By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press Writer
CAMDEN, N.J. – Five Muslim immigrants were convicted Monday of plotting to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix in a case that tested the FBI's post-Sept. 11 strategy of infiltrating and breaking up terrorist conspiracies in their earliest stages. The men could get life in prison when they are sentenced in April.
The five, who lived in and around Philadelphia for years, were found guilty of conspiring to kill U.S. military personnel. But they were acquitted of attempted murder, after prosecutors acknowledged the men were probably months away from an attack and did not necessarily have a specific plan. Four defendants were also convicted of weapons charges.
The federal jury deliberated for 38 hours over six days.
The government said after the arrests in 2007 that case underscored the dangers of terrorist plots hatched on U.S. soil. Although investigators said the conspirators were inspired by Osama bin Laden, they were not accused of any ties to foreign terror groups.
Defense lawyers argued that the alleged plot was all talk — that the men weren't seriously planning anything and that they were manipulated and goaded by two paid FBI informants.
Faten Shnewer, the mother of defendant Mohamad Shnewer, said the informants should be the ones in jail. "Not my son and his friends. It's not right, it's not justice," she said after the verdict. The government "sent somebody to push him to say something; that's it."
Convicted were: Shnewer, a Jordanian-born cab driver; Turkish-born convenience store clerk Serdar Tatar; and brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka, ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia, who had a roofing business. A sixth man arrested and charged only with gun offenses pleaded guilty earlier.
"These criminals had the capacity and had done preparations to do serious and grievous harm to members of our military," Ralph Marra, the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said after the verdict.
But some Muslim leaders in New Jersey disputed that.
"I don't think they actually mean to do anything," said Mohamed Younes, president of the American Muslim Union. "I think they were acting stupid, like they thought the whole thing was a joke."
Jim Sues, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said: "Many people in the Muslim community will see this as a case of entrapment. From what I saw, there was a significant role played by the government informant."
The yearlong investigation began after a clerk at a Circuit City store told the FBI that some customers had asked him to transfer onto DVD some video footage of them firing assault weapons and screaming about jihad.
The FBI asked two informants — both foreign-born men who entered the U.S. illegally and had criminal records — to befriend the suspects. Both informants were paid and were offered help obtaining legal resident status.
During the eight-week trial, the government relied heavily on information gathered by the informants, who secretly recorded hundreds of conversations.
Prosecutors said the men bought several assault rifles supplied by the FBI and that they trekked to Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains to practice their shooting. The government also presented dozens of jihadist speeches and videos that the men supposedly used as inspiration.
According to prosecutors, the group chose the Army post because one of the defendants was familiar with it. His father's pizza shop delivered to the New Jersey base, which is 25 miles from Philadelphia and used primarily to train reservists for duty in Iraq.
The group's objective was to kill "as many American soldiers as possible," prosecutors said.
But the men's lawyers attacked the credibility of the informants and accused them of instigating the plot.
After the verdict, Schnewer's attorney, Rocco Cipparone, said there would not have been a conspiracy without the involvement of the informants. "I believe they shaped the evidence," he said.
Prosecutor William Fitzpatrick defended the government's handling of the case, telling the jury: "The FBI investigates crime on the front end. They don't want to have to do it on the back end."
Members of the jury would not speak to reporters after the verdict and instead released a statement that said, in part, "This has been one of the most difficult things that we have ever had to do."
None of the defendants testified.
The government said after the men's arrest that an attack was imminent, though prosecutors backed off that assertion at the trial.
The government has had a mixed record on terrorism prosecutions since Sept. 11. It won guilty pleas from Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui; Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic jetliner with a shoe bomb; and the Lackawanna Six, a terrorist cell outside Buffalo, N.Y. And it convicted Jose Padilla of plotting terrorist attacks.
But a case against four men in Michigan fell apart after a federal prosecutor was accused of withholding evidence. And a case in Miami against seven men accused of plotting to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower has produced one acquittal and two mistrials.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
Germany welcomes release of 3 citizens in Kosovo
AP Sat Nov 29, 7:45 am ETBERLIN –
Germany on Saturday welcomed the return of three of its citizens who had been arrested in Kosovo on suspicion of plotting a bomb attack on EU offices there.
On Friday U.N. judges ordered Pristina police to free the three men for lack of evidence that they had plotted the bombing as an attempt to disrupt an ambitious new EU police mission in Kosovo.
"The federal government was always certain of the innocence of the three Germans," said Thomas Steg, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a statement.
The men were released Friday evening and flew to Germany early Saturday.
Prosecutors in Kosovo alleged that on Nov. 14 a German citizen threw 300 grams (0.6 pounds) of dynamite at EU offices in Pristina as two others looked on. The dynamite exploded but caused no injuries. The men were arrested last week and ordered held for 30 days. They denied the charges.
German media widely reported, citing unnamed sources in the Federal Intelligence Service, that the men were intelligence agents, claims the government would not confirm.
Steg said at a press conference Monday that those reports constituted "speculation that we cannot and will not entertain publicly" and denied the German government had played a role in the attacks.
The EU office attacked on Nov. 14 houses officials who monitor Kosovo's compliance with an international plan that paved the way for Kosovo to declare independence from Serbia on Feb. 17.
The plan was not endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, prompting Serbia to ignore the declaration.
But more than 50 countries — including Germany — recognized Kosovo's independence based on the plan. Kosovo prosecutors never explained why German agents would seek to disrupt the EU mission.
Germany on Saturday welcomed the return of three of its citizens who had been arrested in Kosovo on suspicion of plotting a bomb attack on EU offices there.
On Friday U.N. judges ordered Pristina police to free the three men for lack of evidence that they had plotted the bombing as an attempt to disrupt an ambitious new EU police mission in Kosovo.
"The federal government was always certain of the innocence of the three Germans," said Thomas Steg, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a statement.
The men were released Friday evening and flew to Germany early Saturday.
Prosecutors in Kosovo alleged that on Nov. 14 a German citizen threw 300 grams (0.6 pounds) of dynamite at EU offices in Pristina as two others looked on. The dynamite exploded but caused no injuries. The men were arrested last week and ordered held for 30 days. They denied the charges.
German media widely reported, citing unnamed sources in the Federal Intelligence Service, that the men were intelligence agents, claims the government would not confirm.
Steg said at a press conference Monday that those reports constituted "speculation that we cannot and will not entertain publicly" and denied the German government had played a role in the attacks.
The EU office attacked on Nov. 14 houses officials who monitor Kosovo's compliance with an international plan that paved the way for Kosovo to declare independence from Serbia on Feb. 17.
The plan was not endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, prompting Serbia to ignore the declaration.
But more than 50 countries — including Germany — recognized Kosovo's independence based on the plan. Kosovo prosecutors never explained why German agents would seek to disrupt the EU mission.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
UN gives green light for EU in Kosovo
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press
Writer – Wed Nov 26, 10:58 pm ETUNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday approved the deployment of a European Union mission throughout Kosovo under the U.N. umbrella.
The mission, known as EULEX, was supposed to deploy soon after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17 to promote peace, justice and the rule of law. But it was stalled in part because of objections from Serbia, which insists that Kosovo remains part of its territory.
Serbia and Kosovo reluctantly agreed to cooperate with the new EU mission earlier this week. But the status of Kosovo, whose independence has been recognized by 52 countries, remains an issue of vehement disagreement.
All parties agreed that the council's action Wednesday will finally allow the 2,000-strong EU mission to take over from the U.N. and promote the rule of law throughout Kosovo, including the Serb-dominated north.
Britain's deputy U.N. ambassador Karen Pierce called EULEX's upcoming deployment "an important step forward in the integration of the region into the European Union." The U.N. and the EU must now agree on a detailed operational plan so all the communities in Kosovo know exactly what will happen and the timetable, she said.
Without mentioning their differences, a statement approved by all 15 Security Council members late Wednesday welcomed the intentions of Serbia and Kosovo "to cooperate with the international community."
"I think the deployment of EULEX throughout Kosovo and the cooperative arrangements that have now been set up lessen the risk that Kosovo will be partitioned, and that has to be welcomed," she said.
Kosovo's Foreign Minister Skender Hyseni told reporters that the EU mission "has been invited into an independent Kosovo by the sovereign authorities" as a rule-of-law mission to focus on the protection of minority rights.
"We will not tolerate, we will not permit, any action that does infringe upon the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Kosovo," he told reporters after briefing the Security Council.
Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said that "Serbia will never, ever accept the independence of Kosovo."
But he told the council, "the European Union can and should help to build the much needed institutional and societal fabric of our southern province."
Kosovo came under U.N. and NATO administration after a NATO-led air war halted former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.
It was widely expected the world body would leave Kosovo after majority ethnic Albanians moved to declare independence from Serbia in a move coordinated with the United States and EU heavyweights. But Russia, which has strong ties to Serbia, vehemently objected, insisting that only the Security Council — where it has a veto — could end the U.N. mission in Kosovo.
Britain, which has recognized Kosovo, considers its independence irreversible and believes "these arrangements are interim and that one day there will be a bigger U.N. withdrawal and a hand over," Pierce said.
"That day isn't here yet but we're certainly on the right track now to more cooperation between the UN and EU in Kosovo," Pierce said.
Writer – Wed Nov 26, 10:58 pm ETUNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday approved the deployment of a European Union mission throughout Kosovo under the U.N. umbrella.
The mission, known as EULEX, was supposed to deploy soon after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17 to promote peace, justice and the rule of law. But it was stalled in part because of objections from Serbia, which insists that Kosovo remains part of its territory.
