Trafficking in human organs in Kosovo
1) Kosovo and the myth of liberal intervention
Far from being Tony Blair's 'good' war, the assault on Yugoslavia was as wrong as the invasion of Iraq
Neil Clark (The Guardian - December 15, 2010)
2) Dick Marty, Council of Europe, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights: Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo
(EXCERPT - Dic.19: *the provisional report appears to have been erased from COE's website* )
3) NEWS
See also:
Thaci, KLA named in human organ trade report (B92, BBC, Tanjug, Guardian - December 14, 2010)
=== 1 ===
Far from being Tony Blair's 'good' war, the assault on Yugoslavia was as wrong as the invasion of Iraq
Neil Clark
'The United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same human values and principles ... Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values." So declared the neocon US senator (and current foe of WikiLeaks) Joseph Lieberman back in 1999 at the height of the US-led military intervention against Slobodan Miloševic's Yugoslavia.
It would be interesting to hear what Senator Lieberman makes of the report of the Council of Europe – Europe's premier human rights watchdog – on his favourite band of freedom fighters. The report, which cites FBI and other intelligence sources, details horrific rights abuses it claims have been carried out by the KLA, the west's allies in the war against Yugoslavia 11 years ago.
The council claims that civilians – Serbian and non-KLA-supporting Kosovan Albanians detained by the KLA in the 1999 hostilities – were shot in northern Albania and their kidneys extracted and sold on the black market. It names Hashim Thaçi, the former leader of the KLA and Kosovo's prime minister, as the boss of a "mafia-like" group engaged in criminal activity – including heroin trading – since before the 1999 war. The report is a damning indictment not only of the KLA but also of western policy. And it also gives lie to the fiction that Nato's war with Yugoslavia was, in Tony Blair's words, "a battle between good and evil; between civilisation and barbarity; between democracy and dictatorship".
It was a fiction many on the liberal left bought into. In 1999 Blair was seen not as a duplicitous warmonger in hock to the US but as an ethical leader taking a stand against ethnic cleansing. But if the west had wanted to act morally in the Balkans and to protect the people in Kosovo there were solutions other than war with the Serbs, and options other than backing the KLA – the most violent group in Kosovan politics. They could have backed genuine multi-party negotiations, or offered to lift sanctions on Belgrade if a peaceful solution to the problem of Kosovo could be found.
Instead, a virulently anti-Serb stance led the west into taking ever more extreme positions, and siding with an organisation which even Robert Gelbard, President Clinton's special envoy to Kosovo, described as "without any question, a terrorist group". In 2000 the Sunday Times revealed that, prior to the Nato bombing, US agents had been training the KLA. Shaban Shala, a KLA commander, claimed he had met British and US agents in north Albania in 1996.
It was the KLA's campaign of violence against Yugoslav state officials, Serbian and Kosovan civilians in 1998, which led to an escalation of the conflict with the government in Belgrade, with atrocities committed on both sides. We were told the outbreak of war in March 1999 with Nato was the Serbian government's fault, yet Lord Gilbert, the UK defence minister, admitted "the terms put to Miloševic at Rambouillet [the international conference preceding the war] were absolutely intolerable … it was quite deliberate".
The subsequent 78-day "humanitarian" bombardment of federal Yugoslavia massively intensified the ethnic cleansing of Kosovan Albanians by Yugoslav forces. Between 2,000 and 10,000 Kosovan Albanians were killed by these forces, with between 500 and 1,500 people killed by the Nato bombing.
But even after Russian pressure forced a Yugoslav withdrawal from Kosovo, ethnic cleansing and rights abuses in the region continued. Under the Nato occupation an estimated 200,000 ethnic Serbs, Roma and other minorities from south Kosovo, and almost the whole Serb population of Pristina, have been forced from their homes.
A report on Kosovo by Minority Rights Group International claimed: "Nowhere [in Europe] is there such a level of fear for so many minorities that they will be harassed or attacked, simply for who they are." And in October 2010, a report by Human Rights Watch stated that "Roma and related minority groups deported from western Europe to Kosovo face discrimination and severe deprivation amounting to human rights abuse". As for democratic advances, Sunday's elections in Kosovo, boycotted by the Serbian minority, have seen widespread allegations of fraud, with a turnout of 149% reported in one area.
Far from being Tony Blair's "good war", Nato's assault on Yugoslavia was in its own way as immoral as the assault on Iraq. But as the Iraq war has become discredited, so it is even more important for the supporters of "liberal interventionism" to promote the line that Kosovo was in some way a success. The Council of Europe's report on the KLA's crimes makes that position much harder to maintain. And if it plays its part in making people more sceptical about any future western "liberal interventions", it is to be warmly welcomed.
=== 2 ===
16/12/2010
Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE committee demands investigations into organ-trafficking and disappearances in Kosovo and Albania
Strasbourg, 16.12.2010 – The Legal Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has called for a series of international and national investigations into evidence of disappearances, organ trafficking, corruption and collusion between organised criminal groups and political circles in Kosovo* revealed this week in a report by Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE).
According to a draft resolution unanimously approved today in Paris, based on Mr Marty’s report, the committee said there were “numerous concrete and convergent indications” confirming that Serbian and Albanian Kosovars were held prisoner in secret places of detention under Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) control in northern Albania and were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, before ultimately disappearing.
The committee added: “Numerous indications seem to confirm that, during the period immediately after the end of the armed conflict […], organs were removed from some prisoners at a clinic in Albanian territory, near Fushë-Kruje, to be taken abroad for transplantation”.
