Trial Hears of KLA Terror Tactics

The trial of three former Kosovo Liberation Army members this week heard from a former British military attaché to Belgrade, who spoke about the extent of fighting in Kosovo in 1998 and how the KLA dealt with suspected “collaborators”.

Fatmir Limaj, Isak Musliu and Haradin Bala are accused of running a prison camp in the village of Lapusnik from May to July 1998, in which Serbs and suspected Albanian collaborators were held captive, beaten and often murdered.

For the charges in question to be legally valid, prosecutors must prove that an armed conflict existed in Kosovo during the period in question - an assumption challenged by the defence.

According to tribunal jurisprudence, to show the existence of an armed conflict in Kosovo in 1998 it is necessary to prove that the KLA was an “organised armed group” at the time.

The issue of the organisation of the KLA is made doubly important by the fact that Limaj and Musliu are both being prosecuted for certain crimes on grounds of command responsibility – the idea that a commander can be held responsible for acts carried out by men under his command, even if he didn’t directly order them.

Prosecutors can obviously only use this tactic if they first prove that Limaj and Musliu held positions of responsibility in some kind of organised structure.

Former attaché Colonel John Crosland – whose face was hidden from public view by screens and image distortion, just as it was when he testified against Slobodan Milosevic in July 2002 – told judges on Thursday that clashes between the fledgling KLA and Serbian forces began well before the Lapusnik camp is alleged to have opened, and intensified through the course of 1998.

He also said the KLA regularly kidnapped ethnic Serbs in an effort to terrorise the population, and attacked Albanians it suspected of collaboration.

But while he spoke of training programmes, supply routes and regional headquarters, he expressed some scepticism about the extent to which the KLA had an organised command structure at the time.

Crosland’s testimony was largely made up of comments on a series of “diplomatic telegrams” presented to him by the prosecution. The bulk of these documents are still under seal, and two legal advisors of the British government were present in the courtroom throughout his testimony to ensure this measure was respected.

With reference to the events described in these reports, Crosland told judges that even as early as March and April 1998, clashes between Serbian forces and ethnic Albanian rebels in the Drenica Valley – a KLA heartland - were spreading to the area around the border with Albania, where the KLA was bringing in munitions and men along traditional smuggling routes.

According to the diplomatic reports, by the second half of April, western journalists were saying that the KLA virtually controlled areas just over the border in Albania.

There were also indications that the KLA was operating training camps in the Albanian towns of Tropoja, Bajram Curri and Kukes.

According to the witness, heavily equipped and well-trained Serbian special forces units were present in Kosovo from early 1998. He also said the Yugoslav army, whose primary role was to protect Yugoslavia’s borders, took an increasingly active role in affairs deeper inside Kosovo.

Crosland confirmed that by March of that year he had seen movement of heavy weapons such as anti-aircraft systems and armoured personnel carriers. Later, he said, he saw an artillery position made up of six guns near Decani.

Many of the reports presented by the prosecution detailed violent clashes between Serb forces and the KLA. They also outlined the Serb tactic of emptying the civilian population from large areas to create “free fire zones”, creating massive refugee flows in the process.

Crosland described the situation in 1998 as “fluid”, with the KLA and Serb and Yugoslav forces pushing backwards and forwards into different areas of territory.

By June, Crosland said, the KLA controlled some 35 per cent of Kosovo and was in fact able to launch operations in some 65 per cent of the territory, including an attack on the Belacevac mine just ten kilometres from the regional capital Pristina.

Prosecutor Andrew Cayley presented Crosland with a report signed by General Pavkovic, commander of the Pristina Corps of the Yugoslav army, in which he claimed the KLA had mobilised somewhere between 3,500 and 4,500 men and were increasingly “taking on the attributes of a military organisation”.

But Crosland questioned the figures given by Pavkovic, estimating himself that there were in fact only between 400 and 500 “hardcore KLA” in Kosovo at the time, although he conceded that Pavkovic’s figures might not be too “far fetched” if they included the number of men said to be training across the border in Albania.