Serbia and Kosovo reluctantly agreed to cooperate with the new EU mission earlier this week. But the status of Kosovo, whose independence has been recognized by 52 countries, remains an issue of vehement disagreement.
All parties agreed that the council's action Wednesday will finally allow the 2,000-strong EU mission to take over from the U.N. and promote the rule of law throughout Kosovo, including the Serb-dominated north.
Britain's deputy U.N. ambassador Karen Pierce called EULEX's upcoming deployment "an important step forward in the integration of the region into the European Union." The U.N. and the EU must now agree on a detailed operational plan so all the communities in Kosovo know exactly what will happen and the timetable, she said.
Without mentioning their differences, a statement approved by all 15 Security Council members late Wednesday welcomed the intentions of Serbia and Kosovo "to cooperate with the international community."
"I think the deployment of EULEX throughout Kosovo and the cooperative arrangements that have now been set up lessen the risk that Kosovo will be partitioned, and that has to be welcomed," she said.
Kosovo's Foreign Minister Skender Hyseni told reporters that the EU mission "has been invited into an independent Kosovo by the sovereign authorities" as a rule-of-law mission to focus on the protection of minority rights.
"We will not tolerate, we will not permit, any action that does infringe upon the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Kosovo," he told reporters after briefing the Security Council.
Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said that "Serbia will never, ever accept the independence of Kosovo."
But he told the council, "the European Union can and should help to build the much needed institutional and societal fabric of our southern province."
Kosovo came under U.N. and NATO administration after a NATO-led air war halted former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.
It was widely expected the world body would leave Kosovo after majority ethnic Albanians moved to declare independence from Serbia in a move coordinated with the United States and EU heavyweights. But Russia, which has strong ties to Serbia, vehemently objected, insisting that only the Security Council — where it has a veto — could end the U.N. mission in Kosovo.
Britain, which has recognized Kosovo, considers its independence irreversible and believes "these arrangements are interim and that one day there will be a bigger U.N. withdrawal and a hand over," Pierce said.
"That day isn't here yet but we're certainly on the right track now to more cooperation between the UN and EU in Kosovo," Pierce said.
Germany Mulls Cutting Kosovo Aid Over Blast Arrests - Source
BERLIN (AFP)--Germany had to press Kosovo to win the release of three of its nationals held as part of a probe into a bomb attack in Pristina, and is now considering cutting aid, a source told AFP Sunday.
"Nothing has been decided but it is accurate that a certain amount of pressure was exercised and that these considerations are taking place," the source with knowledge of bilateral ties said, confirming a report in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
The newspaper reported Sunday that Berlin had brought "massive pressure" to bear on the Kosovan authorities to have the three men, who reportedly work for German intelligence, released over the weekend.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff, Thomas de Maziere, called the prime minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, Tuesday and threatened to cap aid, particularly for defense, WAMS said.
Germany is Kosovo's primary financial backer after the U.S. It has pledged EUR100 million in aid for 2009 and 2010.
The three Germans, reportedly working for the BND foreign intelligence service, were captured Nov. 19 and accused of involvement in the bombing of the Pristina headquarters of European Union special envoy Pieter Feith.
Kosovo and German media reports said the trio were investigating the blast for the BND. Since they were not registered with the Kosovan government, however, they had no diplomatic immunity.
A U.N. court in Pristina ordered their release Friday and the three left Kosovo Saturday.
Last week, a German government spokesman had angrily dismissed as "absurd" the notion that Berlin could have been involved in an attack on an E.U. envoy.
The Pristina attack, in which no one was injured, came amid opposition by Kosovo Albanians to the planned deployment in December of an E.U. civilian mission focused on police, the judiciary and customs, under a deal reached between the U.N. and Serbia.
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"Nothing has been decided but it is accurate that a certain amount of pressure was exercised and that these considerations are taking place," the source with knowledge of bilateral ties said, confirming a report in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
The newspaper reported Sunday that Berlin had brought "massive pressure" to bear on the Kosovan authorities to have the three men, who reportedly work for German intelligence, released over the weekend.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff, Thomas de Maziere, called the prime minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, Tuesday and threatened to cap aid, particularly for defense, WAMS said.
Germany is Kosovo's primary financial backer after the U.S. It has pledged EUR100 million in aid for 2009 and 2010.
The three Germans, reportedly working for the BND foreign intelligence service, were captured Nov. 19 and accused of involvement in the bombing of the Pristina headquarters of European Union special envoy Pieter Feith.
Kosovo and German media reports said the trio were investigating the blast for the BND. Since they were not registered with the Kosovan government, however, they had no diplomatic immunity.
A U.N. court in Pristina ordered their release Friday and the three left Kosovo Saturday.
Last week, a German government spokesman had angrily dismissed as "absurd" the notion that Berlin could have been involved in an attack on an E.U. envoy.
The Pristina attack, in which no one was injured, came amid opposition by Kosovo Albanians to the planned deployment in December of an E.U. civilian mission focused on police, the judiciary and customs, under a deal reached between the U.N. and Serbia.
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Friday, November 28, 2008
WERE THE RACAK DEAD REALLY COLDLY MASSACRED?
LE MONDE, January 21, 1999
by Christophe Chatelot
The version of the facts spread by the Kosovars leaves several questions unanswered. Belgrade says that the forty-five victims were UCK "terrorists, fallen during combat," but rejects any international investigation.
Isn't the Racak massacre just too perfect? New eye witness accounts gathered on Monday, January 18, by Le Monde, throw doubt on the reality of the horrible spectacle of dozens of piled up bodies of Albanians supposedly summarily executed by Serb security forces last Friday. Were the victims executed in cold blood, as UCK says, or killed
in combat, as the Serbs say?
According to the version gathered and broadcast by the press and the Kosovo verification mission (KVM) observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the massacre took place on January 15 in the early after-noon. "Masked" Serbian police entered the village of Racak, which had been shelled all morning by Yugoslav army tanks. They broke down the doors and entered people's homes, ordering
the women to stay there while they pushed the men to the edge of the village to calmly execute them with a bullet through the head, not without first having tortured and mutilated several. Some witnesses even said that the Serbs sang as they did their dirty work, before leaving the village around 3:30 p.m.
The account by two journalists of Associated Press TV television (AP TV) who filmed the police operation in Racak contradicts this tale. When at 10 a.m. they entered the village in the wake of a police armored vehicle, the village was nearly deserted. They advanced through the streets under the fire of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) fighters lying in ambush in the woods above the village. The exchange of fire
continued throughout the operation, with more or less intensity. The main fighting took place in the woods. The Albanians who had fled the village when the first Serb shells were fired at dawn tried to escape. There they ran into Serbian police who had surrounded the village. The UCK was trapped in between.
The object of the violent police attack on Friday was a stronghold of UCK Albanian independence fighters. Virtually all the inhabitants had fled Racak during the frightful Serb offensive of the summer of 1998. With few exceptions, they had not come back. "Smoke came from only two chimneys", noted one of the two AP TV reporters.
The Serb operation was thus no surprise, nor was it a secret. On the morning of the attack, a police source tipped off AP TV: "Come to Racak, something is happening". At 10 a.m., the team was on the spot alongside the police; it filmed from a peak overlooking the village and then through the streets in the wake of an armored vehicle. The OSCE was also warned of the action. At least two teams of international observers watched the fighting from a hill where they could see part of the village. They entered Racak shortly after the police left. They then questioned a few Albanians about the situation, trying to find out whether there were wounded civilians. Around 6 p.m., they took four persons -- two women and two old men -- who were very slightly wounded toward the dispensary of the neighboring town of Stimlje. The verifiers said at that time that they were "incapable of establishing the number of casualties of that day of fighting".
The publicity given by the Serbian police to that operation was intense. At 10:30 a.m., it gave out its first press release. It announced that the police had "encircled the village of Racak with the aim of arresting the members of a terrorist group who killed a policeman" the previous Sunday. At 3 p.m., a first bulletin announced fifteen Albanians killed
in fighting. The next day, Saturday, it welcomed the success of the operation which, it said, had resulted in the death of dozens of UCK "terrorists" and the capture of a large stock of weapons.
The attempt to arrest an Albanian presumed to have murdered a Serb policemen turned into a massacre. At 5:30 p.m., the police evacuated the site under the sporadic fire of a handful of UCK fighters who continued to hold out thanks to the steep and rough terrain. In no time, the first of the Albanians who had got away come back down into the village, those who had managed to hide came out in the open and three KVM vehicles drove into the village. One hour after the police left, night fell.
The next morning, the press and the KVM came to see the damage caused by the fighting. It was at this moment that, guided by the armed UCK fighters who had recaptured the village, they discovered the ditch where a score of bodies were piled up, almost exclusively men. At midday, the chief of the KVM in person, the American diplomat William Walker, arrived on the spot and declared his indignation at the atrocities committed by "the Serb police forces and the Yugoslav army".
The condemnation was total, irrevocable. And yet questions remain. How could the Serb police have gathered a group of men and led them calmly toward the execution site while they were constantly under fire from UCK fighters? How could the ditch located on the edge of Racak have escaped notice by local inhabitants familiar with the surroundings who were present before nightfall? Or by the observers who were present for over two hours in this tiny village? Why so few cartridges around the corpses, so little blood in the hollow road where twenty three people are supposed to have been shot at close range with several bullets in the head? Rather, weren't the bodies of the Albanians killed in combat by the Serb police gathered into the ditch to create a horror scene which was sure to have an appalling effect on public opinion? Don't the violence and rapidity of Belgrade's reaction, which gave the chief of the KVM forty-eight hours to leave Yugoslavia, show that the Yugoslavs are sure of what they are saying?