“The international organisations in place in Kosovo favoured a pragmatic political approach, taking the view that they needed to promote short-term stability at any price, thereby sacrificing some important principles of justice,” the parliamentarians said.
The committee called on EULEX, the EU mission in Kosovo, to persevere with its investigative work into these crimes, and on the EU and other contributing states to give the Mission the resources and political support it needed.
It also called on the Serbian and Albanian authorities, and the Kosovo administration, to fully co-operate with all investigations on the subject.
The Parliamentary Assembly is due to debate the report on Tuesday 25th January 2011 during its winter plenary session (24-28 January 2011).
*All reference to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions or population, in this text shall be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.
Video of Mr Marty's press conference (English)
Dick Marty makes public his report
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Dic.19: *the provisional report appears to have been erased from COE's website*
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Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo (Part 1)
Rapporteur Mr Dick Marty, Switzerland, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
(Dick Marty, Council of Europe, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights) WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2010
Report
Restricted [provisional version]
AS/Jur (2010) 46
12 December 2010
Ajdoc46 2010
(...)
3.2 KLA factionalism and the nexus with organised crime
37. For more than two years after its initial emergence in 1996, the KLA was regarded as a marginal, loosely organised insurgency, whose attacks on the Yugoslav state were held by Western observers to amount to acts of "terrorism".
38. Our sources close to the KLA, along with the testimonies of captured KLA members gathered by Serb police, confirm that the main locations at which KLA recruits congregated and trained were in northern Albania.
39. It is well established that weapons and ammunition were smuggled into parts of Kosovo, often on horseback, through clandestine, mountainous routes from northern Albania. Serb police attributed these events to criminal raids on the part of bandits who wanted to carry out terrorist acts against Serbian security forces. The Albanian Kosovars and Albanian citizens who were involved in the smuggling operations presented them as heroic acts of resistance in the face of Serb oppression.
40. The domestic strengthening of the KLA, in terms of its fighting capability as well as its credibility among the Kosovo Albanian population, seemed to play out, especially in the course of 1998, along the same trajectory as the escalating brutality of the Serb military and police clampdown.
41. Yet only in the second half of 1998, through explicit endorsements from Western powers, founded on strong lobbying from the United States, did the KLA secure its pre-eminence in international perception as the vanguard of the Kosovar Albanian liberation struggle.
42. This perceived pre-eminence was the KLA's most valuable, indispensable asset. It spurred the wealthiest donors in the Albanian Diaspora to channel significant funds to the KLA. It bestowed individual KLA representatives with an enhanced authority to speak and act on behalf of the Kosovar Albanians as a whole. And it cast the KLA's leading personalities as the most likely powerbrokers in the Kosovo that would emerge from the war.
43. Indeed, the perception of KLA pre‑eminence - largely created by the Americans - was a self-fulfilling prophecy, the bedrock upon which the KLA achieved actual ascendancy over other Kosovar Albanian constituencies with designs on power, such as Ibrahim Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and Bujar Bukoshi's "Government-in-exile".
44. According to our insider sources, the KLA fought just as hard, and devoted arguably more of its resources and political capital, to maintain its advantage over its ethnic Albanian rival factions as it did to carry out co-ordinated military actions against the Serbs.
45. At the same time it should be restated, for emphasis, that the KLA was not a single, unitary combatant faction in the manner of a conventional Army. There was no formally appointed overall leader, or "commander-in-chief", whose authority was universally recognised by the other commanders and whose orders were met with compliance among all the rank and file.
46. Rather, as the struggle over Kosovo's future governance evolved, and a full-blown conflict approached, the KLA was divided by a deep-rooted internal factionalism.
47. Important sources of division included divergent political ambitions, as well as disparate notions of the acceptable parameters of violent resistance, on the part of the KLA's most prominent personalities and leadership contenders.
48. Thus there emerged in 1998 and 1999, and particularly in the wake of the death of the KLA's celebrated peasant commander Adem Jashari[16], several different KLA "splinter groups".
49. Each of these splinter groups was led by one of the KLA's self-proclaimed founder members. Each group comprised a loyal core of recruits and supporters, often drawn from among a few closely affiliated clans or families, and / or concentrated in an identifiable geographical territory of Kosovo. Each group identified their own leader as the brightest hope to lead the KLA's fight against the Serbs, and by extension, to achieve self-determination for the Kosovar Albanian people, whilst co-operating with the other KLA commanders on the basis of expediency.
50. Evidently it is the composition and leadership of these KLA "splinter groups", along with the pre‑existing popularity of the LDK, which carried over beyond the liberation struggle and have essentially shaped the post-conflict political landscape of Kosovo[17].
51. Incumbency of the highest executive offices in Kosovo has been shared among former leading KLA commanders for the last decade, and most political campaigns have been contested on the basis of the candidates' respective contributions to the liberation struggle, as well as the extent to which they are seen as being able to promote the interests of the Kosovar Albanian people on an ongoing basis against known and unknown adversaries.
52. The various KLA "splinter groups" I refer to have been found to have developed and maintained their own intelligence structures, among other forms of self-preservation. Through whatever means available to them, and clearly on the fringes of the legal and regulatory systems, the keenest purveyors of this de facto form of continued KLA warfare have conducted surveillance of, and often sought to sabotage, the activities of their opponents and those who might jeopardise their political or business interests.[18]
53. Furthermore we found[19] that the structures of KLA units had been shaped, to a significant degree, according to the hierarchies, allegiances and codes of honour that prevail among the ethnic Albanian clans, or extended families, and which form a de facto set of laws, known as the Kanun, in the regions of Kosovo from which their commanders originated.
