US congress hears of crimes against Kosovo Serbs

b92.net ^ | February 11, 2004 | B92

[Destro]

February 11, 2004

US congress hears of crimes against Kosovo Serbs | 20:35 | B92

WASHINGTON -- Wednesday – Serbs in Kosovo have been stripped of their basic human rights and are treated as second-class citizens, the president of the Institute for Religious and Political Affairs told US congressmen today.

Joseph Gribosky described the situation in the UN-governed province as a “humanitarian catastrophe,” in a statement to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives. He noted the large number of Serbs that have gone missing or fled the province since the end of the NATO bombing campaign in 1999, as well as the destruction of Orthodox churches and monasteries, B92’s Washington correspondent reports.

Gribosky said it was essential the US and the United Nations pressure ethnic Albanian leaders in Kosovo to make sure that such crimes do not go unpunished. He said he was pleased to have brought the issue to the attention of US politicians.

[Destro]

The Republican majority congressed had denied Clinton authorization for conducting his war over Kosovo. Why the Democrats are called the peace party I will never understand.

[thoughtomator]

By golly, the UN will be outraged! There'll definitely be sanctions, and maybe a Kidnapped-Sex-Slaves-And-Heroin-for-Food program, personally administered by Kofi Annan!

[A. Pole]

Gribosky said it was essential the US and the United Nations pressure ethnic Albanian leaders in Kosovo to make sure that such crimes do not go unpunished.

I would not hold my breath.

The Republican majority congressed had denied Clinton authorization for conducting his war over Kosovo.

It was Republicans like Dole and Gingrich who pushed Clinton into anti-Serbian position:

(C) BOSTON GLOBE
29 APRIL 1993
                     BEFORE WE JOIN A WAR, SOME QUESTIONS
                              by H.D.S. Greenway

  In the last few weeks, the Bosnian town of Srebrenica has become another
Guernica in the eyes of the West, and the Clinton administration is being
drawn inexorably toward military intervention in the Balkan civil war.
  Secretary of State Warren Christopher has laid out what he calls the
"severe tests" of an interventionist policy:  It must be clearly stated,
there should be a strong likelihood of success, there must be an "exit
strategy," and it must win sustained public support in this country.
None of those conditions has been met.
  But a public mood is rising.  Television has zeroed in on Bosnia while
other civil wars and ethnic cleansings go relatively unreported. Respected
opinion makers from both left and right have been beating the intervention
drum, taunting Clinton, calling his caution a weakness and making shallow,
ill-considered comparisons with Hitler-appeasing Neville Chamberlain.
  Before the United States commits itself to war, however, there are three
questions that the administration needs to answer if intervention is to meet
Christopher's "severe tests."
  First, who will be our enemies?  Second, what are our war aims?  Third,
what will we do if limited intervention fails to achieve our aims?
  Bosnian Serbs are not allowed to link up their territories in what would
become a "Greater Serbia," but the Croats in their part of Bosnia-Herzegovina
fly the Croatian flag, use Croatian money and have linked up with Croatia.
If we will go to war against Serbian aggrandizement in Bosnia, will we also
bomb Croats to prevent Greater Croatia?
  Will our war aim be "stopping the genocide now," as Sen. Joseph Biden has
said? If so, whose genocide?  Only last week in Central Bosnia, Muslims and
Croats were at each other's throats and, according to the United Nations,
summary executions, massacres and ethnic cleansings were committed by both
Muslim and Croat factions.
  And while world attention was on Serbs shelling Srebrenica, the BBC
reported on the mass graves the Serbs were finding just a few miles away
in which lay the corpses of Serbs who had been decapitated, mutilated and
tortured by Muslims during the Muslims' Christmas offensive.
  Simplistic analysts have put all the blame for the Bosnian civil war
on the Serbs and their leader, Slobodan Milosevic, the former Communist
turned ultra-nationalist who has played the ethnic card to fan the
flames of hatred.  That Croatia's leader, Franjo Tudjman, has done much
the same thing goes largely ignored.  The real cause of the war, however,
was as UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali described it in an
interview last summer.  "You have three ethnic groups, and they have
not taken into account the point of view of one of the three, which was
the Serbs."
  Croats and Muslims were granted rights of self-determination that
the large Serb minorities living outside the province of Serbia were
denied.  Serbs had historical reasons to fear Croatian and Muslim
domination, and Milosevic was able to take advantage of those fears.
  True, the Serbs are responsible for the most atrocities, but if we
intervene to tip the military balance against Serbs, will we be pre-
pared to make war on Muslims and Croats if they turn on Serb civilians
to enlarge their own territories?
  This is not a cut-and-dried matter of forcing an invader out of
another country.  This is an entangled, tripartite civil war with
500 years of hatred.  If putting back together the Humpty Dumpty of
Bosnian unity --never more than an illusion-- is our aim, we'd better
think in terms of a 100-year "exit strategy."
  Lastly, what if a limited intervention fails to end the fighting and
accelerates it instead? Unfortunately for Clinton, he will have to live
with the results of intervention while pundits promoting war today will
be the first to denounce him should things go wrong tomorrow.

