Posted on 04/15/2002 12:30:01 PM PDT by joan
— By THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic at his trial on Monday accused separatist Kosovo Albanian guerrillas of fabricating an alleged atrocity by Serb forces in 1999 in a bid to spur a shocked West into attacking Yugoslavia.
The killing of about 45 ethnic Albanians in Racak in January 1999 shocked the outside world and was widely credited with stiffening NATO's resolve to launch its 11-week campaign of air strikes against Yugoslavia two months later.
The former Serb strongman, accused of genocide and crimes against humanity in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, could face life behind bars if convicted at the end of Europe's biggest international war crimes trial since World War Two.
The Hague tribunal heard last week from a Western observer that dozens of unarmed men dressed in slippers and rubber boots were found shot in the head at Racak in 1999 after Serb forces entered the village. Milosevic disputed the testimony.
Milosevic told the war crimes court that ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas shifted corpses around Racak to an open mass grave as part of a ruse to convince Western observers that Serb forces had butchered villagers. He said Serb forces had only killed KLA guerrillas in gun battles.
"It may be, as Serb authorities claim, and many Europeans tended to believe, that the victims were in fact killed in the shoot-out reported by police and then aligned to give the appearance of a massacre," Milosevic said quoting from an Italian press report.
IN COLD BLOOD
The 60-year-old accused, who is conducting his own defense at the United Nations court against charges he has rejected as "false," vigorously challenged testimony that Racak's villagers had been gunned down.
Retired British general Karel Drewienkiewicz, who served in Kosovo with a mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said he was convinced a massacre had taken place and had not been staged by the KLA.
"I know what I saw on the hillside and it was not manipulation...it was men who had been gunned down in cold blood," said Drewienkiewicz.
Drewienkiewicz acknowledged, however, that a fierce battle had taken place between KLA guerrillas and Serb forces at Racak and that there had been a "lapse" of some 15 hours overnight before Western observers viewed the scene.
Last week Drewienkiewicz told the court he saw men shot in the head at Racak. They had been dressed in carpet slippers and rubber boots.
Since his trial opened in February Milosevic has accuses the West and Islamic militant group al-Qaeda of supporting a "terrorist" campaign by the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army to destabilize the Balkans.
He declined to enter pleas to the charges against him. Not guilty pleas were entered on his behalf. The trial is expected to last at least two years.
At least 4 "witnesses" have come forward testifying to both the ICTY and a local court in the trial of former policeman Stanojevic. Juicy insider information on their credibility is given in the article Amnesty International and UN staff accuse Kosovo war crimes tribunal of ethnic bias (The Guardian, June 20, 2001). I quote 2 excerpts:
"Four key trial witnesses altered their testimony between giving statements to members of the international criminal tribunal for Yugoslavia and appearing in court [for the Stanojevic trial]. Two witness claims that victims had been shot though the front of the head were contradicted by forensic evidence."
"A senior UN legal official said the Stanojevic trial reflected weaknesses throughout the Kosovo judicial process. 'The quality of evidence is very very poor and relies on testimony for which there is very little supporting evidence. No one hesitates to make things up.' "
The ICTY indictment on Racak (quoted in ABrit's comment #11) is built on these discredited testimonies but on no forensic evidence. For a more reliable account concerning true and false witnesses, see Le Figaro article and Diana Johnstone's commentary (this is link for the article akbsz posted in comment #15). See also Wraith's comments for a knowledgeable and insightful account by someone with first hand experience. It is important that such accounts are heard in the Milosevic trial and are given appropriate publicity.
The abysmally low legal standard of the ICTY indictment on Racak is also demonstrated by its failure to even acknowledge that a fierce battle had taken place, a fact well known and agreed to even by the prosecution witness Drewinkiewicz (but not by certain people in this forum who are uninformed and insist on parroting demonstrably discretided stories).
PUBLISHED FORENSIC STUDY ON RACAK CONTRADICTS PROSECUTION
The complete report of the Finnish forensic team has either not been discovered by the media or (more likely) has not been made public at all. Nevertheless, a part of the forensic study on 40 Racak bodies appeared as a peer-reviewed scientific publication in the journal Forensic Science International.
Although the document does not speculate in detail on the exact circumstances of death, 2 important facts stand out: there were no close-range gunshot wounds, except in one case, and there were no human-inflicted mutilations. These facts contradict prosecution witnesses' testimonies
I wholeheartedy agree with SANDNES's suggestion to follow the Jurists's coverage of the Milosevic trial.
And their vidoetape showed a contested entry into an empty village.
They arrived hours after the operation started and did not get a free run of the village, being treated to what amounts to a MUP CAPEX.