54. Based on analytical information we received from several international monitoring missions, corroborated by our own sources in European law enforcement agencies and among former KLA fighters, we found that the main KLA units and their respective zones of operational command corresponded in an almost perfect mirror image to the structures that controlled the various forms of organised crime in the territories in which the KLA was active.
55. Put simply, establishing which circle of KLA commanders and affiliates was in charge of a particular region where the KLA operated in Kosovo, and indeed in certain parts of the Republic of Albania, was the key to understanding who was running the bulk of the particular trafficking or smuggling activity that flourished there.
56. Most pertinent to our research, we found that a small but inestimably powerful group of KLA personalities apparently wrested control of most of the illicit criminal enterprises in which Kosovar Albanians were involved in the Republic of Albania, beginning at the latest in 1998.
57. This group of prominent KLA personalities styled itself as the "Drenica Group", evoking connections with the Drenica Valley in Kosovo[20], a traditional heartland of ethnic Albanian resistance to Serb oppression under Milosevic, and the birthplace of the KLA.
58. We found that the "Drenica Group" had as its chief - or, to use the terminology of organised crime networks, its "boss" - the renowned political operator and perhaps most internationally recognised personality of the KLA, Hashim Thaqi[21].
59. Thaqi can be seen to have spearheaded the KLA's rise to pre-eminence in the lead-up to the Rambouillet negotiations, both on the ground in Kosovo, and overseas. He also did much to foment the bitter internal factionalism that characterised the KLA throughout 1998 and 1999.
60. On the one hand, Thaqi undoubtedly owed his personal elevation to having secured political and diplomatic endorsement[22] from the United States and other Western powers, as the preferred domestic partner in their foreign policy project in Kosovo. This form of political support bestowed upon Thaqi, not least in his own mind, a sense of being "untouchable" and an unparalleled viability as Kosovo's post-war leader-in-waiting.
61. On the other hand, according to well-substantiated intelligence reports that we have examined thoroughly and corroborated through interviews in the course of our inquiry, Thaqi's "Drenica Group" built a formidable power base in the organised criminal enterprises that were flourishing in Kosovo and Albania at the time.
62. In this regard, Thaqi reportedly operated with support and complicity not only from Albania's formal governance structures, including the Socialist Government in power at the time, but also from Albania's secret services, and from the formidable Albanian mafia.
63. Many KLA commanders remained on Albanian territory, some even operating out of the Albanian capital Tirana, throughout the ensuing hostilities and beyond.
64. During the period of the NATO aerial bombardment, which lasted several weeks, perhaps the principal shift in the balance of power in Kosovo occurred as a result of the influx of foreigners into the region, in both overt and implicit support of the KLA cause. Unable to gain access directly to the territory of Kosovo, most of this foreign support was channelled through Albania.
65. In tacit acknowledgement of the safe harbour afforded to them by the sympathetic Albanian authorities, but also because it was more practical and more convenient for them to continue operating on the terrain with which they were familiar, several of the KLA's key commanders allegedly established protection rackets in the areas where their own clansmen were prevalent in Albania, or where they could find common cause with established organised criminals involved in such activities as human trafficking, sale of stolen motor vehicles, and the sex trade.
66. Notably, in confidential reports spanning more than a decade, agencies dedicated to combating drug smuggling in at least five countries have named Hashim Thaqi and other members of his "Drenica Group" as having exerted violent control over the trade in heroin and other narcotics[23].
67. Similarly, intelligence analysts working for NATO, as well as those in the service of at least four independent foreign Governments, made compelling findings through their intelligence-gathering related to the immediate aftermath of the conflict in 1999.[24] Thaqi was commonly identified, and cited in secret intelligence reports, as the most dangerous of the KLA's "criminal bosses".[25]
68. Several further known members of Thaqi's "Drenica Group" have been indicated to us in the course of our research to have played vital roles as co‑conspirators in various categories of criminal activity. They include Xhavit Haliti, Kadri Veseli, Azem Syla, and Fatmir Limaj. All of these men have been investigated repeatedly in the last decade as suspects in war crimes or organised criminal enterprises, including in major cases led by prosecutors under UNMIK, the ICTY[26], and EULEX. To the present day, however, all of them have evaded effective justice.
69. Everything leads us to believe that all of these men would have been convicted of serious crimes and would by now be serving lengthy prison sentences, but for two shocking dynamics that have consolidated their impunity: first, they appear to have succeeded in eliminating, or intimidating into silence, the majority of the potential and actual witnesses against them (both enemies and erstwhile allies), using violence, threats, blackmail, and protection rackets; and second, faltering political will on the part of the international community to effectively prosecute the former leaders of the KLA. This also seems to have allowed Thaqi - and by extension the other members of the "Drenica Group" to exploit their position in order to accrue personal wealth totally out of proportion with their declared activities.
70. Thaqi and these other "Drenica Group" members are consistently named as "key players" in intelligence reports on Kosovo's mafia-like structures of organised crime.[27] I have examined these diverse, voluminous reports with consternation and a sense of moral outrage.
71. What is particularly confounding is that all of the international community in Kosovo - from the Governments of the United States and other allied Western powers, to the EU-backed justice authorities - undoubtedly possess the same, overwhelming documentation of the full extent of the Drenica Group's crimes[28], but none seems prepared to react in the face of such a situation and to hold the perpetrators to account.
