US Links to Croatian War Crime?

SPIEGEL ^

[montyspython]

Former Croatian General Ante Gotovina stands accused of war crimes in connection with a 1995 military offensive. Some 150 civilians were killed in the advance. Now, it looks like he may have had help from the United States.

His trial may not get started before the end of 2006 or the spring of 2007, but already the case against former Croatian general Ante Gotovina promises some surprises. Gotovina, who is accused of being responsible for the murder of at least 150 Serbian civilians and the eviction of some 150,000 Serbs from the Krajina region in August 1995, may have had some American help.

[tgambill]

Saying that there are there and finding them are two different things.

The graves they dug up, in testimony, said that they had markers and flowers on them....

We can play later, I have some more things to do but will revisit this later.

[Hoplite]

What scenario is there to lay out?

You're lying about the non-existence of mass graves of Kosovar Albanians in Kosovo when even Milosevic's own witness confirms their existence.

You don't have any wriggle room here, Tom - you're lying, and you've been caught in the lie.

[A. Pole]

"joint criminal undertaking" with the goal of ethnically cleansing the Serbs from Croatia.

Bump

[tgambill]

Hopelite,

I see that you are on the attack here. One, I never lie...no reason to. Have I been mistaken before, sure. Caught you in several lies anyway, by omission. Also, in many post you were absolutely deceptive and purposely.

Now, I have not read the whole testimony. I actaully do not know about mass graves found prior to October 1999. If they came out of testimony, and they found the bodies as a result, it's not called lying, it's called stating what I know to be true after 1999. duh!!!! Then, if after testimony, they have found mass graves or they dug up mass graves early in 1999, it's not called lying, it's called discovery. Not lying like you...............or, deception.

I know that after October 1999 no mass graves were discovered. I was not aware of any mass graves in Kosovo prior to October 1999....

I have a room full of wiggle room.......son. And dinner in a few minutes.....

Tom

[Incorrigible]

I think you need to increase the sensitivity of your sarcasm detection meter ma bell.

[Wraith]

Tom we agree that the majority of the population in Kosovo are ethnic Albanian. Funny with a huge population of potential witness running around not one Albanian came forward to direct the UN or KFOR to a mass grave containing Albanians. If it were Serbs they the Albanians could care less. Not one mass grave of Albanians came up as fact. During my time in Kosovo I had access to daily SitReps and no mass graves. I had dealing with the CCIU (UNMIK Police) who were tasked to work with the ICTY War Crimes investigations. NO confirmed mass grave of any kind were found. You would think the Albanians would be lined up at the door to expose a so called mass grave and further expose the Serbs. They did not because there are none. The only possibility of any mass graves out there in Kosovo are Serbs period.

Tom you have to realize that you are arguing with a former reserve soldier/cook and senile to boot. He can tell you how to flip a pancake but as far as the subject of Kosovo goes he can only rely on his imagination just like the bullshit feed to the world about mass graves in Kosovo. You may find this interesting. Imagine the KLA masters of deception.

From owner-labor-l@YORKU.CA Sun Aug 29 16:15:06 2004 Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 15:52:05 EDT Sender: Labor in the Global Economy From: Roland Sheppard Subject: FYI: Massacres in Kosovo never happened, say Canadians who investigated mass graves To: LABOR-L@YORKU.CA

Massacres in Kosovo never happened, say Canadians who investigated mass graves By Bruce Garvey, The Ottawa Citizen 29 August 2004 The war crimes tribunal in The Hague is beginning to panic over its case against former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic according to a Vancouver detective sent to unearth mass graves in Kosovo and a Canadian filmmaker who documented the exhumations.

I would think they'll have a tough time with the charge of genocide with only 5,000 bodies, said retired Vancouver detective sergeant Brian Honeybourn. It seems as though The Hague is beginning to panic.

Mr. Milosevic's trial is to resume next week with the former Serbian dictator defending himself against charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. Former Canadian Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour made history when she laid the charges—the first against a head of state—as the tribunal's special prosecutor.

Calgary filmmaker Garth Pritchard and Sgt. Honeybourn are critical of Ms. Arbour, now UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and her claims that the Serbs, directed by Mr. Milosevic, murdered as many as 200,000 civilians during its ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.