[omegab]

This makes me sick, but I knew it must be happening. I tried to tell some of the ill-informed bleeding hearts at FR that we were bombing the wrong people back then. The Christian Serbs were only fighting to preserve their homes, businesses and very lives that the Muslim Albanians were ruthlessly, systematically taking from them. I was so ashamed of our country as I watched the bombs dropping on a people that never did one evil thing to America and were just fighting for their survival.

[AuntB]

from the article: "ethnic Albanian leaders in Kosovo"

Let me repeat that: ETHNIC ALBANIAN LEADERS IN KOSOVO

One more time!!!! ETHNIC ALBANIAN LEADERS IN KOSOVO

SERBIA WAS INVADED AND THE US/NATO HANDED IT OVER TO THE INVADERS!!!! HELLO!!!

I know you get it, Destro, but about a dozen of us on Free Republic seem to understand.

[getgoing]

So much easier to look away than face evil reality, especially our own.

Kosovo: the road to war
On 12th March this year, the BBC broadcast a programme entitled "Moral Combat: NATO at War" which examined, amongst other things, what happened in the period October 1998 to March 1999, including the Racak incident. The journalist responsible for it was Alan Little. Little was a BBC correspondent in the Balkans during the break-up of Yugoslavia. At that time he was far from sympathetic to the Serbs.

The following is a transcript of the part of the programme which dealt with the situation on the ground in Kosovo after the Holbrooke agreement in October 1998, in which Milosevic agreed to a ceasefire in Kosovo and to reduce his forces there to pre-war levels. Specifically, it examines the incident at Racak, which was the trigger for the Rambouillet conference and hence the war. Alan Little (indicated by AL below) spoke the commentary and asked the questions.

AL: The [KVM's] job was to watch as Milosevic withdrew his police and returned his troops to barracks. In the beginning he complied. The German general Klaus Naumann had helped broker the ceasefire deal.

General Klaus Naumann: He really did what he had asked him to do. He withdrew within 48 hours some 6000 police officers [from Kosovo] and the military back into the barracks. This was also confirmed by the OSCE verification mission."

AL: This [KLA activity] though was much harder to monitor. Where the Serbs withdrew, the KLA moved forward filling the vacuum. For the ceasefire agreement had a fatal flaw. It was one-sided. It had required nothing verifiable from the KLA.

General Agim Ceku (KLA military leader): The ceasefire was very useful to us. It enabled us to get organised, to consolidate, to grow.

Wolfgang Petritsch (EU special envoy to Kosovo): They were really growing ever stronger from day to day. And there was nobody to really stop them.

General Agim Ceku (KLA military leader): We aimed to spread our units over as wide a territory as possible. We wanted KLA units and cells across the whole of Yugoslavia.

AL: At Pudujevo in the north of Kosovo, the KLA now filled the very positions the Serbs had vacated. The pattern was repeated across the province. William Walker's deputy was a British general. He and his colleagues could see what the KLA was doing but had no means of stopping or even discouraging it.

General John Drewienkiewicz (KVM): The KLA infiltrated forward.

Wolfgang Petritsch (EU special envoy to Kosovo): The KLA basically came back into old positions that they held before the summer offensive.

General Drewienkiewicz: And this then started to be a factor in dealing with the Serbs. Because the Serbs said to us: well, hang on, the deal was that we withdrew from these things and you were going to police the agreement. So can you get these KLA out of the trenches that we were in a month ago?