Only an international inquiry above all suspicion will make it possible to clarify these obscure points. Finnish and Belurussian legal doctors were expected to arrive in Pristina on Wednesday to attend the autopsies being carried out by Yugoslav doctors. The problem is that the Belgrade authorities have never been cooperative in this matter. Why? Whatever the conclusions of the investigators, the Racak massacre shows that the hope of soon reaching a settlement of the Kosovo crisis seems quite illusory.
END report by Christophe Chatelot
by Christophe Chatelot
The version of the facts spread by the Kosovars leaves several questions unanswered. Belgrade says that the forty-five victims were UCK "terrorists, fallen during combat," but rejects any international investigation.
Isn't the Racak massacre just too perfect? New eye witness accounts gathered on Monday, January 18, by Le Monde, throw doubt on the reality of the horrible spectacle of dozens of piled up bodies of Albanians supposedly summarily executed by Serb security forces last Friday. Were the victims executed in cold blood, as UCK says, or killed
in combat, as the Serbs say?
According to the version gathered and broadcast by the press and the Kosovo verification mission (KVM) observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the massacre took place on January 15 in the early after-noon. "Masked" Serbian police entered the village of Racak, which had been shelled all morning by Yugoslav army tanks. They broke down the doors and entered people's homes, ordering
the women to stay there while they pushed the men to the edge of the village to calmly execute them with a bullet through the head, not without first having tortured and mutilated several. Some witnesses even said that the Serbs sang as they did their dirty work, before leaving the village around 3:30 p.m.
The account by two journalists of Associated Press TV television (AP TV) who filmed the police operation in Racak contradicts this tale. When at 10 a.m. they entered the village in the wake of a police armored vehicle, the village was nearly deserted. They advanced through the streets under the fire of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) fighters lying in ambush in the woods above the village. The exchange of fire
continued throughout the operation, with more or less intensity. The main fighting took place in the woods. The Albanians who had fled the village when the first Serb shells were fired at dawn tried to escape. There they ran into Serbian police who had surrounded the village. The UCK was trapped in between.
The object of the violent police attack on Friday was a stronghold of UCK Albanian independence fighters. Virtually all the inhabitants had fled Racak during the frightful Serb offensive of the summer of 1998. With few exceptions, they had not come back. "Smoke came from only two chimneys", noted one of the two AP TV reporters.
The Serb operation was thus no surprise, nor was it a secret. On the morning of the attack, a police source tipped off AP TV: "Come to Racak, something is happening". At 10 a.m., the team was on the spot alongside the police; it filmed from a peak overlooking the village and then through the streets in the wake of an armored vehicle. The OSCE was also warned of the action. At least two teams of international observers watched the fighting from a hill where they could see part of the village. They entered Racak shortly after the police left. They then questioned a few Albanians about the situation, trying to find out whether there were wounded civilians. Around 6 p.m., they took four persons -- two women and two old men -- who were very slightly wounded toward the dispensary of the neighboring town of Stimlje. The verifiers said at that time that they were "incapable of establishing the number of casualties of that day of fighting".
The publicity given by the Serbian police to that operation was intense. At 10:30 a.m., it gave out its first press release. It announced that the police had "encircled the village of Racak with the aim of arresting the members of a terrorist group who killed a policeman" the previous Sunday. At 3 p.m., a first bulletin announced fifteen Albanians killed
in fighting. The next day, Saturday, it welcomed the success of the operation which, it said, had resulted in the death of dozens of UCK "terrorists" and the capture of a large stock of weapons.
The attempt to arrest an Albanian presumed to have murdered a Serb policemen turned into a massacre. At 5:30 p.m., the police evacuated the site under the sporadic fire of a handful of UCK fighters who continued to hold out thanks to the steep and rough terrain. In no time, the first of the Albanians who had got away come back down into the village, those who had managed to hide came out in the open and three KVM vehicles drove into the village. One hour after the police left, night fell.
The next morning, the press and the KVM came to see the damage caused by the fighting. It was at this moment that, guided by the armed UCK fighters who had recaptured the village, they discovered the ditch where a score of bodies were piled up, almost exclusively men. At midday, the chief of the KVM in person, the American diplomat William Walker, arrived on the spot and declared his indignation at the atrocities committed by "the Serb police forces and the Yugoslav army".
The condemnation was total, irrevocable. And yet questions remain. How could the Serb police have gathered a group of men and led them calmly toward the execution site while they were constantly under fire from UCK fighters? How could the ditch located on the edge of Racak have escaped notice by local inhabitants familiar with the surroundings who were present before nightfall? Or by the observers who were present for over two hours in this tiny village? Why so few cartridges around the corpses, so little blood in the hollow road where twenty three people are supposed to have been shot at close range with several bullets in the head? Rather, weren't the bodies of the Albanians killed in combat by the Serb police gathered into the ditch to create a horror scene which was sure to have an appalling effect on public opinion? Don't the violence and rapidity of Belgrade's reaction, which gave the chief of the KVM forty-eight hours to leave Yugoslavia, show that the Yugoslavs are sure of what they are saying?
Only an international inquiry above all suspicion will make it possible to clarify these obscure points. Finnish and Belurussian legal doctors were expected to arrive in Pristina on Wednesday to attend the autopsies being carried out by Yugoslav doctors. The problem is that the Belgrade authorities have never been cooperative in this matter. Why? Whatever the conclusions of the investigators, the Racak massacre shows that the hope of soon reaching a settlement of the Kosovo crisis seems quite illusory.
END report by Christophe Chatelot
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Kosovo killers – Part 1
KP journalists trace the scandalous book by Carla Del Ponte, prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
(Aleksander Kots, Dmitry Stepshin, Kosmopolskaya Gazeta) Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Kosovo killers. Part 1
After Kosovo declared independence, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Carla Del Ponte raucously quit her position at The Hague. She slammed the door so loudly behind her that the ceiling plaster cracked at parliaments across the European Union. After her exile to Argentina as Switzerland's ambassador, Ponte said the new Kosovo was run by butchers who made a fortune trafficking organs extracted from kidnapped Serbs. In her book titled, "The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals," Ponte describes how a black organ market formed during the Kosovo War. Meanwhile, she says, the European Union played dumb paying no attention to the crimes. KP journalists went to Kosovo to learn more about the crimes.
Iron Carla's revelation
Hardly a day goes by without fragments of Ponte's book hitting Belgrade newspapers. Here is a commonly quoted section that details the horrors of Kosovo organ trafficking:
"According to the journalists' sources, who were only identified as Kosovo Albanians, some of the younger and fitter prisoners were visited by doctors and were never hit. They were transferred to other detention camps in Burrel and the neighboring area, one of which was a barracks behind a yellow house 20 km behind the town.
"One room inside this yellow house, the journalists said, was kitted out as a makeshift operating theater, and it was here that surgeons transplanted the organs of prisoners. These organs, according to the sources, were then sent to Rinas airport, Tirana, to be sent to surgical clinics abroad to be transplanted to paying patients.
"One of the informers had personally carried out a shipment to the airport. The victims, deprived of a kidney, were then locked up again, inside the barracks, until the moment they were killed for other vital organs. In this way, the other prisoners in the barracks were aware of the fate that awaited them, and according to the source, pleaded, terrified to be killed immediately.
"Among the prisoners who were taken to these barracks were women from Kosovo, Albania, Russia and other Slavic countries. Two of the sources said that they helped to bury the corpses of the dead around the yellow house and in a neighboring cemetery. According to the sources, the organ smuggling was carried out with the knowledge and active involvement of middle and high ranking involvement from the KLA (ed. Kosovo Liberation Army).
"A few months after [October 2002] the investigators of the tribunal and UNMIK reached central Albania and the yellow house which the journalists sources had revealed as the place where the prisoners were killed to transplant their organs. The journalists and the Albanian prosecutor accompanied the investigators to the site.
"The house was now white. The owner denied it had ever been repainted even though investigators found traces of yellow along the base of its walls. Inside the investigators found pieces of gauze, a used syringe and two plastic IV bags encrusted with mud and empty bottles of medicine, some of which was of a muscle relaxant often used in surgical operations. The application of a chemical substance revealed to the scientific team traces of blood on the walls and on the floor of a room inside the house, except for in a clean area of the floor sized 180x60cm.
"The investigators were not able to determine whether the traces they found were of human blood. The sources did not indicate the position of the grave of the presumed victims and so we did not find the bodies."
However, Serbian journalists began conducting their own investigations into the purported organ trafficking. Correspondents from the Press newspaper were said to have found the barracks described by Ponte. However, they refused to share detailed information with KP. The tabloid published several photos related to the incident, but many local media representatives believe their authenticity is dubious.
"They wanted to fabricate this huge story, but they ended up with a piece of crap," said Aleksandr Bechich, deputy chief editor of the Pravda opposition newspaper. "Press has been caught lying on more than one occasion. But there is truth to the article. Many Serbs heard about these crimes even before the book's publication. Serbia's Justice Minister Vladan Batich gave Ponte numerous materials about executed and kidnapped Serbs. There was also evidence, but no one was sure if the organs had actually been trafficked. I originally heard about this 5 years ago from Serbia's former head of Military Intelligence. But no one listened to special agents at the time. The Serbian special forces had documents that certified that medical equipment had been brought to camps in Albania. This evidence was given to Western intelligence agencies. 'We can't work in Albania,' they said. 'Help us with this.' But no one did a thing. U.S. and German special forces knew that Serbs had been kidnapped in 1999. As they didn't do anything to fix the situation, we should assume they were also were involved in the trafficking network. How was the system organized? The KLA received huge sums of cash for the organs. This money was used to buy drugs from Afghanistan, which were later sold in Western Europe. The KLA bought arms using this money. Enough facts had been dug up to indict Kosovo's former Prime Minister Ramush Kharadinay, current head of state Khashim Tachi and other prominent Albanians. But as opposed to being sent to prison, Kharadinay was released from The Hague in early April even though he had been charged with murdering Serbian civilians. They said he wasn't guilty. But we have documented facts proving that Kharadinay personally executed 60 Serbs and ordered 300 more to be killed. Kharadinay's release was a severe blow for the families of the deceased."