They arrived shortly before the operation started. There’s no evidence for your theory that the Serbs attacked at dawn. As for your claim that they “did not get a free run of the village” – proof please. Can you say bupkes? I knew you could.
The rest of the media usually mentioned (Chatelot and Girard) visited on the 16th, not the 15th.
Chatelot from Le Monde went to Racak at 4 pm on January 15 – the day of the attack.
Or are you referring to some other set of individuals unknown to everyone save yourself?
Physician heal thyself.
For those interested, the Le Figaro and Le Monde articles, plus so much more, are available on Ben Works’ website.
Where did you hear that? It has never been disproven, on the contrary there is overwhelming evidence that the bodies have been moved.
Seems "some people" includes the Hague prosecutors.
You first postulated that the KLA lured the Serbs into Racak in order to goad them into committing an atrocity, and since you stated the locals were LDK supporters, that made sense.
In this thread, however, you're supporting the position that the men in the ditch were moved or manipulated post mortem by the KLA, implying that they were something other than unarmed civilians murdered in vengeance by the Serbs - and no, you cannot simply write off any evidence as being biased as Milosevic's defenders would like to do ("falsified" & "flawed"). Ultimately, you are positioning yourself as a source of information on the matter, but in doing so, you had better be able to corroborate your version of events with other's observations or you will wind up isolating yourself from any possibility of being credible, and attacking the Forensics report or the OSCE without plausible alternatives isn't a way to skip around the issue.
There were some 1.8 million Kosovar Albanians in Kosovo during this time, yet you seem to be proposing that there is no such thing as a non-KLA or non-combatant victim of the Serbs from your post: They weren't just farmers, right? Simple farmers don't have AK-47s with which to defend themselves per your scenario, unless the KLA was arming the LDK as well as getting them bumped off - but the logical flaws inherent in this scenario render it highly unlikely.
If you don't want to be tarred with the brush, don't stand on that particular canvas, Wraith - the Serbs are good for the Racak massacre, and no amount of revisionism or sophistry is going to change the matter - not from Milosevic, not from his supporters, and yes, not from you either. Stick to coloring within the lines bounding the truth and the possible. Without new evidence which allows for the impeachment of Ranta's work, Ranta's work stands.
SKS Snajperi (or whatever he's going to call himself next) was there (Bosnia) as well, but his information isn't worth the server space it's wasting - just a note of caution.
As to the Serb AP TV crew, they arrived around 10am, whereas the Serbs commenced the operation at Racak around 6:30 in the morning, per the testimony given to HRW by the surviving villagers.
Of course, the Serbs could have investigated the incident on their own instead of letting HRW and the OSCE do it, but then we both know killing an Albanian wasn't considered a crime in Kosovo, and in certain units of the MUP, VJ, and their auxiliaries, was encouraged - right Gael?
Bring it.
The overwhelming evidence, that is.
Around 7:00 a.m., Racak was surrounded by the Serbian police. Several witnesses told Human Rights Watch that they saw seven blue armored vehicles on Cesta hill, as well as three VJ tanks (type T-55). The police were shooting and some heavy artillery was fired directly into some houses near Malopoljce and Petrovo from a position in the nearby forest called, in Albanian, Pishat. The extent of the fighting in Racak that morning remains somewhat unclear. According to one Serbian policeman, the KLA's resistance around Racak lasted almost four hours, and when they were finally able to enter the village the police confiscated three mounted machine guns. Villagers, however, said that the police had entered the village by 9:00 a.m. They said that there was shooting and some artillery until 4:00 p.m. By 4:30 p.m., the police had left the village.
Also, the description of the AP team's videotape implies that the reporters accompanied the MUP's vanguard, although there's nothing explicit to this effect.
The Serbs sought to investigate on their own but were prevented by the KLA. From The Times (#15):
The regional prosecuting magistrate, Danica Marinkovic, was said to have again entered the village, although she refused to talk to journalists. Late on Monday she was reported to have had the back windows of her Lada Niva shot out by a Kosovo Liberation Army sniper as the police removed the Albanian bodies from Racak mosque.
And from Reuters (#7):
Danica Marinkovic, the judge investigating the killings, said on Sunday she had been unable to reach the site. ``For the third time I tried to make an inquiry but I was stopped by the terrorists,'' she said, referring to the KLA guerrillas.
As you know, the investigation was "internationalized" soon after.
As for your comment, we both know killing an Albanian wasn't considered a crime in Kosovo, I'd have to say no more nor less than, for example, killing an Arab in Jenin or a Somali in Mogadishu. And far more so than, say, killing a Serb on Varvaran bridge or in a train outside Grdnicka.