72. Our first-hand sources alone have credibly implicated Haliti, Veseli, Syla and Limaj, alongside Thaqi and other members of his inner circle, in having ordered - and in some cases personally overseen - assassinations, detentions, beatings and interrogations in various parts of Kosovo and, of particular interest to our work, in the context of KLA-led operations on the territory of Albania, between 1998 and 2000.
73. Members of the "Drenica Group" are also said to have asserted control of substantial funds placed at the disposal of the KLA to support its war effort.[29] In several instances this group was allegedly able to strike deals with established international networks of organised criminals, enabling expansion and diversification into new areas of "business", and the opening of new smuggling routes into other parts of Europe.
=== 3: NEWS ===
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http://en.rian.ru/world/20101130/161554707.htmlRussian Information Agency Novosti - November 30, 2010
Kosovo to become NATO member within four years — acting PM
"During my term, Kosovo will become a NATO member"
SARAJEVO: Kosovo, which unilaterally proclaimed its independence from Serbia in 2008, may get NATO membership within four years, Kosovo's acting premier said.
The Kosovo government, led by Hashim Thaci, had to resign after the parliament voted in favor of a no-confidence motion introduced by the opposition. However, Thaci hopes to regain the post as a result of the early parliamentary elections slated for December 12.
"I hope that during the first 15 month of my second term [as prime minister] we would get a visa-free regime with the European Union. And, during my term, Kosovo will become a NATO member," he said in an interview with Austria's national daily, Der Standard.
He also expressed readiness to resume dialog with Belgrade to discuss efforts to locate persons who went missing during the 1998-1999 conflict with Serbia. Pristina is also willing to discuss issues of infrastructure, transport, energy, communications and fight against organized crime.
Thaci also said in the interview that Serbia and Kosovo would recognize each other's independence and get the European Union membership "as two sovereign states" as a result of the talks.
The timeframe and agenda for the dialog between Belgrade and Pristina is yet to be set, but the talks are widely expected to begin after the December 12 elections.
The UN International Court of Justice ruled on July 22 that Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia did not violate general international law. But Resolution 1244 on Serbia's territorial integrity remains in force.
A total of 69 out of 192 UN member states have recognized Kosovo, which unilaterally proclaimed independence in February 2008. Serbia, Russia, China, India and some other countries have not recognized it, saying international law was violated.
Kosovo's independence from Serbia is formally recognized by 22 out of 27 EU member states. Despite calls from the European Parliament to do so, Kosovo has not been recognized as a sovereign state by Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia, Romania and Spain.
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http://rt.com/news/crimes-shadow-kosovo-vote/RT - December 12, 2010
Alleged crimes cast shadow over Kosovo vote
Video: http://rt.com/news/crimes-shadow-kosovo-vote
The voting in Kosovo is now over, and according to exit polls the two major parties are leading the race.
As election fever gripped Kosovo, candidates were promising to tackle unemployment and ethnic discrimination. But the Serb minority feared their vote would do little to bring down the barriers in the Albanian-dominated self-proclaimed state.
Polling was due to take place in early 2011, but the elections were brought forward, triggered by November’s parliamentary vote of no confidence in the governing coalition.
Candidates from 29 parties and independent lists are running for the 120 seats in Kosovo's parliament, with the two main parties expected to dominate the vote. They are Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi’s Democratic Party of Kosovo, the PDK, and its former coalition partner, the Democratic League of Kosovo, or the LDK.
However, the two parties are currently overwhelmed by rifts and internal fracturing. And more seriously, some members of the parties are under investigation for crimes ranging from corruption to abuse of office.
The leader of what is traditionally seen as Kosovo’s third largest party, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, is currently awaiting a retrial by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Critics argue that such men should not be allowed to stand as they damage the reputation and undermine the legitimacy of these elections.
At the same time, some newer parties seem to have been able to make their mark. While older parties built their campaigns around the ongoing promise of EU and NATO membership, the new ones focused on the “bread and butter” issues of corruption and unemployment.
Kosovo has Europe’s youngest population, and unemployment runs as high as 50 percent, according to some estimates. Kosovo’s economy is one of the weakest in Europe and there is endemic corruption at all levels of public life.
However, the main problem is that Kosovo remains deeply divided between the majority Albanian community, which makes up some 90 percent of the population, and the much smaller Serbian community.
Although there was fear of a low turnout, it did not come true, and the elections are said to be successful. However, the majority of all those who cast their ballots are expected to be Albanians.
Whereas Albanians feel very optimistic about an election that they have called historical, the same feelings are not shared by the Serbian minority.
The Serbs feel much more divided. Although they want to vote to bring about change, on the other hand they say they suffer daily discrimination and poor living conditions, which means they do not necessarily want to engage in Kosovo’s electoral system.
Serbs have 10 parliamentary seats allocated to them.
In the north of the province, Serbs were expected to heed the call from the Serbian government to boycott these elections. But those from the south might have gone to the polls. The Serbian government said it would not penalize Serbs who choose to vote, although Kosovo’s self-proclaimed independence is something that Serbia has said it will never accept.
On the whole, recent polls have shown that people in Kosovo – especially when compared with others living around the Balkans – have suffered a drastic loss of faith in all public institutions from the judiciary to the parliament.
Serbia's Minister for Kosovo, Goran Bogdanovic, told RT that the region's Serbs had no chance of a better life because most candidates in the election are Albanians who are not sympathetic to them:
“Almost all the Albanian lists contain people who, unfortunately, were under trial or participated in criminal actions, or committed crimes in the late 90s against the Serbian community on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija. If we really want to move towards reconciliation of Serbs and Albanians, we cannot count on such people in the future.”
