Posted on 11/26/2002 8:36:55 AM PST by Destro
Foreign - Tuesday 26.11.2002
Finnish investigator Helena Ranta to testify at Milosevic trial
Finnish forensic odontologist Helena Ranta has been called to testify at the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague at the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
Ranta's testimony is likely to be significant, because she was the head of the forensic investigations into the events in the Kosovo village of Racak in the winter of 1999, where about 40 Albanians were killed by Serb forces.
The event was something of a turning point in the Kosovo War. It was then that the Western countries took active political, and finally military action: NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia began in March of that same year.
At the trial so far, both the prosecutors and some witnesses have made reference to Ranta's report. Milosevic himself has also made frequent reference to Ranta's studies at the trial which began in February this year.
The exact date of Ranta's testimony remains unknown, as the court will not reveal the witnesses' schedules in advance.
"I would hope that the testimony would be given before Christmas. However, the schedule is a bit tight, which means that I will probably go to The Hague after the beginning of the year", Ranta said when interviewed by telephone.
She said that she expected to be questioned intensely by both the prosecutors, and by Milosevic.
"I will undoubtedly have to answer questions such as whether or not the events at Racak meet the criteria of a 'massacre'. I must be prepared for everything."
These kinds of fine distinctions had an especially important significance in the winter of 1999 when NATO member states were pondering whether or not a possible bombing war against Yugoslavia would be justified.
During the investigations Ranta found herself in a somewhat awkward situation, when she was called upon to give a legal opinion on the events of Racak. As a doctor Ranta refused to use any term other than "crime against humanity".
"Many expected Ranta to say that it was a massacre. However, she was not a lawyer. Instead, she worked to determine causes of death. Her task as a pathologist was not to define the events in legal terms", explained prosecution spokeswoman Florence Hartmann by telephone from The Hague on Monday.
During the events at Racak suspicions were voiced in the world press that the forensic team was working under pressure from the West. Ranta herself insists that there was no attempt by the United States or Germany to influence her conclusions.
The decision to call Ranta to testify comes at a somewhat strange time; testimony on the massacres in Kosovo had concluded at the trial, and now the focus is on the wars in Bosnia and Croatia.
"It is still the same trial, even though there are many parts. At first we believed that Ranta would not have to be there in person. We thought that her thousand-page report would have been sufficient evidence on its own", Hartmann said.
Experts say that the prosecution noticed too late that Ranta's personal testimony would be a very important part of the process.
On the last day of the Kosovo testimony the prosecutors asked the judges for permission to call Ranta to testify so that she might confirm what she had said in an interview in June with the Swiss publication Weltwoche, where she described the results of her investigations in Racak in detail.
The judges denied the prosecution's request to call her as a prosecution witness. Instead, they decided to call her to the stand themselves. This was seen as somewhat exceptional procedure in a UN court, where witnesses are usually called either by the prosecution or the defence, rather than by the judges.
Whatever.
I was actually being nice to you when I said "in association with" could be interpreted as "adhered to". Look up "in association with" in your handy-dandy thesaurus and you will see it means exactly what I took it to mean. I still seriously doubt that human material was found adhered those bullets. Perhaps you can continue your education in forensic science to find out why I doubt it. It's simple science.
You refuse to comment on, or even acknowledge the Finnish ballistics analyses, yet you could have a field day with those findings supporting your premise that the Serb police did in fact gun down those 23 men. You hurt your own cause by ignoring them.
You are not interested in finding the truth, nor even in looking at all the facts so far as they might relate to supporting your pet theory. You pick and choose what is convenient to you and ignore the rest.
You keep accusing me of lying. Although when I have asked you where and how I have lied, you give no answer. I have never, ever intentionally lied about anything, and I think everyone here knows that. I don't think even Torie or Trop would ever think such a thing of me.
I have been unfailingly polite to you, and you come back with unsubstantiated accusations and nastly insults. If that's your game, then play it with someone else. I've had it with you. And, I must confess, I once thought better of you and am bitterly disappointed in you.
You are bound and determined that everything happened in Racak the way Clinton said it did, despite what HRW's witnesses say, and despite what the Finnish ballistics experts say. I am keeping an open mind. So let's agree to disagree and completely leave each other alone. I am entirely done with you.
Wonders seems to have given you the punt. Another potential friend turned off. Who to argue with next? Must be very stressful for you? I will leave you with your personalities. Good Luck Whipping Boy.
but Sarg. you may have mistaken Hoplite for a simple Freeper. He is manifestly not a Freeper, instead as many of us have observed, he appears to be a paid 'webadvocate' for one of the policy groups. His line is agit-prop, not discourse.
Wraith: "THE WHIPING BOY" I know it's just a typo (and I make lots of those myself!) but it's too funny to pass over. It conjures up quite a mental image!
Hehehehe, I'll have to find what we did with our last issues of The Economist and have a look-see. Maybe I can become a mole. Just kidding, of course, but you know my opinion of HRW. No wonder they need "webadvocates".
No, I don't think it could be HRW. The Finnish ballistics analyses actually support the claims of HRW's witnesses, yet he refuses to acknowledge them and insists it all happened just like Slick said. Maybe the Clinton Legacy Foundation is more like it.
Generally speaking I was not kidding when I was said that people with low esteem are governed by the ego. It is the ego that can be very offensive, can not be wrong and most of all will not admit being wrong. IF someone finds they are continuously fighting with everyone in their lives most of the time, reverts to insulting people who do not share their point of view, yelling at the traffic ,the family, the dog, their is a problem and it has to do with issues of low esteem. It is quite a problem out there in the world and a lot of people do not understand the dynamics of it and why it is happening.
