Do you expect President Bush's address Thursday to the United Nations to effectively make a case for U.S. involvement with Iraq? Do you think that the administration's priority on coalition building for the war on terror is less for Iraq, given that the president has expressed a willingness to "go it alone" if necessary?
Richard C. Holbrooke: I do not have any inside information, of course, on what the president will say. However, we all recognize that this speech has taken on unusual importance because the international community has overwhelmingly stressed to Washington in recent days the importance of going through the UN Security Council in order to create a international consensus. So much rides on this speech. I hope that President Bush will acknowledge the importance of using the international system -- one created by Americans from FDR on -- to build support for the case against Saddam. Aside from the rhetoric, "going it alone" is not a realistic option, as any military leader will tell you.
________________________________________
San Francisco, Calif.: What should the U.S. government be doing to increase the stability of Afghanistan so that the Taliban would not gain power there again? Should there be something like a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan? What should be done about the warlords in Afghanistan who are resisting the pro-American government there?
Richard C. Holbrooke: The initial military success in Afghanistan -- which was predictable, and indeed I did predict it -- has not been followed up with the kind of aggressive peacekeeping and nation building effort that is required. I have already written about this issue in the Washington Post, as early as last November. Two critical errors were made, which I hope will be corrected quickly; it is not too late, although valuable time has been lost. The first mistake was to strengthen the local warlords -- most of whom are also druglords who supply much of the world's heroin -- and that decision has weakened the very central government, that of President Karzai, which Washington is trying to strengthen. I believe that we should warn the warlords that they are on very thin ice and act with greater firmness towards them. The second mistake was to limit the International Security Assistance Force to the city of Kabul and provide it with no American direct involvement. Thus Karzai's writ extends little further than downtown Kabul, as can been seen by the assassination attempt against him in Kandahar last week. Again, it is not too late to deal with these problems. Something similar is likely to face us, with vastly different circumstances in a post-Saddam Iraq.
________________________________________
washingtonpost.com: Op-Ed: After the Taliban (The Washington Post, Nov. 14, 2001)
________________________________________
New York, N.Y.: Why do you think the administration has reportedly dropped the references to alleged links between al Qaeda and Iraq?
Richard C. Holbrooke: I suspect that the reason is quite simple: they do not have "smoking gun" evidence linking Iraq and al-Qaeda, and they recognize that the case against Saddam must stand on its own merits -- that is, that he is the most dangerous leader in the world today. (Incidentally, that is my own view as well.)
________________________________________
Cumberland, Md.: As the number of nations who are members of the UN increase, don't you think that the UN has become a stumbling block to action? Also how do you view Kofi Annan in view of his frequent anti-U.S. position?
Richard C. Holbrooke: I could write a book on this subject, but I don't think many people would read it. Everyone seems to have their mind made up on the UN, but few people seem to know what it is. We are talking here only -- I repeat, only -- about the Security Council, a 15-nation body on which the United States sits as a permanent member with a veto. While the UN is a deeply flawed institution -- inefficient, cumbersome, and sometimes corrupted -- it remains indispensable as a part of effective American foreign policy. Notice that yesterday French President Chirac held open French support on Iraq if we got Security Council approval. As for Kofi Annan, he is not anti-American. Quite the contrary. I know him well and consider him a friend. As the Secretary General of the UN, he is obligated to act on behalf of all 190 nations (Switzerland is joining today), but most of the time he has functioned in a superb manner. While the United States will not agree with him all of the time, I believe he is the best Secretary General the UN has had in at least 40 years.
________________________________________
Washington, D.C.: I recently saw "Blackhawk Down." Do you think there is any merit to the notion that the Sept. 11 terrorists and their ilk felt empowered by the quick withdrawal of U.S. forces following the Mogadishu firefight?
Richard C. Holbrooke: Yes. This powerful and accurate movie, while it does not address the question you raise, does reflect the fact that after our 1993-94 withdrawal from Somalia our enemies in the world probably felt emboldened. When we began the bombing of Bosnia in 1995, followed by even more intense bombing during the 1999 Kosovo crisis, I think we reestablished America's willingness to act. But Somalia did real damage.
________________________________________
Del Rio, Tex.: Ambassador Holbrooke, what is your opinion on the purported split between those who believe Israel and Palestine should be on the road to peace before we get involved with Iraq, and those who believe the Israel-Palestine question is irrelevant to Iraq?
Richard C. Holbrooke: This is a complicated issue. Frankly, I have gone back and forth on it. My current thinking is as follows: If we believe that Iraq is a real and present danger, we must proceed to deal with it without a prior resolution of the Mideast problem. I say that because the chances of a solution, or even a viable and effective peace process, are so remote in the near term.
________________________________________
Cumberland, Md.: Where you aware of the KLA and Bosnian Muslims' ties to Osama bin Laden at the time you were negotiating with them?
Richard C. Holbrooke: Yes. In fact, we were so concerned about this issue that we wrote into the Dayton Peace Agreements a clause requiring the withdrawal of all "foreign elements" within a short time after the agreement took force. When we found elements that had remained behind, we launched raids against them. Not all of these people were removed, and the effort is still continuing. Without the peace in Bosnia, there is a real chance that bin Laden would have been able to set up in the Balkans what he did in Afghanistan with far greater danger to the West.
________________________________________
Washington, D.C.: You mentioned that you don't think the U.S. has done enough "nation-building" in Afghanistan. Why does this always fall on the U.S.? Don't our allies bear some of the responsibility for the rebuilding and ongoing safety of the post-Taliban Afghanistan?
Richard C. Holbrooke: I have never said that the US should carry the burden alone. In Bosnia and Kosovo the bulk of the peacekeepers and the overwhelming percentage of the foreign assistance comes from the Europeans. This is also true in Afghanistan where the peacekeeping force is currently lead by Turkey and most of the aid comes from Europe and Japan.
________________________________________
New York, N.Y.: As former U.S. Ambassador to Germany, you have significant experience dealing with Germany. Do you have any real concerns that Chancellor Schroeder's adamant views on Iraq will cause any harm to U.S.-German relations? Do you think that his very vocal, public stance on Iraq is helping to resolve the current crisis?
Richard C. Holbrooke: What is happening between Washington and Berlin right now should be viewed within the prism of the fact that the German election is 12 days away. I hope that, regardless of who wins, US-German relations will resume their historically close basis thereafter.
________________________________________
Arlington, Va.: The consensus among old hands such as yourself seems to be that we should not go into Iraq, and definitely without allies, but what part of that is the calculation that we can't do what we should have done in l991? That is, if we go in, that proves Bush I erred in not taking him out back then. Also, if Clinton was fixated on bin Laden, why didn't he do something? Thanks for your service.
Richard C. Holbrooke: I am not among those "old hands" who thinks we should not go into Iraq. I support the goal of regime change strongly, and I would support the administration if they go that route. My concern, expressed twice on the Washington Post op-ed page in the last three weeks, is that we can't do it alone, and the way to build support is through the UN Security Council. As for 1991, I believe that the failure to finish off Saddam was a serious mistake. Even within the Security Council resolutions, I believe this could have been undertaken. It would not have involved US troops in Baghdad, but rather a communication with the Iraqi general staff that they faced a choice between destruction on the ground and getting rid of Saddam.
________________________________________
washingtonpost.com: Op-Ed: Give Diplomacy More Time (The Washington Post, Sept. 7, 2002)
________________________________________
Arlington, Va.: It seems you have primarily served Democratic presidents. At the same time, there is an longstanding Washington guideline that "politics stops at the water's edge." How do you personally draw lines about when it is -- and is not -- appropriate to publicly second guess the president's foreign policy?
Richard C. Holbrooke: I began my government service as a career Foreign Service Officer and served presidents of both parties. I returned for service under Democratic presidents, but I have dealt on a friendly and supportive basis with political leaders on both sides of the aisle for years, and worked closely with the Republican leadership in the Congress during the Clinton years. That is the nature of fashioning a bi-partisan foreign policy in a partisan era. As for "publicly second guessing," what you call second-guessing is what other people would call debate in a democracy. I see nothing wrong with it. It is the strength of our system.
Thank you all for this fascinating exchange.
________________________________________
washingtonpost.com:
That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion.