As to any Serb investigation, how many MUP members have given statements, to whom did they give them to, and what has happened to those statements since? I remind you that the Serbs retook Racak after the 15th in order to retrieve the bodies, so they appear to have been willing to do one thing (gain control over the forensic evidence in the form of the dead) but not the other (secure the crime scene to allow investigators to do their work).
The fact is that William Walker "knew" the Serbs were behind the murders the next day without any proof. And his words were taken as fact. Be it as it may, there are doubts and questions that have been raised about it that cloud the clear-cut, politically extorted Ranta report.
Have you ever heard of fighting a loosing battle Hoplite? In this case a loosing battle the would certainly end up in the deaths of the untrained Racak villagers?
As far as unarmed civilians in Kosovo, Albanians consider having a weapon within the home as a point of honor according to the Kanun their unwritten laws. These laws includes an integral part of how to kill an offending individual in what they consider a civilized way. Now since the Communist Albanian Government fell the weapons storage facilities were ransacked by the local population. I saw the events take place which was being filmed by the news media after the wall fell in Germany. A lot of those arms ended up in Kosovo and you know which kind of weapon was the most common Hoplite, the good old AK-47. I have seen enough seized AK-47 and even some Thompson Sub machine guns left over from the last war to fill an office. Some old Nazi weapons as well. For some reason they never leave anything to go to waste in the former Yugoslavia.
Yes there are some Kosovar Albanians who refuse to have arms in the house but not very many. The LDK representatives are very moderate pacifists. You don't hear about any UCK types getting bumped off by the Military wing of the LDK do you? Never the less a lot of LDK supporters like in Racak did fight with the UCK when the Serbs were in control of Kosovo.
Every village has enough hidden arms for the locals to use incase of any future attack by the Serbs. This is a fact. The big thing here is who controls these weapons stashes and I can assure you it is not the LDK. What I have said is far from being unlikely, logical flaws inherent in this scenario, I don't think so.
If you don't want to be tarred with the brush, don't stand on that particular canvas, Wraith - the Serbs are good for the Racak massacre, and no amount of revisionism or sophistry is going to change the matter - not from Milosevic, not from his supporters, and yes, not from you either.
It is not I that is getting tarred Hoplite. If denial and having tunnel vision is the way you wish to be so be it. Remember the UCK had approx. 15 hours of control over Racak after the Serbs left on January 15, 1999 and yes the UCK put them in the ditch or worse.
Time to take the blinders off and look at the whole picture. If not you may just qualify for the OSCE supporter of the year award and get to meet Walkers and the rest of his Fusion cell. The sad thing is that no one would ever hear about it.
I take a different view.
Fine, support this statement, refute the findings of Ranta's team, and explain why the KLA would arm the LDK while waging war on them at the same time.
It's an intellectual exercise, and you've got your work cut out for you.
I would tend to say that the MUP units were regular, unfiromed, professional police officers, and that they were keenly aware of the Kosovo Verification Team (KVT) presence. I do not believe that they were paramilitary units wearing MUP uniforms! I am sure the exact units involved can be identified if such information were necessary.
I have never heard or read anyone describe Yugoslav Army (VJ) -- whose tanks were allegedly present -- as a bunch of undisciplined, revenge-seeking incompetents.
I take a different view
Your right, Hoplite.
Stop always asking for proof and for a change convince me that Ranta's so called investigation was a bang up job that incorporated ALL the forensic tests required to make a reliable conclusion. Convince me that her investigation of the scene was done in a timely manor and not over a year and most of all the scene was not subject to contamination? Getting my drift oh Ranta worshipper.
You see Hoplite in order to deal with something that stinks one has to look back into U.S. history a bit. For example the So called Bay of Tonkin incident that opened the door to 50 thousand US soldiers killed in Vietnam. The commies got it all any way and for what. Do you believe the North Vietnamese gunboats actually attacked that US Warship?
What about Richard M. Nixon and his involvement in the Watergate scandal? This was a President of the United States that sanctioned an illegal break-in! Remember the Iran/Contra scandal and the fall guy North? The games a foot then and could it be now? A very valid question. I for one think that the tactics have not changed at all and you are very naïve if you don’t see this. Now taking this into account, is it all possible that William Walker (with his track record) and his quick condemnation of the Serbs who he prematurley named as being responsible for the Racak massacre, was a move by the KLA to open the door for NATO intervention in Kosovo?
Are you going to just stand there and accept Ranta's screwed up forensic examination of the so called Racak Massacre at face value without question? Can you prove that the KLA did not place those bodies in the ditch within the 15 hours they were in control of Racak i.e. Jan. 15/16, 1999 and turn the whole situation to their advantage?
If you can't open your mind to this I honestly do believe that you had voted for Nixon. Over and out.
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