“In conversations with all state officials we emphasize that it’s a black hole. There is crime in the areas of money laundering and human, drugs and arms trafficking. And it’s no secret. All the international organizations working there know about it,” Goran Bogdanovic continued.
The minister also stressed that, although Belgrade will never recognize Kosovo’s independence, Serbia is ready to discuss the issues problematic for both Serbs and Albanians.
“In the current situation Albanians have received all they demanded, but on the other hand, Serbs have lost all they had. It’s absolutely unacceptable,” he concluded.
Balkan political expert Misha Gavrilovich believes that the situation in Kosovo is a misrepresentation of the word “independence.”
“Many Kosovo Albanians will now realize that independence merely means independence from Belgrade, it does not mean what anybody would want in their position – namely, sovereignty over their own territory and the resources on that territory,” he told RT.
“Many of those resources are owned by foreign companies; they have been effectively privatized and they’re no longer in the possession of people who live in Kosovo,” he said. “And once this realization happens, many will realize that there might be even more difficult times ahead.”
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http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/12/15/36855724.htmlVoice of Russia - December 14, 2010
Kosovo PM is head of arms and human organ ring - report
Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi is the head of a "mafia-like" Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe, says a Council of Europe inquiry report on organized crime.
The report obtained by London’s Guardian newspaper identifies Mr. Thaçi as "the boss" of a network that began operating criminal rackets in the run-up to the 1999 Kosovo war, and has held powerful sway over the country's government ever since.
Members of Mr. Thaçi's inner circle are accused of secretly taking captives across the border into Albania after the war, where a few Serbs are said to have been murdered for their kidneys, which were sold on the black market.
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http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1605579.php/Kosovar-leader-says-people-lost-a-friend-in-HolbrookeDeutsche Presse-Agentur - December 14, 2010
Kosovar leader says people lost 'a friend' in Holbrooke
Pristina: Kosovo caretaker Prime Minister Hashim Thaci on Tuesday expressed condolences to the US on the death of diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who was 'a friend' of the people of Kosovo.
Thaci, whose Democratic Party won Sunday's snap elections, sent a telegram to President Barack Obama saying that 'For citizens of Kosovo, the death of Richard Holbrooke is a loss of a friend, of a voice that protected the interest of the Republic of Kosovo.'
Holbrooke was a staunch supporter of Kosovo Albanians in their fight against Belgrade's rule in the late 1990s.
The conflict in Kosovo spurred US into leading NATO in its intervention against Serbia in 1999, eventually paving the way to the secession of the province in 2008.
Thaci's remarks came amid a so far muted response in the Balkan region to the news of Holbrooke's death.
In Sarajevo, one reaction came from the international community's representative in Bosnia, Valentin Inzko, who credited Holbrooke for the Dayton peace accord.
In Belgrade, Serbian state television RTS only quoted Peter Robinson, a lawyer in The Hague for former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, as saying that Karadzic felt 'sorrow and regret' over the news of Holbrooke's death.
On trial facing genocide charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Karadzic has claimed that Holbrooke in 1996 had promised him immunity from prosecution for his actions during the Bosnian war.
Robinson said Karadzic was hoping to get Holbrooke to testify at the ICTY proceedings.
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http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/12/15/36914740.htmlVoice of Russia - December 15, 2010
PACE Recognizes Serbs' Plight
Russia’s Foreign Minister urges the West not to silence the report of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) about the crimes of the Kosovo leader Hashim Thachi. "The information about trafficking in human organs appeared long ago. And now, as I think, the investigation into the above-mentioned facts has been completed. This report must be open for everybody," Russia’s Foreign Minister stressed.
According to PACE experts, Hashim Thachi is the leader of an Albanian Mafiosi group, which is responsible for the smuggling of arms, drugs, and human organs. The materials of the conducted investigation say that in the past decade Thachi has exercised control over the sale of heroin. The closest supporters of Hashim Thachi are involved in trafficking in human organs.
The atrocities of the Albanian militants against peaceful Serb civilians were a secret for a long time. The former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Carla Del Ponte was among the first in 2008 to make the atrocities public. In her book, “The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals”, she said that in 1999 she received information about the kidnapping of 300 Kosovo Serbs and about their transportation to Albania. There in secret clinics vital organs were taken from them and supplied to major clinics in Western Europe.
The fact that Hashim Thachi was engaged in the criminal business is no secret at all, the German political analyst Alexander Rahr says.
"Earlier Hashim Thachi worked in the criminal sphere. Simply, during the fight for independence and during the invasion of Kosovo by NATO’s forces and the Americans many notions changed their meaning. Hashim Thachi sided with America. He became the friend and ally of former US Secretary of State Mrs. Albright. In any case, from the point of view of the former Western authorities, this was how he whitewashed himself – he turned from a bad man into a hand-shaking politician", Alexander Rahr says.
The PACE investigation has confirmed the exposures, which were mentioned by Russian diplomats more than once,
The head of the Centre for the Study of the Modern Balkan Crisis Yelena Guskova says: "This is all well known. Serbia’s government compiled over a long period dossiers on many Kosovo leaders and then filed the documents to the appropriate bodies in Europe, to the tribunal of the Hague and to the USA. However, Kosovo is a “holy cow”, which the shepherd – in this case, the USA – allows nobody to touch. Therefore, the plan which America is actively pushing forward with has not been fulfilled to the end. Meaning the plan for Kosovo independence".
The Western countries have deliberately turned a blind eye to the crimes committed by Albanian militants from the “Kosovo Liberation Army”, basing their approach on political considerations.