AL: But they couldn't. At NATO headquarters there was growing disquiet. We've obtained confidential minutes of the North Atlantic Council or NAC, NATO's governing body. They talk of the KLA as the main initiator of the violence and state it has launched what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation. This is how William Walker reported the situation then - in private.

General Naumann: Ambassador Walker stated in the NAC that the majority of violations was caused by the KLA.

AL: Walker didn't admit that in public at the time. He still doesn't.

AL to William Walker: You told the North Atlantic Council that it was the KLA side which were largely responsible.

WW: I would have to go back and re-read my notes. Most of the briefings I gave to the North Atlantic Council was that both sides were in non-compliance. Both sides were doing things that were provocative. Obviously, it was easier to [long pause] point at the government.

AL to Madeleine Albright: But there was no clear mechanism to punish them [the KLA] if they failed to behave in what you might call a reasonable manner.

MA: I think the punishment was that they would lose completely the backing of the US and the Contact Group.

AL: With US backing for the KLA now barely concealed, Milosevic sent the army back into action to clear the KLA out of Podujevo. The doomed procession to war with NATO had begun.

AL: The KLA continued to smuggle arms over mountain passes from Albania. Albanian civilians were press-ganged into serving. Before dawn on the 15th December, they walked into a well-prepared Serbian ambush. Most of those taken by surprise fled back into Albania. But 31 Albanian men were killed. Later on the same day in an apparent act of revenge what remained of ethnic co-existence in the city of Pec nearby was to be torn apart. A group of hooded, masked men drove up to this bar [picture shown of Panda bar] which was popular with young Serbs. [6 of them were killed]

AL: Walker condemned both the ambush on the border and the killings in the bar in equal measure.

WW: It really looked as if it was a tit-for-tat killing. The KLA hearing about their people being killed up on the border had done this in Pec.

AL to WW: There is a huge difference, isn't there, between people killed in a legitimate military exchange and a bunch of hooded unknowns walking into a bar and killing some teenagers?

WW: I think the point is we didn't really know what had happened at Pec. Yes, the government was saying it was KLA gangsters who had come in and sprayed this bar. When you don't know what has happened, it's a lot more difficult to pronounce yourself.

AL: One month later Walker was to break this rule to spectacular effect. He pronounced himself with absolute certainty about a massacre that occurred here in the village of Racak. Even now, more than a year on, important questions about what happened here remain unanswered. This is the story of that massacre, of the political uses to which it was put, of how it galvanised the west to go to war and of the pivotal role played by William Walker. There was nothing remarkable about Racak except that by January 1999 the KLA had moved in, most of the villagers had fled and trenches had been dug on the edge of the village.

Paula Ghedini (UN refugee agency): We encountered many villages where the villagers themselves told us in very clear terms that they would prefer to be left completely alone. Often times they felt that if a KLA group were to come into their village that would actually put them under greater threat.

AL: From camouflaged positions near Racak, the KLA launched well-prepared hit and run strikes against Serb patrols. In early January they killed 4 Serb policemen.

Zymer Lubovci (KLA fighter): We saw them coming so we prepared and opened fire. But it was guaranteed that every time we took action, they would take revenge on civilians.

AL: Racak did not have long to wait for that retaliation. The attack began on the morning of January 15th.

Hasim Thaci (KLA leader): A ferocious struggle took place. We suffered heavy losses, but so did the Serbs. They set out to commit atrocities. Because a key KLA unit was based in this area.

AL: International observers watched from safe high ground as Serb forces took control of the village. They moved from house to house. Most were empty. The KLA had gone. When Serb forces pulled out in the afternoon they announced they'd killed 15 KLA men in the action. The international monitors entered the village and reported nothing unusual. Only next morning did the full force of Serb retaliation become apparent. William Walker went to see for himself.

WW: We progressed up the hill and about every 15-20 yards there was another body. As we kept going up the hill, I don't know how many bodies we passed before we got to a pile of bodies.

AL: By the time Walker arrived, the KLA had re-taken control of Racak.

WW [at Racak on 16th January 1999]: I think it's going to take me a few minutes to determine what I really should say. I'd like to hold a press conference in Pristina later this afternoon.

