[Source: B92]
UNMIK confirms Thaqi arrest | 11:25 | B92
BELGRADE -- Tuesday – The United Nations mission in Kosovo last night confirmed that Kosovo Albanian political leader Hashim Thaqi was arrested in Budapest yesterday and released after a phone call from governor Michael Steiner.
UNMIK spokesman Simon Haselock told B92 that Steiner was released Steiner spoke to Hungary’s foreign minister.
“This is not intervention from the highest level, it’s cooperation at the highest level,” added Haselock.
The head of Belgrade’s Kosovo Coordination Centre, Nebojsa Covic, also confirmed the arrest and Steiner’s intervention. “Eventually a guarantee was given and Mr Thaqi released,” said Covic.
Thaqi’s Democratic Party of Kosovo warned last night that the arrest of their leader could endanger peace and stability in the region.
The former Kosovo Liberation Army leader was detained on an international arrest warrant issued during the time of the Milosevic regime.
Thaqi was arrested based on a warrant for such arrest issued in 1997. by the Miloshevich regime. Serbian Prime Minister, Zoran Zhivkovich, hurridly denied that Serbia withdrew the warrants but charged, instead that some unnamed "European countries" demanded his release. Of course, the countries were never identified.
Zhivkovich rationalized that of course "None of us, naturally [sic] will never withdraw the warrant, but we, however, must be realistic. Ask yourselves what would have happened to the Serbs in Grachanitsa, Mitrovitsa, Kosovo Polye [NATO occupied and KLA-run Kosovo and Metohia, my comment] ... if the Hungarians extradited Thaqi to Belgrade? I am not brave enough to sacrifice Serb lives in Kosovo and Metohia because of a 1997 warrant, which is, nevertheless, warranted." (but not worth is, it seems he is implying).
This is truly pathetic, because ever so soon some poor Serb is murdered in Kosovo, another church bombed, stoned or set on fire, for no reason whatsoever other than that the Albanians are simple hellbent on exterminating anything Serb there with or without provocation. And the UN, with US benediction, presides over this genocide.
Rest assured, no American official will be arrested for allowing such crimes against humanity to happen on his or her watch. And Zhivkovich's cowardly and servile lack of resolve and character will not spare the lives of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia either. Zhivkovich has already earned his place in history alonside spineless characters such as General Nedich, another "realist" who collaborated with Nazi German occupation of Serbia in order to "spare lives." In vain, of course. Under his "realpolitik," Jews were rounded up and sent to camps in Zemun (at that time part of the fascist so-called Independent State of Croatia), Serbia printed anti-Semitic postage stamps, and collaborated with German authorities in their attempt to "establish order."
Zhivkovich also learned pragmatism from his hero Zoran Djindjich, a cameleon who could change colors on a moment's notice -- a trait some called pro-western and pragmatic (hmmm!). Djindjich knew when to roast an ox with Radovan Karadzhich as much as he knew how to pelase his Marxist professors to get his PhD on a Marxist-inspired thesis dealing with revolutionary destabilization. That same Djindjich was all XOXOXO with the Yugoslav spineless Clown Prince Aleksandar, in St Andrea, in 1999. A Marxist philospher knew how to get close to the Serbian Orthodox Church, and became a frequent visitor to the temple of St Sava in Belgrade shortly before his assassination. And, on assuming the post of his idol, Zhivkovich said he could never be Djindjich, but that he learned a great deal from him and will continue his policies. That much is obvious.