They were afraid that publicity to this effect would become an insurmountable obstacle on the way to the recognition of Kosovo’s independence, which was unilaterally declared by the Albanian separatists.
For the time being, the leading NATO countries have given no comments on the PACE report. However, Pristina’s reaction was very nervous. At first, those in Pristina denied everything. And then they said that the Kosovo government and Hashim Thachi would take “all necessary measures against all those who are spreading lies and slander”. Seems to be a threat, though.
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http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2010&mm=12&dd=15&nav_id=71538Tanjug News Agency - December 15, 2010
PACE set to discuss Marty document
BELGRADE: The Human Rights and Legal Affairs Committee with the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) will meet on Thursday in Paris for a closed session.
The committee should adopt the report by CoE Rapporteur Dick Marty, in which the current Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci is qualified as the leader of a drug, arms and human organs trafficking group.
After the committee meeting, the Swiss investigator is scheduled to give a press conference.
If the report is adopted tomorrow, the PACE will discuss the document at its meeting on January 25.
The report has been in the works since April 2008, when 17 MPs signed a request for adopting a resolution that calls on the PACE to review some of the accusations brought to light by former chief Hague prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte.
They concerned 1999 kidnappings of Serb and other civilians from Kosovo, believed to have been taken by KLA members to northern Albania, where their vital organs were harvested.
The issue was then taken over by the Human Rights and Legal Affairs Committee, which appointed Dick Marty as its rapporteur in June 2008.
During the investigation, Marty visited Belgrade and Priština, and also Tirana, where he conferred with a number of officials, including prosecutors and representatives of justice ministries and ministries of foreign affairs, as well as members of international institutions such as EULEX and UNMIK.
Marty's report refers to Hashim Thaci as the head of the criminal network which started criminal activities following the 1999 war, and has influenced the government in Priština ever since.
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http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15783010&PageNum=0Itar-Tass - December 15, 2010
West ignores crimes of Kosovo militants led by Thaci-PACE
LONDON: Western powers deliberately turned a blind eye to crimes committed by ethnic Albanian guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), including the murders of Serbs for trade in their organs. This conclusion made in a report prepared by an expert group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), published by The Guardian on Wednesday.
Report is the result of an independent investigation conducted by a group of experts headed by PACE member Dick Marty – a liberal Swiss politician, former chief prosecutor of the Canton of Ticino.
Kosovo’s prime minister is the head of a “mafia-like” Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe, according to a Council of Europe inquiry report on organised crime, writes the newspaper.
The report of the two-year inquiry, which cites FBI and other intelligence sources, has been obtained by the Guardian. It names Thaci as having over the last decade exerted “violent control” over the heroin trade. Figures from Thaci’s inner circle are also accused of taking captives across the border into Albania after the war, where a number of Serbs are said to have been murdered for their kidneys, which were sold on the black market, the British newspaper writes.
While deploring Serb atrocities, Marty said the international community chose to ignore suspected war crimes by the KLA, “placing a premium instead on achieving some degree of short-term stability.” He concludes that during the Kosovo war and for almost a year after, Thaci and four other members of the Drenica group named in the report carried out “assassinations, detentions, beatings and interrogations.” This same hardline KLA faction has held considerable power in Kosovo's government over the last decade, with the support of western powers keen to ensure stability in the fledgling state.
Marty is critical of the western powers which have provided a supervisory role in Kosovo’s emergence as a state, for failing to hold senior figures, including Thaci, to account. His report criticises “faltering political will on the part of the international community to effectively prosecute the former leaders of the KLA,” writes The Guardian.
According to a preliminary draft resolution of the Assembly on Marty’s report, the PACE was extremely concerned to learn of the revelations of the former Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), who alleged that serious crimes had been committed during the conflict in Kosovo, including trafficking in human organs, crimes which had gone unpunished hitherto and had not been the subject of any serious investigation. In addition, according to the former Prosecutor, these acts had been committed by members of the “Kosovo Liberation Army” (KLA) militia against Serbian nationals who had remained in Kosovo at the end of the armed conflict and been taken prisoner.
According to the information gathered by the Assembly and to the criminal investigations now under way, numerous concrete and convergent indications confirm that some Serbians and some Albanian Kosovars were held prisoner in secret places of detention under KLA control in northern Albania and were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, before ultimately disappearing, it says.
Numerous indications seem to confirm that, during the period immediately after the end of the armed conflict, before international forces had really been able to take control of the region and re-establish a semblance of law and order, organs were removed from some prisoners at a clinic in Albanian territory, near Fushe-Kruje, to be taken abroad for transplantation.
This criminal activity, which developed with the benefit of the chaos prevailing in the region, at the initiative of certain KLA militia leaders linked to organised crime, has continued, albeit in other forms, until today, as demonstrated by an investigation being carried out by the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) relating to the Medicus clinic in Pristina. Although some concrete evidence of such trafficking already existed at the beginning of the decade, the international authorities in charge of the region did not consider it necessary to conduct a detailed examination of these circumstances, or did so incompletely and superficially.
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http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/12/16/37024591.htmlVoice of Russia - December 16, 2010
Kosovo PM implicated in organ-trafficking – PACE report
The territory of Albania was used by Kosovo militants for the traffic of organs of Serb prisoners, a PACE spokesman Dick Marty told a Paris news conference on Thursday.
The topic is currently on the table of a PACE panel, of which Marty is the chairman.
He warned Kosovo authorities from whitewashing those behind organ-trafficking, including Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci.
Marty pointed the finger at some major international organizations, which he said played down outrageous facts of organ-trafficking in Kosovo.
He said that a PACE report to this effect will see the light of day in the near future.
