Nell'estate 2005 a Parigi, nel quadro del Festival dei film sui Diritti dell'Uomo, fu presentato anche il filmato che potete vedere nella Sezione Video del sito Google:

Esso documenta del traffico di armi a favore dei secessionisti pan-albanesi; nel documentario vedrete tra l'altro i soldi andati dritti dritti in tasca ai politici USA che hanno appoggiato - ed appoggiano - l'irredentismo revanscista, pan-albanese e non solo pan-albanese, nei Balcani. 

Protagonista della operazione è Florin Krasniqi, un piccolo imprenditore edile, che esibisce il suo fanatismo e razzismo anti-serbo davanti alle telecamere. Nel film si vedono i membri del clan Krasniqi ed altri, legati alla mafia albanese ed all'UCK. Viene documentato come tonnellate di armi furono trasportate dal Nord America in Kosovo, tramite l'Albania. Vedrete anche il generalissimus della NATO in un'atmosfera preelettorale, dove piovono assegni da migliaia e migliaia di dollari...

(a cura di Olga ed Andrea)

 

By Ana Uzelac in The Hague

Slobodan Milosevic and Hague tribunal prosecutors embarked on a risky journey this week, when Yugoslav army general Bozidar Delic - himself potentially implicated in numerous war crimes in Kosovo - entered the witness stand.

The 49-year-old defence witness was brought to The Hague to counter prosecution claims that the Yugoslav army took part in the ethnic cleansing and murder of Albanian civilians in Kosovo during the 1999 conflict there.

But it emerged that the neatly dressed, well-mannered general was himself implicated in several episodes of alleged war crimes in Kosovo - yet, at the same time, is scheduled as an expert witness for the prosecution in their case against the former Kosovo Albanian prime minister Ramush Haradinaj. (...)

The witness started off by trying to prove that the Kosovo Albanian rebellion in 1998 had western backing, by showing a video clip of US special envoy Richard Holbrook meeting with a Kosovar guerrilla leader in June of that year. This meeting, which Milosevic has tried to present as a part of a western conspiracy against his country, was in fact conducted in public view and in the framework of Holbrook's official visit to destroyed Albanian villages in Kosovo at the time.

The first clip showed the movie's main characters Florin Krasniqi distributing weapons to Albanian men - alleged insurgents - from the back of a van. But IWPR's senior editor Stacy Sullivan - who produced the documentary - later explained to this reporter in a telephone interview from New York that the clip was in fact a re-enactment based on Krasniqi's recollections, which was filmed in Kosovo in November 2003.

The witness then moved to paint a picture of the Yugoslav army's attempts to stop the growing illegal import of weapons and the infiltration of trained guerrillas from neighbouring Albania. To back up this picture, he used recordings of intercepted radio traffic between the insurgents and various contemporaneous reports he sent to his superiors.

He also described numerous border incidents in his zone of responsibility in southwestern Kosovo - and played video clips of the official army investigations into some of them.

The pictures showed bodies of Albanians killed in alleged shootouts as well as weapons and ammunition confiscated by the Yugoslav army. In one such incident, the witness claimed, six conscript soldiers and one non-commissioned officer ambushed a group of around 175 insurgents and managed to kill 19 of them, without suffering a single casualty.

(... ) Two witnesses who earlier testified in the prosecution stage of the trial have implicated general Delic and his unit in several episodes of deliberate mass killings of Albanian civilians in Kosovo. (...) This "demolishing effect" is likely to be strengthened, as it comes after the prosecutors managed to seriously dent the credibility of the previous witness - police inspector Dragan Jasovic, whose testimony ended on May 22 and who is likely to be remembered for the numerous allegations of torture levelled against him for his dealings with Albanians in the Kosovo town of Urosevac. 

"If the witnesses like [Jasovic and Delic] are in the end remembered by the judges not by the evidence they brought but by the crimes they are alleged to have committed themselves, . they would serve Milosevic no purpose," said Chen.