The witness also said that the five or six KLA headquarters he had seen were not as organised as Pavkovic indicated. There was a basic system of command, he said, but he stressed that this was only basic – there might for instance be an area delineated by a road or a river, within which a head man would have “token authority”.

But Cayley has argued that it is not necessary to show that the KLA was equivalent at the time to a modern, sophisticated army in order to show the existence of an armed conflict and to use the concept of command responsibility.

Crosland also described a July 1998 visit to Malisevo, where the local KLA headquarters was, he judged, probably responsible for the village of Lapusnik.

There, he said, there was a bit more discipline and formality than at other headquarters he had seen, and those present had a “more soldierly-like way of behaving”.

At one stage during the meeting at the headquarters, he said, the discussion became quite heated when some KLA men threatened to take him and his party hostage. But a man who appeared to be a senior figure restored some sense to the conversation, he said. Asked for this man’s name, Crosland said he couldn’t remember for certain. “The name ‘Celiku’ has come up,” he said. “I’m not completely convinced if that was him or not.”

“Celiku” is the nickname allegedly used by Limaj during his time in the KLA. Prosecutors say Limaj was a regional KLA commander, whose area of responsibility included Lapusnik.

Against the background of mounting violence, Crosland confirmed the KLA had a practice of kidnapping ethnic Serbs.

“In order to increase the fear among Serbs, they were being kidnapped on a relatively regular basis,” he told the court.

One diplomatic report presented by the prosecution noted that kidnappings of Serbs had reached such a point that Serbs were beginning to avoid travel around Kosovo.

“In October we estimated something like 200 Serbs were missing, presumed having been kidnapped by Albanian elements,” Crosland told the judges.

The witness also discussed media reports that the KLA had carried out grenade attacks on businesses and restaurants in Pec belonging to Albanians who were suspected of collaborating with the Serbs.

“These attacks... were similar to what went on throughout this campaign, where Albanians who were seen to be siding with the Serb administration were taken out and their businesses either bombed and they themselves murdered,” Crosland told judges.

Your ideas about Kosovo appear to rely a bit too much on people like KLA-attached translator/propagandists, professional spies / liars like William Walker and second hand hearsay outlets with obvious political connections to NATO

My ideas on Kosovo are based on my first-hand experience in the province as well as the documented first-hand experience of others. As Colonel Crosland, the witness cited above, testified, he personally observed HUNDREDS of burning villages. The U.S. Army assistant attache in Belgrade spent extensive time in Kosovo in 98-99, he personally witnessed the same things. I personally saw it after the conflict. Pythag, you have either been hoodwinked by Milosevic propaganda or are an active partner in historical revisionism designed to cover-up the crimes.

You want details of Serb atrocities? Just take a couple minutes and scroll up & down the court transcripts to the witnesses just before & after Crosland--representing a small fraction of the witnesses called against Milosevic:

Go down to page 7320 for eyewitness accounts of Serb forces shelling villages, burning homes, and robbing civilians. Includes a survivor account of the massacre of over 100 civilians at Izbica by Serb police. Then skip down to page 7353 for another eyewitness accounts of Serbs burning houses in Gjakove and killing 20 civilians, mostly women & children as they tried to hide in a basement. He also covers how the Serb police stripped refugees of their identification documents.

Go to page 7499 for more eyewitness accounts of forced expulsion from homes and civilians being robbed by the police.

The middle of page 7535 and down describes the collection of nearly 2,800 statements from Kosovar Albanian refugees and their descriptions of forced expulsions, identity theft, robbery, and home burnings at the hands of the Serbs. A little further down, page 7539-42, the witness explains to Milosevic that the surveys state that the refugees were not fleeing NATO air attack, but “left Kosovo because they were being terrorised by Yugoslav and Serb security forces”.

Instead of just parroting Serb nationalist talking points, educate yourself. Here and here and here are some places you can start--Serb atrocities in Kosovo are well documented. Do a little reading. Open your eyes and your mind.