The alleged massacres were used by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Western leaders as justification for their bombing campaign and intervention in Kosovo, and were regularly and routinely reported as fact on television networks such as the CBC and CNN, as the West backed the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) against the Serbs.

This was a massacre that never happened, Mr. Pritchard maintains.

I was standing there when the forensic teams were telling Louise Arbour there were no 200,000 bodies and she didn't want to know.

Mr. Pritchard, who has produced more than a dozen documentaries on the Balkan and Afghan wars, said yesterday he has been approached by Hague prosecutors to testify in their case against Mr. Milosevic after turning down a request to appear as a defence witness for the former president.

I was telephoned by an RCMP officer seconded to the Hague tribunal's investigative unit, a corporal named Tom Steenvoorden, who told me the total number of bodies they have recovered amounts to 5,080, which is a far cry from 200,000, he told the Citizen.

I want someone like Peter Mansbridge or Ms. Arbour to tell me where the other 195,000 bodies are. This is a massacre that never happened.

Mr. Pritchard said he refused to co-operate with the Hague prosecutors, just as he had with representatives of Mr. Milosevic.

Other Canadians who have been named as potential defence witnesses include Citizen reporter David Pugliese and retired Maj.-Gen Lewis MacKenzie, who have both said they will refuse, and war correspondent and magazine publisher Scott Taylor, who has agreed to defend articles he wrote for the Citizen from Kosovo.

Sgt. Honeybourn and forensic team leader Brian Strongman echoed Mr. Pritchard's doubts that the genocidal massacre by the Serbs ever took place.

I can't say that there weren't 200,000 bodies because I wasn't covering the entire country, said Sgt. Honeybourn.

But I never saw any sign of anything like 200,000. If there were that many, then why did they have us exhuming single graves? The biggest mass grave we examined contained about 20 and there was another one of 11. But mostly our nine-member team worked on single graves.

Mr. Strongman said he recalls that exhumations by the Canadian group and 11 other international teams never matched the rumours of mass graves holding the bodies of many thousands.

We only spent 45 days there, he said, but I believe the largest mass grave we investigated held 20 bodies. I was in Bosnia and remember one mass grave that held 200—certainly we never saw anything like that in Kosovo. Of course, Louise Arbour and people had to talk about figures like 200,000 to justify bringing in NATO.

Sgt. Honeybourn, a veteran of more than 30 years of police work, was a member of the first Canadian forensic specialist team that joined units from several western countries in the search for the alleged 200,000 buried victims.

Now he maintains that the Hague staff under Ms. Arbour was confused and incompetent.

Our resources were not maximized, simple as that, he said. There seemed to be a pronounced lack of co-ordination, which was extremely frustrating. I don't think we were deployed properly.

In the six weeks Sgt. Honeybourn spent digging up fetid graves in Kosovo during the sweltering summer of 1999, the Canadian team exhumed 86 bodies.

Outside of being able to give information to family members of bodies they exhumed and identified, he regarded the mission, which cost Canada more than $1.2 million, as an investigative failure and a waste of time.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2004

This is another one saying the same thing, Hoplite is full of it. He has Depends to depend on though...

[Wraith]

Sorry Monty better late than never...

[Incorrigible]

The Spanish forensic team came to the same conclusion as reported in El Pais.

[tgambill]

Thanks for the detail and work you put into that. This was a lot of info here I wasn't aware of, is an understatment. This is what I come here to FR for, exactly.

Tom

[Hoplite]

I was not aware

I see - so you're playing the "Ignorance" defence.

Absolutely pathetic, Tom. You don't go around making absolute statements like "No mass graves of Kosovar Albanians found in Kosovo" unless you know what you're talking about.

And you don't know what you're talking about.

Which works for me - I kind of figured your whole "Kosovo expertise" was more a product of your imagination than anything else, and I'm right, which is why you're backpedaling faster than a circus clown who's made a wrong turn into oncoming traffic.

[zagor-te-nej]

Klecka, Kosovo and Metohija 1998:

Serbian police discovered a cremation oven in the lime factory in Klecka village, used to dispose of murdered Serbian civilians. Klecka contained a KLA base including a training camp and a munitions depot. Captured KLA terrorists from Malisevo, Lyan Mazreku and Bekim Mazreku, told the police that in July, 1998 the KLA captured, killed and burned 22 Serbian civilians in the village of Klecka, some 45km southwestern of Pristina. Civilians were put before a firing squad and executed. The lime factory ovens were used in hope that the high temperatures would destroy the evidence. However, several partially burned bodies remained. In Klecka village, bodies of 22 Serb civilians were found.