But destroying the credibility of both Delic and Jasovic could also prove to be potentially risky and embarrassing for the prosecutor's office as a whole - they have both been called on by the prosecution to appear in the trials of two Kosovo Albanians. As revealed this week, Delic is scheduled to appear as an expert witness in the Haradinaj trial, which is yet to begin. Jasovic has already testified in the prosecution case against KLA regional commander Fatmir Limaj.

In this way, the lead prosecutor in the Milosevic case is effectively destroying the credibility of the witnesses chosen by his colleagues working on another case. This paradox, according to Chen of the CIJ, stems from the nature of the adversarial system applied in the court, which allows for the same person to be rendered useless in one case because they are subject to sustained cross-examination in another.

But with cases as high profile as Milosevic and later Haradinaj, such a paradox can easily end up as an embarrassment, Chen warns, adding that the prosecutors may try to avoid this embarrassment by removing Delic from their witness list in the Haradinaj case.

"In the end the prosecutors have to choose - weakening their Milosevic case or losing one witness in the Haradinaj [trial]," he said. "Clearly, they would not risk the former."

Ana Uzelac is IWPR's project manager in The Hague.

IWPR'S TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 411, June 24, 2005

www. iwpr.net

From:   r_rozoff

Date: July 19, 2005 11:50:52 PM GMT+02:00

Bloomberg News - July 19, 2005

From Brooklyn to Kosovo, Arms Supplier Makes Deadly Connection 

-``We have a team of snipers here in the U.S. ready to

be dispatched on very short notice,'' Krasniqi says. 

Florin Krasniqi owns a roofing company and lives in a

pleasant Brooklyn neighborhood, where he enjoys

poolside barbecues with his wife and two children. 

Not exactly the typical profile of a major arms

supplier to a guerilla army. But that's a pretty fair

description of Krasniqi, who's at the center of a

chilling PBS documentary called ``The Brooklyn

Connection.'' 

Krasniqi is an immigrant from Kosovo who was a major

backer of the Kosovo Liberation Army, a group of

ethnic Albanians who tried to topple the Serbian-led

government during the late 1990s. He raised $30

million to arm and supply KLA fighters during the war,

which ended in 1999 when Serbia agreed to a United

Nations-approved peace plan. 

Today, Kosovo remains under UN control with the aid of

NATO troops. But Krasniqi, whose hatred of the Serbian

rulers was fueled by the death of a cousin during

fighting in 1997, continues to raise money and supply

arms to rebels who want to drive the UN, NATO and the

Serbs out of Kosovo. 

``For us and the Serbs it's unfinished business,'' he

says. 

Shoot to Kill 

Krasniqi says Serbs consider Albanians ``animals''

worthy of slaughter. The feeling appears to be mutual.

Dutch filmmaker Klaartje Quirijns followed Krasniqi

from late 2003 to early 2005, including his visit to a

gun show where he received advice on the quickest way

to dispose of the enemy. 

``If you shoot them in the heart they still have nine

seconds to kill you,'' says a grizzled fellow with

thick glasses. Best to shoot an opponent in the

``medulla,'' the man says, because it ``kills them

instantly.'' 

Krasniqi also traveled to a gun store in St. Mary's,

Pennsylvania, where he fell in love with a 50-caliber

rifle - the most powerful in the world. This

particular model, about 4 1/2 feet long and mounted on

a tripod, can fire only one shot at a time. 

Krasniqi asks if a five-shot Beretta might be

available. The owner responds by inquiring what he

wants the gun for. 

``Elephant hunting,'' Krasniqi says. 

``We don't see a lot of elephant hunters,'' the owner

says. Although no five-shot Beretta was available,

Krasniqi buys the 50- caliber rifle and the owner

throws in a free hunting hat. 

Arms on Airplanes 

In a sequence that may surprise some airline patrons,

Krasniqi wheels the weapon to the U.S. Airways

check-in booth, opens the case (which also contains a

short-barreled shotgun with a pistol grip) and

promises there is no ammo inside. No problem, airline

officials say, and welcome him aboard.