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AS I SEE IT Section of The Patriot-News, As someone who has followed and written about the tragic civil war in the Balkans the March 12 headline, "Butcher" Milsoevic dies in jail,": prompted me to write yet another commentary giving the other side of the story. I am no defender of Slobodan Milsoevic, who died under questionable circumstances, but in my opinion, he was nothing more than a two-bit dictator, and compared to Saddam Hussein, he was a piker. Unlike the treatment Milosevic received at The Hague, you can bet your bottom dollar that everything will be done to make...

Though Milosevic's conviction was a foregone conclusion (we wouldn't want any more rampaging Muslims than there need to be), he was creaming the Court (the Court and the prosecution are essentially one), such that six months ago prosecutor Geoffrey Nice admitted (transcript) he was no longer sure what, exactly, the case against the former strongman was. Everyone wondered why a trial would be taking four years for someone who was the undisputed "Butcher of Belgrade." The answer is that there's been an unintended benefit to the otherwise bad idea of an international court: the historical record was being set straight....

The War on Terror suffered a major blow three years before it was ever announced. It happened when the people of this democracy were misled into attacking the sovereign, emerging post-Communist democracy of Yugoslavia, over rumors of genocide and ethnic cleansing that proved false. In so doing, we delivered the Balkans to al Qaeda. Today we are being asked to seal that historical blunder, the repercussions of which are still escalating seven years later. The people we "rescued" have turned their weapons against United Nations and NATO forces. While NATO spends most of its time rooting out terror cells in...

BELGRADE, March 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Over 50 foreign delegations will attend the funeral of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic on Saturday, a senior official with Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) said on Friday. The funeral to be held in Milosevic's hometown of Pozarevac, some 80 km east of Belgrade, will be attended by some dignitaries, said Miomir Ilic, the SPS's regional leader in Pozarevac. Ilic told the official Tanjug news agency that the dignitaries include Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, Russian State Duma Vice-President Sergei Baburin, former U.S. state prosecutor Ramsey Clark, and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. Ilic...

Western peace prevention continues in former Yugoslavia* PressInfo # 234 March 9, 2006 By Jan Oberg, TFF director If you believe that Western politics should serve as a model of decency, fairness and principled policies, consider these topical news from ex-Yugoslavia: • Kofi Annan's envoy on Kosovo, former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, tells Der Spiegel that Kosovo is heading for independence. In a tone that can only be characterized as arrogant, he tells the Serb side that they should know the rules of the game and know their own best interests. This simply means he is no mediator who listens...

The strategic Muslim-majority Sandzak region of Serbia and Montenegro, which borders Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, has seen a marked increase in politicised Islam over the past few years. The trend is due to a variety of social and economic factors including political marginalisation, poverty and crime. Religious schools and an Islamic university are educating increasing numbers of young people, filling a vacuum left by failing republican and municipal administrations. There are also growing numbers of so-called Wahhabis who follow Islamic practices imported from Saudi Arabia. This group of predominately young men operating outside the traditional Islamic community, Islamska Zajednica (IZ), played...

Albania cannot guarantee inviolability of borders with Macedonia and Kosovo if the Serbian province undergoes division, Albanian Foreign Minister Besnik Mustafaj said on Tuesday. "Tirana stands ready for any contingency, and if Kosovo is divided, Albania could not guarantee inviolability of the borders", Mustafaj told Alsat TV station, as commenting the thesis of Kosovo-Albania merge upon granting province's independence. "As soon as last October, I said in front of high officials in Brussels that if division of Kosovo takes place, Albania could no longer guarantee inviolability of borders with Kosovo, but with Albanian part of Macedonia as well", Mustafaj said...

The death of Slobodan Milosevic was shrouded in mystery and deepening controversy last night as Dutch pathologists examined his corpse and it emerged that he had claimed he was being slowly killed by doctors. Milosevic's body was removed from the detention centre at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague to the Netherlands forensic institute for a postmortem examination and toxicological testing. Last night a preliminary postmortem report said that he had died of heart failure. His remains were to be released to his family today. Yesterday the 64-year-old former Serbian and Yugoslav president's lawyer revealed a six-page letter -...

Claims of up to 100,000 ethnic Albanians massacred in Kosovo revised to under 3,000 as exhumations near end Special report: Kosovo The final toll of civilians confirmed massacred by Yugoslav forces in Kosovo is likely to be under 3,000, far short of the numbers claimed by Nato governments during last year's controversial air strikes on Yugoslavia. As war crimes experts from Britain and other countries prepare to wind down the exhumation of hundreds of graves in Kosovo on behalf of the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague, officials concede they have not borne out the...