The tribunal's decision to set Kharadinay free was as hurtful for Serbs as when the West recognized Kosovo's independence. The KLA's field commander was the equivalent of an Albanian Shamil Basaev - cruel and uncompromising. Nine witnesses were lined up to testify against Kharadinay at The Hague. But they were all killed under various circumstances during the trial. Two were killed by a sniper, one died in an automobile accident in Montenegro, two were stabbed, two were burned to death in their car while serving in Kosovo's Police and two were killed in a village cafe in Kosovo.
Many people in Serbia believe that Ramush Kharadinay was a key figure in the organ trafficking network.
"Tachi was a criminal," Deyan Mirovich, a radical party deputy in Serbia's parliament, told KP before our trip to Kosovsku-Mitrovitsu. He spouted off his version of a brief history of modern-day Serbia. "First, Tachi was involved in drug trafficking, then he headed a gang and later a terrorist group. Now he's a U.S. and EU ally. Kharadinay is the same story. He was a bouncer at a night club and ended up running a terrorist organization. In the forward to his book 'Peace and Freedo,' he wrote: 'I've killed Serbian policemen. I've killed civilian Serbs and Albanians who were disobedient.' This is why I believe everything Ponte wrote. We know all about this in Serbia. Kharadinay had a camp on Lake Radonich in Metokhia. People were taken there from Prizren, Pecha and Djakovitsa. Many were executed. People were also selected for so-called medical centers. They were kept captive while their organs were systematically extracted. You want proof? Look for their relatives in Kosovo. That's the only way. All the other e
vidence is destroyed."
Nothing to lose for Serbs in Kosovo's enclaves
Many people have heard the phrase "humanitarian catastrophe," but few have actually seen one. Serbian enclaves in Kosovo fall into this category. Homeless children roam the streets. Adults loiter in the sun, or wait for clients who never come in self-styled cabs. Piles of trash lie by the roadside. Disfunctional state services that won't do anything even if they're asked to.
KP traveled to the Kosovsku-Mitrovitsu enclave in north Kosovo to learn more about the enclave phenomenon. Our journalists sat in a dilapidated cafe waiting for the Kosovo Serbian rally to begin. The cafe's windows were covered in bullet holes. The rally was to commence at 12:44. The number has a special subtext. It's the number of a UN resolution on Kosovo declaring the territory an indelible part of Serbia.
Romanian soldiers from the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) took the cover off the machine gun on the small armored car. They knew they had to be ready. Meanwhile, we drank coffee behind the UN courthouse. Shrapnel had killed a Ukrainian peacekeeper there only a week before. He had been on a peacekeeping mission to introduce constitutional order in the country. But Serbian lawyers weren't a part of that order. They had been asked to leave the courthouse and were later replaced by Albanians. Those who refused to leave were arrested. The peacekeepers hadn't realized Kosovo Serbs had been on the edge of an explosion for several years. They had nothing to lose. Their country had been taken from them, and they had been left in poverty waiting for a miracle. As we were told numerously, many Kosovo Serbs consider a miracle to be 250,000 Russian volunteers. Russian journalists, like us, were taken for spies or advanced detachment.
"Sweet life" of guardian's of the east
Mitrovitsa isn't really an enclave. It practically borders Serbia, but a bridge divides the city into Albanian and Serbian sections. Unofficial guards man the Serbian side. This small detail shows who is the aggressor in the situation and who is on the defense.
Forty last names of deceased Serbs are written on an obelisk on the Serbian side. The Albanians have tried to annex their section of the city on numerous occasions. The bridge served as a stage for bloody wars. It's quiet on the Serbian side. Muscular men sit in a pink 24-hour cafe. They're officially called the bridge's guardians, as their job is to stop Albanians attacking from across the bridge. They greeted us cautiously. The waiter approached us slowly and indifferently.
"One coffee, one bottle of water," we asked in Serbian, adding in Russian that we were Russian journalists writing about Kosovo Serbs. The demeanour of the waiter and the guards changed immediately. They offered us the table with a view of the bridge. Soon after, the leader of the local branch of National Serbs Union, Neboysha Iuvovich, came to the cafe and greeted us.
"Many politicians are straying from their positions and writing about the truth," Neboysha said. "Carla Del Ponte didn't want to write about what really happened before because she would have had to launch investigations into crimes connected with organ trafficking. It would have been career suicide for an EU politician in Kosovo. We have enough facts to prove genocide. We have information confirming 1,200 Serbs were kidnapped and 1,700 killed. No one can say for sure. Serbs were kidnapped all over Kosovo. People disappeared - and not farmers but doctors. Several were kidnapped. One was the famous surgeon Andrea Tomanovish. His body was never found. Try going south to the Albanian border. Don't think about talking about this with the Albanian administration, though. You'll disappear. And only speak English with the Albanians."
In the morning we saw we were almost in the mountains. The enclave was overtaken by a thick icy mist. They came to pick us up. A red jeep poked through the clouds. The numbers on the Kosovo license plate were cardboard. Our driver, Dushko, a Serb, took off the numbers before crossing the bridge onto the other Albanian side. Two-hundred meters, barbed wire fences, a KFOR outpost... Then everything changed. All the sudden we saw clean, swept streets, bright signs, shop Turkish- and Roma-style windows. And U.S. flags. The new Albanian Kosovo is still celebrating victory.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Watchdog to probe Kosovo organ allegations
STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - Europe's main human rights watchdog will investigate allegations that politicians in Kosovo were involved in traffic in human organs during the war with Serbia.
The Council of Europe said it had appointed Swiss senator Dick Marty to travel to Kosovo to prepare a report.
The allegations were contained in the book "The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals," by the former chief prosecutor of the Hague war crimes tribunal, Carla del Ponte, who said that some 300 Serb prisoners captured by Kosovan Albanian forces may have been victim of forced organ extraction.
A group of 17 parliamentarians signed a motion requesting the investigation.
The Council of Europe said it had appointed Swiss senator Dick Marty to travel to Kosovo to prepare a report.
The allegations were contained in the book "The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals," by the former chief prosecutor of the Hague war crimes tribunal, Carla del Ponte, who said that some 300 Serb prisoners captured by Kosovan Albanian forces may have been victim of forced organ extraction.
A group of 17 parliamentarians signed a motion requesting the investigation.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Pentagon aims to take Kosovo under its wing
Supply of weapons will make peace impossible
Tamara Zamyatina, RIA Novosti
Published: Monday, March 31
MOSCOW - Predictions made by experts before Kosovo's illegal declaration of independence are coming true -- the territory seized from Serbia is turning into a big military base of the United States and NATO.
Thus, George W. Bush ordered arms shipments to Kosovo. Because of this, Moscow insisted on an emergency session of the NATO-Russia Council -- it was held in Brussels last week.
The haste with which the Pentagon is trying to take the fledgling Kosovo under its wing demonstrates the West's lack of confidence that peace will come to the Balkans after Kosovo's cessation. But the West was actively using this rhetoric -- the need to put an end to the Yugoslav crisis -- in order to justify its support for the Kosovo separatists.
There can be no peace when one side is being equipped with weapons against the other. This means pouring more fuel on the fire.
The Serbs have already got the message. In the city of Kosovska Mitrovica (in northern Kosovo), they desperately rushed to defend their last shelter -- a courthouse. Previously, it was the venue of Serbian justice, but now it is occupied by international lawyers who will turn it over to their Albanian colleagues.
Blood was spilled there during clashes with peacekeepers. There are numerous rallies in Belgrade supporting the Serbian minority in Kosovo.
The city divided into Albanian and Serbian parts by the Ibar River will be a bone of contention for a long time to come. Belgrade has already sent an appeal to the United Nations, demanding that Kosovo's northern region adjacent to Kosovska Mitrovica with a compact Serb population be returned to Serbia.
These people primarily need physical protection, but the advocates of Kosovo's independence are not likely to be worried about that. In the first half of the 1990s, western countries shut their eyes to the expulsion of 300,000 Serbs from Croatia.
They won't bother about a mere hundred thousand. People in Belgrade say that if 300,000 birds suddenly left a region, the world would be alarmed, but it did not even notice the Serbian tragedy.
One of the reasons behind Washington's decision to supply Kosovo with arms is its intention to keep Kosovska Mitrovica in Kosovo, because it is a turbulent and strategically important Serbian city. But the main goal is to give Kosovars carte blanche to suppress the protests in Serbian enclaves on Kosovo's entire territory.
This opinion is held by Yelena Guskova, head of the Balkans Crisis Centre at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.
Arms shipments to Kosovars are designed to legalize future Albanian efforts to oust the Serbian minority from the province. In other words, the Kosovars are given a chance to complete what they have started -- drive non-Albanians out of the province, but with their own hands so as not to cast a shadow on the NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers, not to mention the United States.
Under NATO protection
It seems that Kosovo will be the first state under NATO's complete protection. The KFOR peacekeepers have been a guarantor of order in the province for nine years now.