WW [at the press conference]: The facts as verified by KVM include evidence of arbitrary detentions, extra-judicial killings and the mutilation of unarmed civilians of Albanian ethnic origin in the village of Racak by the MUP and the VJ.

AL: In other words, he blamed the Serbian police and the Yugoslav army. Walker was supposed to be an independent international official. But did he seek direct instruction from the Americans?

WW: Without calling on any of my capitals, I told what I thought I'd seen which was the end result of a massacre.

Richard Holbrooke: William Walker the head of the Kosovo Verification Mission called me on a cell phone from Racak.

AL to WW: You don't remember calling Washington at all? WW shook his head.

General Wesley Clark (Supreme Allied Commander Europe): I got a call from Bill Walker. He said there's a massacre. I'm standing here. I can see the bodies.

AL to WW: And you didn't speak to General Clark or anybody like that? WW shook his head.

AL: Walker's comments gave the green light to enter Kosovo's war. The KLA had pulled in its mighty ally.

[zip]

ping

[AuntB]

It amazes me every day that STILL no one wants to listen to this. I never felt more frustration when my own Republican congressman was right behind Clinton/Nato on this mess. I let him know what I thought then and have been labeled "ANTI-government" ever since. Then there was my favorite congressman, Jim Inhofe who gave the glowing retirement speech for Wes Clark. Dems and Repubs are both culpable on this one, hence NO ONE is going to talk about it. Serbs are some of the most hard headed, stubborn people I have ever met, I used to be married to one. I could easily fall into the "serbs, bad-KLA, good" frame of mind, but wrong is still wrong no matter who it happens to.

By the way...do you have a URL for your info that you posted? Thanks.

[omegab]

Hey, I'm an Aunt Bea too, LOL. I wonder what is going to happen to Milosovik now and wonder too if his trial is what prompted these facts to finally get aired. I wrote my congressmen at the time too and really gave them a piece of my mind and stopped all donations, in fact vowed to work to elect any contenders to their seats. It's a sad way to be vindicated.

[dj_animal_2000]

Thanks for that read...

I don't know if you know this, but I found out, that William Walker is on the "Board of Trustees" for the NAAC (National Albanian American Council) http://www.naac.org/board.html .

I have also information that the NAAC and AACL supporting Wesley Clark - http://albanian-americans.forclark.com/

I have 2 questions

1. How trustful is William Walker now...and especially with his report about that Racak...???

2. Could it be possible, that Clark received money for his campaign from overseas through the NAAC or AACL, who are getting a lot of donations from Albanians outside of the USA...and is that not against the US-law...???

Thanks for the answers...

DJ ANIMAL, Nashville, TN

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Any second now clinton will call for the bombing of Serbia to resume.

(And why do they hate us so much???)

/sarcasm

[js1138]

I never felt more frustration when my own Republican congressman was right behind Clinton/Nato on this mess.

Yes, it is a mess, but governments have policies, and I'm glad Bush can stand up and say he never undermined the american military in a time of conflict.

this is a complicated moral issue and I can see both sides. But politicians should not undermine policy once it's set and in motion.

[getgoing]

"politicians should not undermine policy once it's set and in motion"?

"ALBRIGHT LIED -- PEOPLE DIED" http://www.instapundit.com/archives/014356.php

Clinton/UN/NATO policy continuation would result in the Hague or ICC trial of Saddam Hussein=innocent verdict by hand picked judges, bombing another aspirin factory in response to Sept 11, 2001, arming the enemies of civil society, ICC threat to our troops, et al.

Please, share with us details & justification if you support the BJ pres "policies". John Loftus investigations have shown "Terror networks went untouched for so long. It wasn’t an intelligence failure, it was a foreign policy failure. The orders were not to embarrass the Saudi Government. Year after years, the cover-up orders came from the State Department and the White House. The CIA, the FBI, and the Justice Department just did what they were told.”

Geez, I can only think of a few (ugly) reasons for support of policy based on lies & worrying about past "politicians".

[getgoing]

DJ, missed your note until now. Thank you for the link, new to me. Can't help w/your Clark, Walker questions.
The "FR professors" (DTA, Joan, Vooch, Destro & others) might be able to help.

AuntB, sorry 'bout the delay. Several links to above interview, this one from NATO site:
http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1999/s990413a.htm