Update 14: Report: Drug Traces Found in Milosevic AP 03.12.2006, 01:46 PM Traces of a drug used to treat leprosy and tuberculosis were found in a blood sample taken in recent months from former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, a Dutch news report said, citing an unidentified "adviser" to the U.N. war crimes tribunal. The report came hours after Milosevic's legal adviser showed journalists a letter the late Serb leader wrote Friday, one day before his body was discovered in prison, alleging that he was being poisoned. The report was on the text service of the Dutch state broadcaster, NOS. It...

Milosevic's poison fears 12/03/2006 - 14:09:34 Slobodan Milosevic wrote a six-page letter the day before he was found dead, claiming that traces of a “heavy drug” had been found in his blood and that he feared being poisoned, a legal aide to the former Yugoslav president said today. Zdenko Tomanovic showed the letter to reporters at the UN tribunal, and complained that the court which had been trying Milosevic rejected the family’s request that a post mortem be conducted outside the Netherlands. Milosevic was “seriously concerned” about being poisoned, Tomanovic said. The letter, dated March 10, was addressed to the...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, the so-called "butcher of the Balkans" being tried for war crimes after orchestrating a decade of bloodshed during his country's breakup, was found dead Saturday in his prison cell. He was 64. Milosevic, who suffered chronic heart ailments and high blood pressure, apparently died of natural causes and was found in his bed, the U.N. tribunal said, without giving an exact time of death. He had been examined following frequent complaints of fatigue or ill health that delayed his trial, but the tribunal could not immediately say when his last medical checkup...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian leader indicted for war crimes for orchestrating the Balkan wars of the 1990s, was found dead in his prison cell near The Hague, the United Nations tribunal said Saturday.

<p>Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader who orchestrated the Balkan wars of the 1990s and was on trial for war crimes, was found dead in his prison cell at the U.N. detention center near The Hague, the U.N. tribunal said Saturday. He was 65.</p>

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro - Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader on trial for alleged war crimes, was found dead in his prison cell at the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Belgrade's B-92 and Serbia's state radio said Saturday. He was 65. A U.N. war crimes prosecution official in the Dutch capital, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed the report to The Associated Press.

Albania : Muslims Torch Churches , Hate Christ J. Grant Swank, Jr.      "East Timor remained largely unreported throughout the 80's and most of the 90's. A Christian land ravaged by Muslims - nobody cared. Untold crimes have been committed in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh against the Chakmas, and yet how often is the conflict reported? - never!," a believer noted in despair.Over 150 churches and monasteries in Albania have been destroyed or seriously damaged over the last 6 years. Now authorities project to turn the hull of one sanctuary into a nightclub. The Church of Christ the...

07 March 2006, 11:46 Serbian hierarch: The problem of Kosovo could become a boomerang on a European scale Moscow, March 7, Interfax - Metropolitan Amfilohy of Montenegro and Primorje thinks that independence of Kosovo would entail negative consequences for the whole Europe. ‘The problem of Kosovo could become a boomerang on an European scale’, Serbian hierarch said in an interview published by Kommersant daily on Tuesday. First, ‘new problems would arise in the Balkans because of the incorrect solution of the problem of Kosovo’ (separation of Kosovo - IF). ‘A precedent would be created, and many people in Europe and...

Kosovska Mitrovica. Destruction of Serbian houses in the Kosovo village of Svinjare, which were rebuilt after the events from March 2004, continues with the breaking into two houses, Coordination Center for Kosovo announced cited by Serbian agency BETA.The front doors of the houses are broken; the electric wiring, the water pipes and the furniture have been stolen.This is the third breaking into Serbian houses in the village in the last 20 days, Coordination Center for Kosovo announcement reads. Two weeks ago unknown perpetrators caused damages to seven houses and a week ago a Serbian house was robbed and the electric...

Released : Mar 02, 2006 2:03 PM PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro-The president of Kosovo's assembly accused U.S. diplomats on Thursday of orchestrating a political reshuffle in the province which led to his dismissal. Nexhat Daci, who was also part of the team negotiating Kosovo's final status with Serbia, was replaced by his party, the governing Democratic League of Kosovo, on Wednesday. Parliament will have to choose a new leader for his dismissal to take effect. Daci was dismissed as part of a broader reshuffle within the governing coalition, which also included the resignation of Kosovo's Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi. But the parliament...

The American Spectator March 2006 SECTION: The railroading of a former U.S. ally. LENGTH: 1511 words HEADLINE: America, The Hague, and Ante Gotovina BYLINE: Robin Harris BODY: GREAT POWERS LIKE AMERICA CANNOT AFFORD to be too sentimental about foreign friends whose purpose has been served. But sometimes it pays to keep faith with individuals who collaborate successfully in one's policy goals. This is particularly so when those concerned know the inside story of U.S. covert activity and when their fate sets a precedent that jeopardizes U.S. personnel. Such is the case of the former Croatian General Ante Gotovina, arrested in...