Considering the intentions of Albania, Macedonia and Croatia to join the North Atlantic alliance at its summit in Bucharest on April 2-4, Kosovo may become NATO's most powerful support in the Balkans.
Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, is convinced that Washington, at least under the current administration, does not need stability in the Balkans or the rest of Europe: "The United States cannot influence events in a stable situation. If it is calm in Europe, the United States has nothing to do there. U.S. political strategy is based on control through chaos."
He mentioned that as far as he knows, initially Washington will supply Kosovo with small arms and armoured vehicles without heavy equipment. Subsequently the Albanians will be trained for air force and tank units.
Under the circumstances, there is little Russia can do. Guskova and Ivashov believe that in addition to humanitarian aid to the Serbian enclaves in Kosovo, the Kremlin could suggest bringing Russian peacekeepers into the district of Kosovska Mitrovica.
Russian experts are actively discussing the introduction of Russian peacekeepers into Serbia's southern regions bordering on Kosovo. But pro-western President Boris Tadic is not likely to turn to Russia with such a request. Hence, Russia will have to use only diplomatic levers. As for economic levers -- Kosovo's participation in the South Stream gas project -- Russia either did not want to use them, or failed to do so.
Tamara Zamyatina is an international commentator for the Russian News and Information Agency Novosti; website: http://en.rian.ru/. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
© The Edmonton Journal 2008
Tamara Zamyatina, RIA Novosti
Published: Monday, March 31
MOSCOW - Predictions made by experts before Kosovo's illegal declaration of independence are coming true -- the territory seized from Serbia is turning into a big military base of the United States and NATO.
Thus, George W. Bush ordered arms shipments to Kosovo. Because of this, Moscow insisted on an emergency session of the NATO-Russia Council -- it was held in Brussels last week.
The haste with which the Pentagon is trying to take the fledgling Kosovo under its wing demonstrates the West's lack of confidence that peace will come to the Balkans after Kosovo's cessation. But the West was actively using this rhetoric -- the need to put an end to the Yugoslav crisis -- in order to justify its support for the Kosovo separatists.
There can be no peace when one side is being equipped with weapons against the other. This means pouring more fuel on the fire.
The Serbs have already got the message. In the city of Kosovska Mitrovica (in northern Kosovo), they desperately rushed to defend their last shelter -- a courthouse. Previously, it was the venue of Serbian justice, but now it is occupied by international lawyers who will turn it over to their Albanian colleagues.
Blood was spilled there during clashes with peacekeepers. There are numerous rallies in Belgrade supporting the Serbian minority in Kosovo.
The city divided into Albanian and Serbian parts by the Ibar River will be a bone of contention for a long time to come. Belgrade has already sent an appeal to the United Nations, demanding that Kosovo's northern region adjacent to Kosovska Mitrovica with a compact Serb population be returned to Serbia.
These people primarily need physical protection, but the advocates of Kosovo's independence are not likely to be worried about that. In the first half of the 1990s, western countries shut their eyes to the expulsion of 300,000 Serbs from Croatia.
They won't bother about a mere hundred thousand. People in Belgrade say that if 300,000 birds suddenly left a region, the world would be alarmed, but it did not even notice the Serbian tragedy.
One of the reasons behind Washington's decision to supply Kosovo with arms is its intention to keep Kosovska Mitrovica in Kosovo, because it is a turbulent and strategically important Serbian city. But the main goal is to give Kosovars carte blanche to suppress the protests in Serbian enclaves on Kosovo's entire territory.
This opinion is held by Yelena Guskova, head of the Balkans Crisis Centre at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.
Arms shipments to Kosovars are designed to legalize future Albanian efforts to oust the Serbian minority from the province. In other words, the Kosovars are given a chance to complete what they have started -- drive non-Albanians out of the province, but with their own hands so as not to cast a shadow on the NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers, not to mention the United States.
Under NATO protection
It seems that Kosovo will be the first state under NATO's complete protection. The KFOR peacekeepers have been a guarantor of order in the province for nine years now.
Considering the intentions of Albania, Macedonia and Croatia to join the North Atlantic alliance at its summit in Bucharest on April 2-4, Kosovo may become NATO's most powerful support in the Balkans.
Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, is convinced that Washington, at least under the current administration, does not need stability in the Balkans or the rest of Europe: "The United States cannot influence events in a stable situation. If it is calm in Europe, the United States has nothing to do there. U.S. political strategy is based on control through chaos."
He mentioned that as far as he knows, initially Washington will supply Kosovo with small arms and armoured vehicles without heavy equipment. Subsequently the Albanians will be trained for air force and tank units.
Under the circumstances, there is little Russia can do. Guskova and Ivashov believe that in addition to humanitarian aid to the Serbian enclaves in Kosovo, the Kremlin could suggest bringing Russian peacekeepers into the district of Kosovska Mitrovica.
Russian experts are actively discussing the introduction of Russian peacekeepers into Serbia's southern regions bordering on Kosovo. But pro-western President Boris Tadic is not likely to turn to Russia with such a request. Hence, Russia will have to use only diplomatic levers. As for economic levers -- Kosovo's participation in the South Stream gas project -- Russia either did not want to use them, or failed to do so.
Tamara Zamyatina is an international commentator for the Russian News and Information Agency Novosti; website: http://en.rian.ru/. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
© The Edmonton Journal 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Abkhazian Separatist Head Cites Kosovo Independence As Model
MADRID (AFP)--Abkhazia could copy Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia and split from Georgia, its self-declared president Sergei Bagapsh said in a Spanish interview Wednesday.
Tensions are mounting between Russia and Georgia over the status of the breakaway Abkhazia region, with both Moscow and Tbilisi sending troops to their borders in the past week.
"If Kosovo can be independent, so can Abkhazia. We want a state based on the rule of law that is independent and democratic," he told daily newspaper El Pais.
"We don't want Moscow to recognize us against the will of the United States as revenge for their recognition of Kosovo. We want independence because it is our right," he added.
Abkhazia has operated as a quasi-independent state since breaking away from Georgia in a war in the 1990s that killed thousands of people and forced some 250,000 Georgians to leave their homes.
No country has recognized Abkhazia's independence but last month then Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Russian authorities to upgrade ties with Abkhazia and another Georgian separatist region, South Ossetia.
Moscow officially recognizes Georgia's sovereignty in the regions, but also provides strong financial and diplomatic backing for the separatist authorities there.
Last week it increased the number of its "peacekeepers" in Abkhazia from 2,000 to 3,000.
The pro-Western government of Georgia accuses Moscow of attempting to annex its territory.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, a traditional Russian ally, on Feb. 17.
Moscow strongly objected, arguing Kosovo's example would embolden other breakaway regions and destabilize Europe.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
05-07-081025ET
Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Tensions are mounting between Russia and Georgia over the status of the breakaway Abkhazia region, with both Moscow and Tbilisi sending troops to their borders in the past week.
"If Kosovo can be independent, so can Abkhazia. We want a state based on the rule of law that is independent and democratic," he told daily newspaper El Pais.
"We don't want Moscow to recognize us against the will of the United States as revenge for their recognition of Kosovo. We want independence because it is our right," he added.
Abkhazia has operated as a quasi-independent state since breaking away from Georgia in a war in the 1990s that killed thousands of people and forced some 250,000 Georgians to leave their homes.
No country has recognized Abkhazia's independence but last month then Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Russian authorities to upgrade ties with Abkhazia and another Georgian separatist region, South Ossetia.
Moscow officially recognizes Georgia's sovereignty in the regions, but also provides strong financial and diplomatic backing for the separatist authorities there.
Last week it increased the number of its "peacekeepers" in Abkhazia from 2,000 to 3,000.
The pro-Western government of Georgia accuses Moscow of attempting to annex its territory.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, a traditional Russian ally, on Feb. 17.
Moscow strongly objected, arguing Kosovo's example would embolden other breakaway regions and destabilize Europe.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
05-07-081025ET
Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Investigation sought of alleged Kosovo war crimes
Human Rights Watch asks Albania and Kosovo to examine reports that about 400 Serbs were abducted in 1999. A new book says some of them may have been killed and their organs removed and sold.
By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 6, 2008
ROME -- A leading human rights group on Monday urged the governments of Albania and the self-declared state of Kosovo to investigate horrific allegations about the kidnapping and abuse of Serb civilians after the NATO-led war that drove Serbian forces from Kosovo.
The allegations involve about 400 Serbs who went missing after the war, which ended in June 1999. At that time, Kosovo Albanians were gaining power, backed by the United Nations and the U.S.
Human Rights Watch, in calling for an investigation, cited new information, some of it contained in a controversial book written and released last month by the former lead war crimes prosecutor for the Balkans, Carla Del Ponte.
According to Del Ponte and other accounts presented to the war crimes tribunal at The Hague, several hundred Serbs were abducted in Kosovo and transported across the province's southern border to Albania. Some were beaten. Their fates have remained undetermined and many are thought to have been killed.
In letters sent April 4 to the governments of Albania and Kosovo, Human Rights Watch said Del Ponte presented "circumstantial evidence . . . sufficiently grave to warrant further investigation."
As of Monday, neither Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci nor Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha had responded, said Fred Abrahams, a senior Balkans investigator for the New York-based human rights watchdog, as the group made its appeal public.
Among the most incendiary of the allegations contained in Del Ponte's book, published in Italian and titled "The Hunt: War Criminals and Me," is the claim that doctors removed the internal organs of some of the captives after they were transported to Albania. The organs were then shipped abroad, she asserted.
Abrahams said information on organ trafficking "is suggestive but far from complete."