My purpose was not to write comprehensive essays

Obviously, since you have not backed up anything you said. Here's a court transcript of a mother describing how Serb police herded a group of Albanian civilians into a coffee shop and opened fire, killing her children, among others. In your world-view, that's worth applauding. Her testimony starts on page 7902:

Then it stopped, the shooting, and then I looked up and I saw Vjollca was still alive and said, "Oh, Shyhrete, look what they're doing to us." I said, "Look at, look at Dafina, see where she is." And I looked around and I saw Dafina, Vjollca's daughter. She was suffering. And the daughter of Musli Berisha said, "Oh, look what they've done to me. Look at my feet, look at my legs," she screamed.

And then the brother-in-law of Hajdini said, "Look at my poor Granit. Look what they've done to him ... Then Majlinda spoke, my largest daughter. She was uninjured, with her son and brothers. And Sebahate was uninjured with her two children. Ismet was 3 and Eron was ten months old. And Altin was near me. He was ten years old. We were uninjured. ...Then Majlinda said, "Mummy, mummy, look at how they've killed Herolinda." And when I looked around, I saw Herolinda over there and saw her, that she was lying on the ground with five or six bullet holes in her flesh. She had been such a beautiful girl. And Sebahate on the other side said, "Look. They've killed -- they've killed her. They've killed Jori [phoen] and Sherine." Sherine was a brother-in-law, and the other one was his brother. ... I pretended I was dead. And my son Altin and Vjollca, I said to them, "Lie as if you're dead." Because we heard the Serbs talking in their language, saying, "Get the trucks ready and get the bodies out of here as quickly as possible."

10 MS. ROMANO: The witness and two other survivors and the corpses of the dead were then loaded onto a truck which drove off in the direction of Prizren. Two gold chains were removed from around her neck. The witness, although severely wounded, managed to jump off the truck in the village of Malsia e Re (Ljutoglav) where some Albanians took care of her. She was taken to Grejkoc and subsequently Budakova, where she received medical treatment for her wounds. Her husband and four children - two daughters and two sons - were killed in Suva Reka.

So Pythagorean, how much did your friends get for the gold chains?

Mark, I have never claimed that widespread atrocities were not committed by Serbian forces, as they are committed in every war and especially in a guerilla/terrorist - type war like this one. I have no personal or professional connection with the former Yugoslavia and I am dispassionately looking beyond the atrocities at the political motives of the parties involved in the war. Many activists, presumably including yourself, are honest and have legitimate emotional personal reasons for insisting obsessively on "Serb atrocities" while avoiding discussing the political context of the war. Others, like dozens of Soros-related organizatioons and thousands of well-financed activists, have more sinister motives, including their attempt to cover-up their role in promoting the war and reaping financial benefits (e.g. controlling the Trepca mines or making their careers in the "humanitarian" and "international law" industries).

If I am "parroting" anyone here, it is Crosland. I repeat that he was a de facto ally of the KLA and (no doubt as a Belgrade UK military attaché) up to the neck personally involved in the war against Yugoslavia. When this Blair-serving diplomat/spy openly describes his KLA allies as terrorists, you have to take this assertion very seriously and advocate that the KLA leadership be indicted by ICTY as all the Serbian leadership has been. Where is your indignation against these organized, leadership-sponsored crimes against loyalist Albanian and Serb civilians?

KLA Terrorist Support Kerry!

Here is a low quality, 10 minute edit of only 4 MB for the Bandwidth Challenged: Click on the image.

References:

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1244732004

Here is the website with the video:
http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleveringen/18793157/

And here is the direct link to the documentary:
http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/tv/vpro/tegenlicht/bb.20040905.asf?title=Bekijk

and here is another link to the documentary:
mms://streams3.omroep.nl/wm/tv/vpro/tegenlicht/bb.20040905.asf

The documentary is mostly in English with Dutch subtitles. After the first few minutes, almost all of the film is in English.