If this can be seen as a positive note I would recommend a book titled "MAKE PEACE WITH ANYONE" by a New York Times Best-selling author called David J. Lieberman P.H.D.. This is not intended as a putdown but simply information of an amazing book that will give any individual a fresh lease on life and the ability to change negative relationships back into a positive ones. Really helped a good friend of mine.
Then I'll put you next to Vooch, Destro, Fusion, and Wraith in the lying Serb Nationalist by proxy category and we can ignore each other happily.
His name was Fikret Alic, and he was suffering from imprisonment at the hands of sadistic thugs who you are now in the business of rehabilitating.
Danish doctors found him in a terrible state. His weight had fallen from 13.5 stone to 7 stone. Six of his ribs were broken, as was his lower jaw.
All his teeth had been kicked out or had fallen out owing to malnutrition; his nose was broken; he had a fractured skull and more than 100 scars from stabs, cuts and burns.
No matter - I'm sure tuberculosis or Marfan syndrome can be held responsible for all his injuries, right Wonders?
Shame on you, Wonders - you lie, whether you are competent to realize it or not, and serve a discredited, ignoble cause. There is no rationalization and there can be no excuse.
Shame on you.
P.s., don't bother looking in that box in your basement, we both know what it says, and now that Joan has quoted your faulty memory in one of her posts, thus giving it fully developed wings, it doesn't matter any more, does it? Another lie born, and you were there - congratulations, Mom. You may now join Vooch with her 1988 PPP lies, Destro with his "Slobo was fighting Al Quaeda" lies, Fusion with pretty much everything he posts, and Wraith with his 3rd KVM team stopped by the KLA.
I would say something about you being associated with them, but you have rather conclusively demonstrated you don't understand that concept. C'est la vie.
Being done with someone is so liberating, isn't it?
"Last week Alic, unrecognisable as the 22-year Croat prisoner of the Serbs 10 years ago, said that time would heal, but the scars remain."
They also attributed malnutrition to his teeth falling out, but "Alic had been at the camp for nine days when journalists stumbled upon him."
I think it takes a whole lot more time than "9 days" for malnutrition to affect the teeth, so if his teeth did fall out due to malnutrition it might be because of some disease he'd had for years or lifelong. Also, a person doesn't go from a normal weight to that thin in just nine days.
Further, there's no evidence of scars, stabs, cuts and burns on any of the men. No evidence that he had been beaten in the head. None of the men show wounds nor is there any evidence on their clothing.
The report also doesn't mention how long after the photo was taken that he left the refugee camp, nor when exactly he arrived in Denmark.
Another vacation paradise spot per you, I'm sure.
The fact of the matter is, Joan, North Western Bosnia had two large cities that didn't suffer much in the way of fighting, Banja Luka and Prijedor. In order to depopulate these two cities of their non-Serb residents, and handle the flow of deportees from their homes in smaller municipalities and villages, the Serbs set up a system of camps through which the non-Serb residents could be processed and stripped of their property, valuables, and for quite a large number, their lives. In essence, Bosnia's Serb leadership modeled it's behaviour on that of those whom they feared the most, and as they rightly detested and vilified their tormenters from 40 years ago, the Serbs who set up the camp system in Bosnia in the 1990's deserve no different today.
Fikret's treatement at the hands of his captors is addressed in both the Zigic and Sikirica cases at the ICTY.
I'd suggest you visit those documents and read about it, but I'm sure you're waiting for the RSK's trials of it's war criminals to commence so you can get the full picture.
Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of your butt.
Where is it said he was in Keraterm?
Oh, look - I did.
When this whole thing broke few years ago, I was skeptical about the info LM gave about the words of Mehmet. I mean,the guy may have been scared to say what it was really like in Trnopolje. I've been in such situations myself, where the people are afraid to say what's really going on, for fear of retribution, so they say very much the same things this guy is saying while doing things with their eyes to try to signal to you that something is very wrong and please look into it. Without seeing the actual footage, and Mehmet's face, I just can't guess.
Anyway, if you check here, you may find some interesting clues as to what befell the unfortunate Mr. Alic.
Among them: Within two weeks of the film of the Trnopolje camp being aired to the world, Paddy Ashdown, leader of the British Liberal Democratic Party, visited Trnopolje, and gave a substantially different opinion of the camp and its 'inmates':
They have gathered here because they have to go somewhere. Their houses have been burnt and their lives threatened. Muslim extremists pressurised the men to join up with the guerrillas, so they have come here for safety. But on most recent nights the unprotected camp [author's italics] has been raided by Serbian extremists who beat them, rob them of what little they have left and, it is claimed, rape the women. Things are better now.
Well, I don't know the situation in the area at that time. If the Serbs who ran Trnopolje realised that marauding gangs of "Serbian extremists" were roaming the area, and if they had the manpower to post some guards against them... there is certainly culpability there. I just don't know the answers to all the "ifs" here.
A little note on these types of things: Whenever and wherever there is a civil war and displacement of population, such places as Trnopolje come into play. They are ever and always targets of marauders in the area. It certainly happened in the Thai refugee camps set up for Cambodian refugees. In our own War Between the States it happened (the marauders were known as "bushwackers" then). It happens across time and all over the world. Sad, but true.
Anyway, I think terrible things happened to poor Mr. Alic and others like him. And I hope the perpetrators will someday be brought to justice for them.
In the end, what really frosts me is the likening of Trnopolje to Bergen-Belsen. Cheap sensationalism, and irrevocable cheaping of the Holocaust. Creating the impression that a very ugly civil war was the same as the Holocaust.
The truth is, whenever a civil war happens, horrors abound. This particular civil war might have been prevented. Might. Too bad Zimmerman whispered in Alia's ear, and too bad he listened, huh?
Kate, I pinged you because I mentioned your fave guy -- Paddy A$$down.
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