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http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2010&mm=12&dd=16&nav_id=71564B92/Tanjug News Agency - December 16, 2010
Marty: Everyone knew about shocking crimes
PARIS: Council of Europe (CoE) Rapporteur Dick Marty addressed reporters today as his draft report on human organ trafficking was adopted.
The Swiss, known for his exposure of illegal CIA-run prisons in Europe, put together a damning report on allegations that Serb and other civilians in Kosovo were kidnapped in the wake of the 1999 war, and taken to Albania where their organs were removed and sold in the black market.
The document names current Kosovo Albanian PM Hashim Thaci, formerly one of the leaders of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), as being responsible for these, and other serious crimes.
As the CoE Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee met today in Paris to adopt the report and draft acresolution that is expected to be debated in late January, Marty spoke to journalists during a news conference.
He stressed that he was "particularly shocked" to find out during his two-year investigation that a large number of people, and organizations, knew about the crimes but "did not wish to talk about it".
Marty noted that his report "said nothing new", and that "everybody knew about the crimes of the KLA".
What is new, the Swiss explained, "is that someone has said it, and put it in writing".
Marty told reporters that his task was to determine the facts related to a book written by former Chief Hague Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte - who first publicly mentioned the organ trafficking allegations in early 2008 - and that his job was "very delicate", because many people chose not to talk to him or his associates.
"The report simply determines that disturbing things have happened, that there is serious evidence that indicates the crimes did happen, that the crimes were committed by KLA members, and that to this day, these crimes have not been punished," Marty said.
The CoE rapporteur added that "these crimes have never been the subject of a serious investigation."
"Another revelation is that they include the territory of Albania. In that absolutely chaotic period in 1999 and 2000, that is, after the end of (NATO) bombardment and establishment of UNMIK, the KLA exercised power in the entire territory (of Kosovo), and that is when the crimes were committed. People were kidnapped, deported to Albania. You are aware that EULEX has opened an investigation related to secret prisons, Kukesh in northern Albania is mentioned there."
Marty went on to say that some parts of his report document "open ties between organized crime and politics, including representatives of the government", and that he was "not guided by rumors, but described the crimes based on many testimonies, documents and objective findings".
"Finally, we arrived at the conclusion that these events were known to many intelligence services from many countries. This was known to the police, to a large number of people, who would privately say, 'yes, I am aware of that', but who, for the sake of political opportunism, would decide to remain silent," he continued.
"What has shocked me is that most facts in this report were known to a large number of organizations, and yet that there was silence about it until this day. I believe that a future of a country cannot be built without truth, without insisting on truth and memory. There will never be peace between various communities if the principle of 'not wanting to know' continues," Marty warned.
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http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2010&mm=12&dd=16&nav_id=71563Tanjug News Agency - December 16, 2010
Prosecutor: More evidence than in Marty report
BELGRADE: Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukčević says his office's organ trafficking investigation collected "far more evidence".
He was comparing the effort of the prosecution with that of Council of Europe (CoE) Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Dick Marty.
The human organs trade concerns the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), who are believed to have kidnapped Serb and other civilians in the province in 1999.
Vukčević refused to provide the names of the suspects, pointing out that results would be made known after the investigation was complete.
“I want to avoid bidding on a number of medical workers and people involved in the committing of the crimes under investigation. Therefore, I will not name anyone, especially since there is already a lot of speculation about this in the media,” Vukčević said at a press conference in Belgrade.
The conference, held in the Special War Crimes Court building, was related to Dick Marty's report in which Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was mentioned as one of the people responsible for body parts harvesting in Kosovo after the armed conflict there.
Vukčević stressed further progress in the investigation would not be possible without EULEX and the CoE cooperating, adding that it would not matter who raised charges against the people responsible for the crimes.
“The question who would stand the trial - we or EULEX or the Albanians - is less important - ours is to prove the atrocities were really committed, it is only important that the perpetrators be brought to justice,” Vukčević underlined.
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http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2010&mm=12&dd=16&nav_id=71547B92/Tanjug News Agency - December 16, 2010
Committee adopts Kosovo organ trafficking report
PARIS: Council of Europe (CoE) Rapporteur Dick Marty today in Paris officially presented his report on human organ trafficking in Kosovo and northern Albania.
The draft report, detailing locations where members of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) took kidnapped civilians to have their vital organs removed and later sold, was adopted by the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee.
In it, Kosovo Albanian Premier and former KLA leader Hashim Thaci has been named as the ringleader of a group that was involved in organ, drugs and arms trafficking.
Reports from Paris today said that the decision came despite "some attempts" to postpone it.
The Marty report confirms information obtained by the Serbian War Crimes prosecution that some 500 Serbs were kidnapped in Kosovo, to be killed in prison camps in Albania, where their organs were removed.
Deputy Prosecutor Bruno Vekarić says that the document will be a reason for justice systems in the region to "mobilize", while Serbian President Boris Tadić says the accusations from the report should be "checked".
After the closed-door debate of the committee in Paris today, a decision will be made whether to send a draft resolution to the CoE Parliamentary Committee (PACE).
Serbian representatives expect this to happen during the day. Amendments to the draft can then be submitted, while the debate on the resolution could take place on January 25.
CoE resolutions have "high moral value", but are not legally binding.
Nataša Vučković, a member of the Serbian delegation, said today the resolution will be on the assembly agenda in January and all members of the assembly can propose amendments to it.
The resolution, if adopted by the assembly, would be the first international legal document to describe the Kosovo Liberation Army as a terrorist organization involved in organ trafficking.