Here is a Washington Times article saying there is a direct connection with Osama Bin Laden.
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&threadm=00b601be9768%24b3082140%243c5b9ac2%40nikst&rnum=6&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dmay%2B4%2B1999%2Bwashington%2Btimes%2Bosama%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN

Everything you ever wanted to know about who the KLA is:
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/sirius/KLA-Ideology.html

And here is the fund race link showing the donation on the video:
http://www.fundrace.org/neighbors.php?search=1&type=name&lname=Krasniqi&fname=Florin

I have never claimed that widespread atrocities were not committed by Serbian forces, as they are committed in every war

Horse manure. You can't use ignorance as an excuse any longer. Now you're simply an apologist for murderers and war criminals. And your infantile "everybody does it" logic doesn't work, either. You compared the Serbs in Kosovo with the US in Iraq. The United States Army in Iraq is not burning down hundreds of villages, robbing the inhabitants, deliberately gunning down women & children, and driving the majority of the population from their homes. You are either a Serb nationalist, a dupe of Serb propaganda, or simply an anti-American eager to believe every al Qaeda & ANSWER slander about US ops in Iraq.

Nobody, to include me, is denying that KLA members, like the ones on trial in the original post, committed crimes. The issue is your inability to understand that murder is murder no matter who commits the crime or who is the victim.

You dishonestly tried to deny Serb crimes in Kosovo, you inaccurately tried saying that the Serbs deliberately murdering civilians & destroying villages was normal in war, you lied that the widespread and pervasive Serbian atrocities against the Kosovar population were no different than the way the U.S. operates in Iraq, and you asserted a moral equivalence between Milosevic's policy of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo with U.S. counter-insurgency ops in Iraq. You've been wrong every step of the way, but at least you're consistent.

The Serbs were going after the KLA which would hide among the civilians. The US has destroyed cities and villages in Iraq when going after insurgents. Look at Fallujah - nearly all the homes are destroyed or damaged - out of 85,000 who lived there before the war, only 8,500 are coming back, according to the UN. Then there has been murders of civilians at checkpoints and shooting of civilian protestors in the back. Far more Iraqi civilians have died or been seriously maimed than ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo and it's going to keep getting higher. The US fights wars even messier than the Serbs, but being the only superpower means not having to be sorry about it or be judged in any court.

Fallujah residents angry over destruction from US-led campaign
On Wednesday, the United Nations said about 85,000 people have gone back to inspect their houses, but only 8,500 have decided to stay.
Few houses escaped damage from the intense American air raids late last year and the insurgent bombings and shootings that followed. Work teams have cleared rubble from the streets, but it is still tangled with downed power lines. Craters cut off access to side streets, and some buildings have walls or ceilings missing if they weren't simply destroyed.
------------------
U.S. troops kill 8 at Iraq checkpoint
BAGHDAD -- U.S. troops opened fire near a checkpoint south of Baghdad after their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb and a hospital official said Sunday at least eight people were killed in the second American attack in two days to have deadly results.
...Hours before the attack, the United States acknowledged dropping a 500-pound bomb on the wrong house during a search for terror suspects outside the northern city of Mosul. The military said in a statement that five people were killed.
The house's owner, Ali Yousef, said 14 people died when the bomb hit at about 2 a.m. Saturday in Aitha, a town 30 miles south of Mosul. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said the dead included seven children and seven adults. The discrepancy between the death counts could not be reconciled.

Then there has been murders of civilians at checkpoints and shooting of civilian protestors in the back. Far more Iraqi civilians have died or been seriously maimed than ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo and it's going to keep getting higher. The US fights wars even messier than the Serbs, but being the only superpower means not having to be sorry about it or be judged in any court.

Joan, I am not going to debate either you or Pythagorean over your use of Michael Moore talking points in your efforts to smear the U.S. military in Iraq. The issue is not a question of who fights "messier" wars. It is simply not the policy or practice of the USA to attack the civilian populace, but Milosevic's ethnic cleansing campaign in Kosovo did exactly that. You are welcome to review posts 21 & 22 above.