© Copyright 2002 The Washington Post Company

JIM LEHRER: And they want an independent Kosovo ruled by Albanians, right?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Yes. And more. I met with several Albanian leaders in Kosovo who said their goal is an independent Kosovo, their goal is to recreate the Greater Albania that existed briefly during the 30's and 40's, which includes Albania, Kosovo, and part of Macedonia. That, I can tell you, Jim, would unravel Southeastern Europe and dramatically increase the chances of a general war. And that's why the situation is both not the same as Bosnia and why it's so dangerous.

I really need to stress this point so people do not misunderstand it. The Kosovo Albanians have been very badly treated for over a decade by the Serb minority in Kosovo. Their rights have been denied and the Yugoslav federal constitution was changed to reduce their powers. This was entirely wrong, and it led to the inevitable reaction which we're now seeing. At the same time, the violent solution which is being advocated by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, which is really not an army but a lot of different groups that are gradually forming an infrastructure of resistance, this approach is highly dangerous to stability in the region.

Sept. 10, 2002

Cumberland, Md.: Where you aware of the KLA and Bosnian Muslims' ties to Osama bin Laden at the time you were negotiating with them?

Richard C. Holbrooke: Yes. In fact, we were so concerned about this issue that we wrote into the Dayton Peace Agreements a clause requiring the withdrawal of all "foreign elements" within a short time after the agreement took force. When we found elements that had remained behind, we launched raids against them. Not all of these people were removed, and the effort is still continuing. Without the peace in Bosnia, there is a real chance that bin Laden would have been able to set up in the Balkans what he did in Afghanistan with far greater danger to the West.

http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/zforum/02/sp_nation_holbrooke091002.htm

Now--fast-forward Nov 8 2005:
Holbrooke, the architect of the 1995 Bosnian peace deal, who said that independence was the only way forward for Kosovo and its mainly Muslim Albanians.
"I cannot see any final status for Kosovo other than independence," said Holbrooke, who forged the Dayton Peace Accords that ended Bosnia's 1992-95 war.
"But at the same time ... this cannot be achieved without ironclad guarantees for the safety, security, and protection of the rights of the Serbs who live in Kosovo and the protection of their magnificent monuments," he said.

One Year Later:
Diplomacy and Tracking Terrorists
With The Hon. Richard C. Holbrooke
Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2002; Noon ET
Cumberland, Md.: Where you aware of the KLA and Bosnian Muslims' ties to Osama bin Laden at the time you were negotiating with them?
Richard C. Holbrooke: Yes. In fact, we were so concerned about this issue that we wrote into the Dayton Peace Agreements a clause requiring the withdrawal of all "foreign elements" within a short time after the agreement took force. When we found elements that had remained behind, we launched raids against them. Not all of these people were removed, and the effort is still continuing. Without the peace in Bosnia, there is a real chance that bin Laden would have been able to set up in the Balkans what he did in Afghanistan with far greater danger to the West.

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