He recounted a 2004 inquiry conducted by tribunal officials and a team from the United Nations at a house in Albania that Del Ponte's informants had identified as the site of the organ removals. The investigation found traces of blood and syringes, drip bags and other equipment used in surgery.
But officials did not deem that evidence to be conclusive. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which is the formal name of the court at The Hague, said last month amid the furor over the Del Ponte book that the court did not have sufficient evidence to substantiate the organ-trafficking allegations.
Albanian and Kosovo officials, while not responding to Monday's statement by the rights group, have previously blasted Del Ponte's allegations as libelous and unfounded. The Serbian government, by contrast, has sought to launch its own investigation.
Abrahams stressed that the disappearances remained the most pressing issue. An estimated 1,500 ethnic Albanians and more than 500 Serbs remain missing from the war; most of the Serbs disappeared after the fighting ended.
wilkinson@latimes.com
By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 6, 2008
ROME -- A leading human rights group on Monday urged the governments of Albania and the self-declared state of Kosovo to investigate horrific allegations about the kidnapping and abuse of Serb civilians after the NATO-led war that drove Serbian forces from Kosovo.
The allegations involve about 400 Serbs who went missing after the war, which ended in June 1999. At that time, Kosovo Albanians were gaining power, backed by the United Nations and the U.S.
Human Rights Watch, in calling for an investigation, cited new information, some of it contained in a controversial book written and released last month by the former lead war crimes prosecutor for the Balkans, Carla Del Ponte.
According to Del Ponte and other accounts presented to the war crimes tribunal at The Hague, several hundred Serbs were abducted in Kosovo and transported across the province's southern border to Albania. Some were beaten. Their fates have remained undetermined and many are thought to have been killed.
In letters sent April 4 to the governments of Albania and Kosovo, Human Rights Watch said Del Ponte presented "circumstantial evidence . . . sufficiently grave to warrant further investigation."
As of Monday, neither Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci nor Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha had responded, said Fred Abrahams, a senior Balkans investigator for the New York-based human rights watchdog, as the group made its appeal public.
Among the most incendiary of the allegations contained in Del Ponte's book, published in Italian and titled "The Hunt: War Criminals and Me," is the claim that doctors removed the internal organs of some of the captives after they were transported to Albania. The organs were then shipped abroad, she asserted.
Abrahams said information on organ trafficking "is suggestive but far from complete."
He recounted a 2004 inquiry conducted by tribunal officials and a team from the United Nations at a house in Albania that Del Ponte's informants had identified as the site of the organ removals. The investigation found traces of blood and syringes, drip bags and other equipment used in surgery.
But officials did not deem that evidence to be conclusive. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which is the formal name of the court at The Hague, said last month amid the furor over the Del Ponte book that the court did not have sufficient evidence to substantiate the organ-trafficking allegations.
Albanian and Kosovo officials, while not responding to Monday's statement by the rights group, have previously blasted Del Ponte's allegations as libelous and unfounded. The Serbian government, by contrast, has sought to launch its own investigation.
Abrahams stressed that the disappearances remained the most pressing issue. An estimated 1,500 ethnic Albanians and more than 500 Serbs remain missing from the war; most of the Serbs disappeared after the fighting ended.
wilkinson@latimes.com
Monday, May 5, 2008
Group urges new look into organ smuggling claims in Kosovo
By NEBI QENA, Associated Press Writer
Mon May 5, 2:37 PM ET
PRISTINA, Kosovo - A human rights group said Monday that new evidence has emerged to warrant further investigation into claims that ethnic Albanian guerrillas in Kosovo killed Serbs and sold their organs.
Human Rights Watch said it had information that bolsters allegations of abductions and cross-border transfers from Kosovo to Albania in June 1999. At the time, NATO and the U.N. were moving into Kosovo at the end of the war between separatist rebels and Serbian forces.
The claims recently appeared in a book by former U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, who wrote that she had been told by "credible journalists" of such an organ trafficking scheme.
Del Ponte wrote that, according to the sources, Kosovo Albanians transported between 100 and 300 people — most of them Serb civilians — by truck from Kosovo to a house near the Albanian town of Burrel, about 55 miles north of the capital, Tirana.
At the house, "doctors extracted the captives' internal organs," Del Ponte said in the recently published book, "The Hunt: War Criminals and Me," according to the rights group.
Investigators visited northern Albania after U.N. officials in Kosovo passed on allegations of organ trafficking to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 2002 and 2003, but they found no substantial evidence to support the claims.
But Human Rights Watch said it had reviewed the inquiries conducted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the U.N.-run justice department in Kosovo and concluded they warrant further investigation.
"Serious and credible allegations have emerged about horrible abuses in Kosovo and Albania after the war," Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher with the New York-based rights group, said in a statement.
He said the governments in both Pristina and Tirana need to "show their commitment to justice and the rule of law by conducting proper investigations."
Human Rights Watch sent a letter in April to the prime ministers of Kosovo and Albania urging them to examine the claims, but said it received no response.
The group said it viewed information obtained by the tribunal from the journalists, including statements from seven ethnic Albanians guerrillas who "gave details about participating in or witnessing the transfer of abducted Serbs and others prisoners."
Tribunal spokeswoman Olga Kavran said Monday that the court had no additional comment to make beyond a statement it released April 16 to say that it had looked into the allegations and found no substantial evidence to support them.
However, she said Monday that the tribunal has received requests for assistance or information from Serbian authorities and from the United Nations mission in Kosovo.
The U.N. in Kosovo was not immediately available to confirm whether it is investigating the claims.
Kosovo's assembly said it would convene in the coming weeks to consider whether to sue Del Ponte for allegedly "tarnishing the image" of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, according to Kosovo legislators.
On Monday, Kosovo's deputy prime minister, Hajredin Kuqi, said it was up to prosecutors to investigate the allegations, not the government.
"We are not giving the chance to somebody to put some bad image on Kosovo's future, on Kosovo's policies or Kosovo's past," Kuqi said. "We have no facts, we have no data and we are not moving just because of speculation."
Albanian Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha has called the allegations "inventions and absurdities."
Hundreds of Serbs and ethnic Albanians are still missing from Kosovo's 1998-99 war. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17.
Mon May 5, 2:37 PM ET
PRISTINA, Kosovo - A human rights group said Monday that new evidence has emerged to warrant further investigation into claims that ethnic Albanian guerrillas in Kosovo killed Serbs and sold their organs.
Human Rights Watch said it had information that bolsters allegations of abductions and cross-border transfers from Kosovo to Albania in June 1999. At the time, NATO and the U.N. were moving into Kosovo at the end of the war between separatist rebels and Serbian forces.
The claims recently appeared in a book by former U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, who wrote that she had been told by "credible journalists" of such an organ trafficking scheme.
Del Ponte wrote that, according to the sources, Kosovo Albanians transported between 100 and 300 people — most of them Serb civilians — by truck from Kosovo to a house near the Albanian town of Burrel, about 55 miles north of the capital, Tirana.
At the house, "doctors extracted the captives' internal organs," Del Ponte said in the recently published book, "The Hunt: War Criminals and Me," according to the rights group.
Investigators visited northern Albania after U.N. officials in Kosovo passed on allegations of organ trafficking to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 2002 and 2003, but they found no substantial evidence to support the claims.
But Human Rights Watch said it had reviewed the inquiries conducted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the U.N.-run justice department in Kosovo and concluded they warrant further investigation.
"Serious and credible allegations have emerged about horrible abuses in Kosovo and Albania after the war," Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher with the New York-based rights group, said in a statement.
He said the governments in both Pristina and Tirana need to "show their commitment to justice and the rule of law by conducting proper investigations."
Human Rights Watch sent a letter in April to the prime ministers of Kosovo and Albania urging them to examine the claims, but said it received no response.
The group said it viewed information obtained by the tribunal from the journalists, including statements from seven ethnic Albanians guerrillas who "gave details about participating in or witnessing the transfer of abducted Serbs and others prisoners."
Tribunal spokeswoman Olga Kavran said Monday that the court had no additional comment to make beyond a statement it released April 16 to say that it had looked into the allegations and found no substantial evidence to support them.
However, she said Monday that the tribunal has received requests for assistance or information from Serbian authorities and from the United Nations mission in Kosovo.
The U.N. in Kosovo was not immediately available to confirm whether it is investigating the claims.
Kosovo's assembly said it would convene in the coming weeks to consider whether to sue Del Ponte for allegedly "tarnishing the image" of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, according to Kosovo legislators.
On Monday, Kosovo's deputy prime minister, Hajredin Kuqi, said it was up to prosecutors to investigate the allegations, not the government.
"We are not giving the chance to somebody to put some bad image on Kosovo's future, on Kosovo's policies or Kosovo's past," Kuqi said. "We have no facts, we have no data and we are not moving just because of speculation."
Albanian Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha has called the allegations "inventions and absurdities."
Hundreds of Serbs and ethnic Albanians are still missing from Kosovo's 1998-99 war. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Could Balkan break-up continue
BBC Friday, 22 February 2008, 08:21 GMT
By Tim Judah
Balkans analyst
Critics fear that Kosovo's secession could spark further breakaways
An interesting debate is taking place in the cafes of Kosovo. The question concerns the six stars of the country's new flag.
Officially they are supposed to represent six ethnic groups here. But some suspect that they actually represent six areas where ethnic Albanians live and out of which extreme nationalists would like to fashion a Greater Albania.
Those six regions are: Kosovo, Albania, western parts of (FYR) Macedonia, parts of Montenegro, the Presevo Valley in southern Serbia and parts of northern Greece.