The US and the world have double standards. They expect the Serbs to conduct a perfect war (meaning no damage to civilian structures - even if the enemy army is using, and no civilian death at all) or to allow themselves to be ethnically cleansed and killed by the Nazi-helpers and always-tools of invading foreign powers (Croats, Bosniaks and Albanians - a leopard doesn't change its spots and these people are basically the same as they've always been: sneaky, DISHONEST, greedy, brutal, sadistic...). And the Croats, Albanians and Bosnian Muslims would kill or ethnically cleanse every last Serb they can get their hands on (save for a token and cowed Serb family or two to prove to the press they are "multicultural").

With all the precision weapons of the US, much of Iraq still looks as bad, or worse than Bosnia. So, why are Serbs held up to such a higher standards, yet are treated as lower than animals when they (Serb civilians) aren't even allowed the most basic rights in Kosovo. The Serbs are pushed by the press as SUBHUMAN but they are supposed to maintain higher standards than the rest of the world:

A man walks down a street in the destroyed city of Fallujah, 50 kilometers west of the capital Baghdad. Nineteen people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack against Iraqi national guards as more US troops were sent to the restive city of Mosul to reinforce security ahead of landmark elections in four weeks.(AFP/Hrvoje Polan)

A US Marine from Lima Company passes a leveled house on patrol in the devastated city of Fallujah.(AFP/Hrvoje Polan)

Returing to Fallujah : An Iraqi girl looks from behind the rubble of her house inside the devastated city of Fallujah, some 50 kilometers west of capital Baghdad. (AFP/Hrvoje Polan)

US Marines from Lima Company patrol the devastated city of Fallujah, some 50 kilometers west of the capital Baghdad.(AFP/Hrvoje Polan)

A U.S. Army 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry soldier searches a derelict building during a series of raids in search of insurgent weapons in Mosul, Iraq (news - web sites ), Saturday, Jan. 22, 2004. (AP Photo/Jim MacMillan)

The US and the world have double standards. They expect the Serbs to conduct a perfect war (meaning no damage to civilian structures - even if the enemy army is using, and no civilian death at all)

You've got that famous Serb victimization thing down pat, don't you Joan? None of your Serb buddies are charged with damage or deaths done during war. They are charged with murdering civilians and deliberately destroying civilian villages & towns for no legitimate military purpose.

None of your Serb buddies are charged with damage or deaths done during war.

What are you talking about? The charges are all during wartime. Where there isn't war - in Serbia proper - the Muslims and Croats are unscathed. There are something like 10,000 Albanians living in Belgrade - many Albanian & Bosniak names in the phonebook. They have their bakeries, businesses, homes, and go to school with Serbs, have freedom of movement - no problem. It's only where the Serbs did not have full control - where there were paramilitary and army where there was any killing, brought on by attacks initiated against the Serbs.

The minorities in Serbia have all kinds of rights, freedom of movement, and are often thriving (artistically, athletically, etc.).

All the Albanians, UN, and NATO can create is a monoethnic, bores-ville (culturally), with minorities rights run into the ground.

OK, Joan. I'll be more clear. None of your Serb buddies are charged with damage or deaths done contingent to legitimate acts of war. They are being charged with warcrimes and crimes against humanity based on the deliberate slaughter, rape, robbery, and destruction of noncombatant and civilian persons and property they committed in Kosovo, in this instance, or in Croatia and Bosnia in others.

The minorities in Serbia have all kinds of rights, freedom of movement, and are often thriving (artistically, athletically, etc.).

I know, Joan--it was paradise. Its just that the Slovenes, Bosniaks, Croats, Albanians, and Macedonians were all just too stupid to recognize how good they had it, so in some type of masochistic act against their own self interest, they all checked out of Club Slobo.

Many of those accusations are false and propaganda with no hard evidence. People working closely with the Kosovars discover this:

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. International judges were meant to alleviate concerns over bias and set a standard for effective justice. It [the policy] does not seem to have worked."

Amnesty and UN staff accuse Kosovo war crimes tribunal of ethnic bias

Dishonesty=Kosovo Albanians

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