"The Serbian delegation commended Marty's courage in raising this issue and answering a whole series of questions that had been shrouded in silence and secrecy for a many years," Vučković noted.
Serbia's representatives stressed that it was necessary to find out the truth, for the victims, missing persons and their families, as well as to facilitate reconciliation and establish trust and peace in the region.
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http://www.b92.net/eng/news/crimes-article.php?yyyy=2010&mm=12&dd=16&nav_id=71552Beta News Agency - December 16, 2010
Closing arguments in KLA war crimes case
BELGRADE: The War Crimes Chamber of the Higher Court in Belgrade will today hear closing arguments in the trial of the Gnjilane Group of the so-called KLA.
A total of 17 ethnic Albanians have been charged with torture and vicious murder of Serb and other civilians in the town of Gnjilane, eastern Kosovo, in 1999.
The judges will set the date for the reading of the verdicts, after the defense and the prosecution give their closing statements today.
Those undergoing trial in Belgrade were arrested in Preševo in late 2008, and include Aguš Memiši, Faton Hajdari, Ahmet Hasani, Nazif Hasani, Samet Hajdari, Ferat Hajdari, Kamber Sahiti, Selimon Sadiku and Burim Fazliju.
Eight more members of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) have been indicted, and they are Fazlija Ajdari, Redžep Aliji, Šaćir Šaćiri, Šefket Musliji, Sadik Aliji, Idriz Aliji, Šemsija Nuhiju and Ramadan Halimi.
However, they remain fugitives from justice, and their trial has been separated from the current one.
The defendants are standing trial for committing cruel murder of at least 80 civilians - Serbs, other non-Albanians, and some Albanians, while torturing 153 others, who were later released.
The prosecution believes that some of the group's victims died in their homes and in the streets, but most were taken to a basement of a boarding school in Gnjilane, where they were tortured and mutilated to death.
In order to cover up the crimes, the victims' bodies were butchered, placed in bags, and dumped into garbage, or into nearby Lake Livočko.
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http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15790648&PageNum=0Itar-Tass - December 17, 2010
Russia regards Kosovo elections as illegal
MOSCOW: Moscow regards the parliamentary elections in Kosovo as illegal, Alexei Sazonov, deputy director of the information and press department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, told journalists here on Friday.
“We do not regard as legal the elections to the Kosovo Assembly, held on December 12, 2010, because they were organised by the authorities of the self-proclaimed republic,” Sazonov explained.
According to Sazonov, “the success achieved at the elections by the extremely radical political parties of Kosovo Albanians evokes concern. The observers registered a number of serious violations during the elections.”
“The international organisations avoided the certification of the elections, in which the Serbs living in Kosovo played too small a role,” he said.
Aside from it, machinations with the lists of electors, the use of forged ballot papers and the casting of ballots several times by the same persons were also registered.
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http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=123257 Sofia News Agency - December 17, 2010
Council of Europe Adopts Kosovo Organ Trafficking Report
The human rights committee of the Council of Europe adopted Thursday a resolution requesting investigation of the traffic of drugs, weapons and human organs carried out by organizations in Kosovo under the heading of Hashim Thaci.
Council of Europe Secretary-General Thorbjørn Jagland has called the information in the report "very serious and concerning" and has requested that the allegations not be left unanswered.
Thaci, a former Kosovar PM, who just won snap elections over the weekend, was a combat leader of the controversial KLA that fought with Serbian authorities for independence with heavy backing from Western countries, especially the USA.
Now the Council of Europe report, drafted by Swiss deputy Dick Marty, and passed by a large 2/3 majority, argues that Thaci and other Kosovar leaders organized the traffic not only of weapons and narcotic, but also of human organs, sometimes harevested from involuntary donors.
“Numerous indications seem to confirm that, during the period immediately after the end of the armed conflict, organs were removed from some prisoners at a clinic in Albanian territory, near Fushë-Kruje, to be taken abroad for transplantation," reads the report.
There has been substantial evidence that Serbians - and some Albanian Kosovars - had been secretly imprisoned by the KLA in northern Albania "and were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, before ultimately disappearing," the report says.
In Kosovo, the government of Thaci dismissed the report as fabrications designed to smear its leaders.
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http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2010&mm=12&dd=17&nav_id=71582Tanjug News Agency - December 17, 2010
Media see "Kosovo, state of horror"
LONDON: World media have given a lot of attention to adoption of CoE investigator Dick Marty’s report on human organ trade in Kosovo.
In it, Kosovo Albanian Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was named as the leader of a criminal group that used to kidnap people, remove their organs and sell them.
Commenting on the report which was adopted by the the CoE Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights yesterday, London's Times newspaper wrote that Kosovo was “a horror state”.
The London-based daily dedicated one of its editorials entitled “The state of horror” to Kosovo, pointing out that the Kosovo PM was accused of heroin and human organ trafficking.
The Daily Mail points out that both Blair and the Clinton administration tended to ignore atrocities committed by Hashim Thaci’s so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), and describes Thaci as "a monster".
"Of the 2,000 people killed on both sides in the year before the U.S.-British bombing began, a significant minority were Serbs," according to the newspaper.
But it notes that a UN report later said that 90 Serb villages in Kosovo had been ethnically cleansed in the months leading up to March 1999.
In Moscow, Russian daily Kommersant quoted Head of the Russian delegation to PACE Leonid Slutsky who said that “Marty always carefully checks the information and uncompromisingly defends his position, even when it comes to the most serious issues” and that Russia would take a stand on Marty’s report after his visit to Moscow next w
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