The truth is probably that when officials of the European Union saw the original version of the flag - with 12 stars, like the European flag - they demanded a change and so the Kosovans just randomly chopped the number in half.
Having said that, the question does arise: is Kosovo's independence the end of the disintegration of the old Yugoslavia or might it continue?
Ethnic mix
Several regions spring to mind. First and foremost are Serb areas of Kosovo, especially the north, which is already de facto part of Serbia and home to more than 40,000 people.
East-West split over Kosovo
Some Kosovo Albanians would not actually mind if northern Kosovo was ceded to Serbia, but only so long as Serbia exchanged it for areas of south Serbia, including the Presevo Valley where some 60,000 ethnic Albanians live.
Serbia has always rejected this idea though, partly because its main north-south road and railway link run through there.
A far more significant and adjacent ethnic Albanian-inhabited territory is that of western (FYR) Macedonia, an arc of land which borders Albania, Kosovo and Serbia.
A quarter of (FYR) Macedonia's population of two million are ethnic Albanians and they have close links with Kosovo.
The former Yugoslav republic, which calls itself simply "Macedonia", is engaged in a long-running name dispute with Greece, which has a northern region called "Macedonia".
To Kosovo's north-east is the Sandzak, an area divided between Serbia and Montenegro and which has a significant Slav Muslim population with traditional close ties to neighbouring Bosnia.
In the Serbian part of Sandzak, Muslims are in a slight majority but they are in a minority in the Montenegrin part.
Disintegration halted?
Bosnia itself is made up of two entities: a Serb one called the Republika Srpska (RS) and a Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim)-Croat federation.
Bosnian Serb leaders have often said that they would call for the right to secede if Kosovo became independent.
In Serbia itself the only other significant minority - apart from Roma, who are widely dispersed - are ethnic Hungarians, who live in Vojvodina in the north and sometimes raise the issue of autonomy for their areas.
There are estimated to be some 290,000 of them but as a whole Vojvodina, which has some limited autonomy of its own, is a majority Serb area and so is extremely unlikely, as some have predicted, to ever demand its own independence.
In fact, despite the worst fears of many, it may well be that, at least for the foreseeable future, the disintegration process has stopped.
Serbia itself could well now be heading for a period of isolation as its European integration bid has, for now, stalled.
Thus, the leadership of the RS - who are always keen to use the Kosovo issue in their battles against attempts to make Bosnia more of a centralised state - may well, rhetoric aside, do nothing.
Many Serbs believe that Kosovo's independence means Balkan borders have already been redrawn
They may calculate that the prosperity of their voters - and thus their support - is better served being inside Bosnia than attached to an isolated Serbia, in which they, as leaders, would no longer count for anything.
Likewise in (FYR) Macedonia, ethnic Albanian leaders have committed themselves to the state, believing the interests of their people are better served in moving as quickly as possible towards the EU, and also not to risk new Balkan conflicts simply to be attached to Kosovo.
Besides this, large numbers of ethnic Albanians live in and around the capital Skopje and the very idea of dividing the city inevitably conjures up the appal
ling memory of the siege of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, between 1992 and 1995.
Never say never
Meanwhile in the Presevo Valley, which ethnic Albanians call "Eastern Kosovo", it appears that for now people are resigned to living in Serbia whether they like it or not.
However, many there also believe that if the de facto partition of Kosovo between Serb and Albanian areas, particularly in the north, were ever somehow legalised then it would be inconceivable for them to remain in Serbia.
As for other regions - Sandzak and Hungarian parts of Vojvodina - there is no chance of their status changing unless, of course, all Balkan borders were somehow up to be redrawn, something (almost) no-one wants to do.
Many Serbs believe that Kosovo's independence means Balkan borders have already been redrawn, because Kosovo was technically part of Serbia.
However, Kosovo is being recognised within the borders it had not just as a Serbian province, but also as an entity in its own right within the old Yugoslavia.
Kosovo Albanians argue that they were not a republic with the right to secede, like Croatia or Slovenia, only because when the last Yugoslav constitution was drawn up in 1974 they were the only part of that state which anyone could ever imagine seceding.
And that is a reason why one should never say never in politics. Just because something is now unimaginable and undesirable, does not mean it might not happen.
By Tim Judah
Balkans analyst
Critics fear that Kosovo's secession could spark further breakaways
An interesting debate is taking place in the cafes of Kosovo. The question concerns the six stars of the country's new flag.
Officially they are supposed to represent six ethnic groups here. But some suspect that they actually represent six areas where ethnic Albanians live and out of which extreme nationalists would like to fashion a Greater Albania.
Those six regions are: Kosovo, Albania, western parts of (FYR) Macedonia, parts of Montenegro, the Presevo Valley in southern Serbia and parts of northern Greece.
The truth is probably that when officials of the European Union saw the original version of the flag - with 12 stars, like the European flag - they demanded a change and so the Kosovans just randomly chopped the number in half.
Having said that, the question does arise: is Kosovo's independence the end of the disintegration of the old Yugoslavia or might it continue?
Ethnic mix
Several regions spring to mind. First and foremost are Serb areas of Kosovo, especially the north, which is already de facto part of Serbia and home to more than 40,000 people.
East-West split over Kosovo
Some Kosovo Albanians would not actually mind if northern Kosovo was ceded to Serbia, but only so long as Serbia exchanged it for areas of south Serbia, including the Presevo Valley where some 60,000 ethnic Albanians live.
Serbia has always rejected this idea though, partly because its main north-south road and railway link run through there.
A far more significant and adjacent ethnic Albanian-inhabited territory is that of western (FYR) Macedonia, an arc of land which borders Albania, Kosovo and Serbia.
A quarter of (FYR) Macedonia's population of two million are ethnic Albanians and they have close links with Kosovo.
The former Yugoslav republic, which calls itself simply "Macedonia", is engaged in a long-running name dispute with Greece, which has a northern region called "Macedonia".
To Kosovo's north-east is the Sandzak, an area divided between Serbia and Montenegro and which has a significant Slav Muslim population with traditional close ties to neighbouring Bosnia.
In the Serbian part of Sandzak, Muslims are in a slight majority but they are in a minority in the Montenegrin part.
Disintegration halted?
Bosnia itself is made up of two entities: a Serb one called the Republika Srpska (RS) and a Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim)-Croat federation.
Bosnian Serb leaders have often said that they would call for the right to secede if Kosovo became independent.
In Serbia itself the only other significant minority - apart from Roma, who are widely dispersed - are ethnic Hungarians, who live in Vojvodina in the north and sometimes raise the issue of autonomy for their areas.
There are estimated to be some 290,000 of them but as a whole Vojvodina, which has some limited autonomy of its own, is a majority Serb area and so is extremely unlikely, as some have predicted, to ever demand its own independence.
In fact, despite the worst fears of many, it may well be that, at least for the foreseeable future, the disintegration process has stopped.
Serbia itself could well now be heading for a period of isolation as its European integration bid has, for now, stalled.
Thus, the leadership of the RS - who are always keen to use the Kosovo issue in their battles against attempts to make Bosnia more of a centralised state - may well, rhetoric aside, do nothing.
Many Serbs believe that Kosovo's independence means Balkan borders have already been redrawn
They may calculate that the prosperity of their voters - and thus their support - is better served being inside Bosnia than attached to an isolated Serbia, in which they, as leaders, would no longer count for anything.
Likewise in (FYR) Macedonia, ethnic Albanian leaders have committed themselves to the state, believing the interests of their people are better served in moving as quickly as possible towards the EU, and also not to risk new Balkan conflicts simply to be attached to Kosovo.
Besides this, large numbers of ethnic Albanians live in and around the capital Skopje and the very idea of dividing the city inevitably conjures up the appal
ling memory of the siege of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, between 1992 and 1995.
Never say never
Meanwhile in the Presevo Valley, which ethnic Albanians call "Eastern Kosovo", it appears that for now people are resigned to living in Serbia whether they like it or not.
However, many there also believe that if the de facto partition of Kosovo between Serb and Albanian areas, particularly in the north, were ever somehow legalised then it would be inconceivable for them to remain in Serbia.
As for other regions - Sandzak and Hungarian parts of Vojvodina - there is no chance of their status changing unless, of course, all Balkan borders were somehow up to be redrawn, something (almost) no-one wants to do.
Many Serbs believe that Kosovo's independence means Balkan borders have already been redrawn, because Kosovo was technically part of Serbia.
However, Kosovo is being recognised within the borders it had not just as a Serbian province, but also as an entity in its own right within the old Yugoslavia.
Kosovo Albanians argue that they were not a republic with the right to secede, like Croatia or Slovenia, only because when the last Yugoslav constitution was drawn up in 1974 they were the only part of that state which anyone could ever imagine seceding.
And that is a reason why one should never say never in politics. Just because something is now unimaginable and undesirable, does not mean it might not happen.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Regions and territories: Kosovo
BBC News, Friday, 11 April 2008 11:44 UK
Kosovo, an impoverished territory with a population of mainly ethnic Albanians, unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008.
The territory immediately won recognition from the United States and major European Union countries. But Serbia, with the help of its big-power ally Russia, has vowed to block Kosovo from getting a United Nations seat.
Kosovo has been the backdrop to a centuries-old and often-strained relationship between its Serb and ethnic Albanian inhabitants.
The province has been administered by the UN, having endured a conflict in the late 1990s which was fuelled by ethnic division and repression. Reconciliation between the majority ethnic Albanians, most of whom support independence, and the Serb minority remains elusive.
OVERVIEW
The landlocked region is one of Europe's poorest, with more than half of its people living in poverty. Although it possesses rich mineral resources, agriculture is the main economic activity.