Albanian crematorium for the Serbs!

[Hoplite]

Funny with a huge population of potential witness running around not one Albanian came forward to direct the UN or KFOR to a mass grave containing Albanians.

Lemme guess, Wraith - you too are ignorant of the fact that mass graves were reported to KFOR and other internationals by the K-Albanians?

Is it the US State Department:

Vidomiric          French
An alleged mass grave of unknown size and contents has been reported to KFOR for Vidomiric on 5 July 1999.

and the French:

French police said yesterday that the bodies of more than 20 ethnic Albanians had been exhumed from a mass grave in Vidomiric. Seven bodies were identified. All were among 23 ethnic Albanian men rounded up during a raid in Kosovska Mitrovica on April 14, three weeks after the start of the 78-day war, a statement said.

who are the liars here?

No. It's you and Tom.

I can only guess you both drank too much DU contaminated water, and it has adversely affected your memories to the point where you can't remember a damned thing about what transpired while either of you were in Kosovo.

Either that, or you're both incompetent shills, who are too lazy and sloppy to fact-check your lies before you commit them to public viewing.

[SunkenCiv]

Uh-oh, sounds like another smear campaign directed against our beloved president Bill Clinton. Must be that vast right wing corporate conspiracy which runs all media companies and manufactures consent for Republican crimes. /sarc

[tgambill]

:)) I hope you are a young man. If you aren't, then you are wasting time and should get a life, make up with your mother, start taking meds, or just get a life.

Son, it's not a defense, it's knowing your limitations, what you know and don't know, and willing to be honest with oneself. You missed the whole point. The past posts explained the mass graves, and I was right as it turns out. No mass graves have been proven yet....and if you read the past posts you will see that.

I can go around and make statements all I want....Listen up.....sweetpea (lolol), you made an assumption just after reading part of one article where the Serb said there were mass graves. You don't comprehend that there are rifts even in the Serbian leadership that would cause them to make false accusations and lie while on trial. Also, some Serbs did work with Albanian KLA. Ohhhhh, bet you didn't know that now did you? But it's true......

Yes, I do know very well what I'm talking about. I also learn from others that have had experiences that I didn't have.....then you put your experiences together and there you have a picture or confirmations.....

It's not backpeddling my dear boy, it's called being open minded and willing to share and experience.

You.... Well, you have some serious issues. Know what pumpkin, You will of course deny it, but it's my bet that you are baiting me, and hoping I will write some words that would give you justification to have my posts banned. Now, hoppie, you aren't that clever are you? hmmmmmmm??

But if the clown had those duck feet things...he wouldn't be able to back peddle too long now would he. You werent' very specific about that....can't you at least be a little more exact even in these attacks......

you sleep well, and don't forget to call those you love and say good night......one never knows what the morrow will bring.....

[tgambill]

By the way....the head of the team resigned the position out of disgust.....it wasn't a pretty situation when he left the detail. He was pissed off......

[Hoplite]

You missed the whole point.

No Tom, the point is that you're a liar.

No mass graves have been proven yet

And furthermore you're not smart enough to realize when a lie is no longer maintainable.

[tgambill]

naw, not a liar, but I will do some more research.....I did find some interesting reports that I have to verify first.

Liar, no......

Besides, you seem to need meds or something. You're just a little high strung. Hope you don't have high blood pressure or anything.

Sleep well, and make sure you eat your wheaties....

ta ta for now....

Tom

[getoffmylawn]

He made a direct personal attack on you. That's the troll seal of approval. When he attacks like that, it means you're coming very close to the Truth. Nice work!

[kronos77]

Man, great work.
I`m glade that German "Spiegel" is reporting that.
Can you even imagine Serbian article report?
Hoplite wouold jump in the air screaming:

"It`s a lie, it`s a lie I tell ya!"

When Germans are talking on injustice and terror done over Serbs, than that is Gods truth.

[FormerLib]

I see that you cannot reply to post #26 and have been reduced to personally abusing posters and shrieking "liar, liar" as your sole reasoning. I can't say this comes as a surprise to anyone.