Kosovo's economy revolves around agriculture
Ethnic Albanians number about 2 million - about 90% of the population. Some 100,000 Serbs remain following a post-war exodus of non-Albanians. The Serbian minority live in separate areas watched over by Nato peacekeepers. International diplomats have voiced concern over slow progress on their rights.
History
Slavic and Albanian peoples have co-existed in Kosovo since the eighth century. The region was the centre of the Serbian empire until the mid-14th century, and Serbians regard Kosovo as the birthplace of their state.
Over the centuries, as the ethnic balance shifted in favour of Albanians, Kosovo came to represent a Serbian golden age, embodied in epic poetry.
Serbia's defeat at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 ushered in centuries of rule under the Muslim Ottoman Empire. Serbia regained control of Kosovo in 1913, and the province was incorporated into the Yugoslav federation.
Path to autonomy
Serbs and ethnic Albanians vied for control in the region throughout the 20th century. In the 1960s the suppression of Albanian national identity in Kosovo gave way to a more tolerant line from Belgrade. Ethnic Albanians gained a foothold in the Kosovan, and Yugoslav, administrations.
Divided town: Mitrovica has been a flashpoint for inter-ethnic tensions
The 1974 Yugoslav constitution laid down Kosovo's status as an autonomous province, and pressure for independence mounted in the 1980s after the death of Yugoslav President Tito.
But resentment over Kosovan influence within the Yugoslav federation was harnessed by the future leader, Slobodan Milosevic. On becoming president in 1989 he proceeded to strip Kosovo of its autonomy.
A passive resistance movement in the 1990s failed to secure independence or to restore autonomy, although ethnic Albanian leaders declared unilateral independence in 1991.
In the mid-1990s an ethnic Albanian guerrilla movement, the Kosovo Liberation Army, stepped up its attacks on Serb targets. The attacks precipitated a major, and brutal, Yugoslav military crackdown.
War
Slobodan Milosevic's rejection of an internationally-brokered deal to end the crisis, and the persecution of Kosovo Albanians, led to the start of Nato air strikes against targets in Kosovo and Serbia in March 1999.
Meanwhile, a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Kosovo Albanians was initiated by Serbian forces. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro. Thousands of people died in the conflict.
Serbian forces were driven out in the summer of 1999 and the UN took over the administration of the province.
LEADERS
President: Fatmir Sejdiu
Fatmir Sejdiu was elected by parliament in February 2006. The leader of Kosovo's biggest party, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), he was the sole candidate.
Fatmir Sejdiu supports independence from Serbia
He was a close ally of the former president, writer-turned-politician Ibrahim Rugova, who died of cancer just days before UN-mediated talks on Kosovo's future status began in February 2006.
Ibrahim Rugova was nicknamed the "Gandhi of the Balkans". He led an ethnic Albanian campaign of passive resistance against Serb rule in the 1990s. He was twice elected president in unofficial elections, and won official presidential elections in 2002.
Like his predecessor, President Sejdiu supports independence for Kosovo.
He was born near the town of Podujevo in northern Kosovo. He studied law in France and the US and speaks both English and French.
Prime minister: Hashim Thaci
Hashim Thaci is a veteran of the ethnic Albanians' drive to break away from Serbia.
The former guerrilla is now regarded as a moderate politician
He began agitating for the Kosovo Albanian cause while still in his teens, and first came to prominence as the political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the guerrilla group that took up arms against Serb forces in the late 1990s.
He became known outside Kosovo when he formed part of the Kosovo Albanian negotiating team at internationally-sponsored peace talks at Rambouillet, France, early in 1999.
He made such a powerful impression at the talks that he succeeded in sidelining veteran Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova - who was more in favour of passive resistance to Serbia - and was appointed leader of the Kosovo Albanian negotiating team.
After the talks broke down and NATO launched its air campaign against Serbia that resulted in Kosovo becoming a UN protectorate, Mr Rugova reasserted his authority within the province and officially became president in 2002.
Meanwhile, Mr Thaci underwent a gradual process of transformation from fiery left-wing guerrilla to respectable politician. His Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) emerged out of the KLA and finally won an election in November 2007.
Some analysts believe that the years spent by Mr Thaci as prime minister-in-waiting allowed him to hone his political skills and made him into one of the province's most moderate leaders.
On being elected prime minister, he made an attempt to reach out to Kosovo's dwindling Serbian minority by switching to speaking Serbian as he called on the Serbs to consider Kosovo their home.
Hasim Thaci was born in 1968 in the Drenica region, a stronghold of the ethnic Albanian revolt against Serbia.
He was a student activist in 1989-91, and later went underground to join the KLA, which was formed in 1993. It was at that time that he acquired the nom de guerre of "the Snake" on account of his success in evading capture.
He is married, with one son.
Kosovo, an impoverished territory with a population of mainly ethnic Albanians, unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008.The territory immediately won recognition from the United States and major European Union countries. But Serbia, with the help of its big-power ally Russia, has vowed to block Kosovo from getting a United Nations seat.
Kosovo has been the backdrop to a centuries-old and often-strained relationship between its Serb and ethnic Albanian inhabitants.
The province has been administered by the UN, having endured a conflict in the late 1990s which was fuelled by ethnic division and repression. Reconciliation between the majority ethnic Albanians, most of whom support independence, and the Serb minority remains elusive.
OVERVIEW
The landlocked region is one of Europe's poorest, with more than half of its people living in poverty. Although it possesses rich mineral resources, agriculture is the main economic activity.
Kosovo's economy revolves around agriculture
Ethnic Albanians number about 2 million - about 90% of the population. Some 100,000 Serbs remain following a post-war exodus of non-Albanians. The Serbian minority live in separate areas watched over by Nato peacekeepers. International diplomats have voiced concern over slow progress on their rights.
History
Slavic and Albanian peoples have co-existed in Kosovo since the eighth century. The region was the centre of the Serbian empire until the mid-14th century, and Serbians regard Kosovo as the birthplace of their state.
Over the centuries, as the ethnic balance shifted in favour of Albanians, Kosovo came to represent a Serbian golden age, embodied in epic poetry.
Serbia's defeat at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 ushered in centuries of rule under the Muslim Ottoman Empire. Serbia regained control of Kosovo in 1913, and the province was incorporated into the Yugoslav federation.
Path to autonomy
Serbs and ethnic Albanians vied for control in the region throughout the 20th century. In the 1960s the suppression of Albanian national identity in Kosovo gave way to a more tolerant line from Belgrade. Ethnic Albanians gained a foothold in the Kosovan, and Yugoslav, administrations.
Divided town: Mitrovica has been a flashpoint for inter-ethnic tensions
The 1974 Yugoslav constitution laid down Kosovo's status as an autonomous province, and pressure for independence mounted in the 1980s after the death of Yugoslav President Tito.
But resentment over Kosovan influence within the Yugoslav federation was harnessed by the future leader, Slobodan Milosevic. On becoming president in 1989 he proceeded to strip Kosovo of its autonomy.
A passive resistance movement in the 1990s failed to secure independence or to restore autonomy, although ethnic Albanian leaders declared unilateral independence in 1991.
In the mid-1990s an ethnic Albanian guerrilla movement, the Kosovo Liberation Army, stepped up its attacks on Serb targets. The attacks precipitated a major, and brutal, Yugoslav military crackdown.
War
Slobodan Milosevic's rejection of an internationally-brokered deal to end the crisis, and the persecution of Kosovo Albanians, led to the start of Nato air strikes against targets in Kosovo and Serbia in March 1999.
Meanwhile, a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Kosovo Albanians was initiated by Serbian forces. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro. Thousands of people died in the conflict.
Serbian forces were driven out in the summer of 1999 and the UN took over the administration of the province.
LEADERS
President: Fatmir Sejdiu
Fatmir Sejdiu was elected by parliament in February 2006. The leader of Kosovo's biggest party, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), he was the sole candidate.
Fatmir Sejdiu supports independence from Serbia
He was a close ally of the former president, writer-turned-politician Ibrahim Rugova, who died of cancer just days before UN-mediated talks on Kosovo's future status began in February 2006.
Ibrahim Rugova was nicknamed the "Gandhi of the Balkans". He led an ethnic Albanian campaign of passive resistance against Serb rule in the 1990s. He was twice elected president in unofficial elections, and won official presidential elections in 2002.
Like his predecessor, President Sejdiu supports independence for Kosovo.
He was born near the town of Podujevo in northern Kosovo. He studied law in France and the US and speaks both English and French.
Prime minister: Hashim Thaci
Hashim Thaci is a veteran of the ethnic Albanians' drive to break away from Serbia.
The former guerrilla is now regarded as a moderate politician
He began agitating for the Kosovo Albanian cause while still in his teens, and first came to prominence as the political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the guerrilla group that took up arms against Serb forces in the late 1990s.
He became known outside Kosovo when he formed part of the Kosovo Albanian negotiating team at internationally-sponsored peace talks at Rambouillet, France, early in 1999.
He made such a powerful impression at the talks that he succeeded in sidelining veteran Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova - who was more in favour of passive resistance to Serbia - and was appointed leader of the Kosovo Albanian negotiating team.
After the talks broke down and NATO launched its air campaign against Serbia that resulted in Kosovo becoming a UN protectorate, Mr Rugova reasserted his authority within the province and officially became president in 2002.
Meanwhile, Mr Thaci underwent a gradual process of transformation from fiery left-wing guerrilla to respectable politician. His Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) emerged out of the KLA and finally won an election in November 2007.
Some analysts believe that the years spent by Mr Thaci as prime minister-in-waiting allowed him to hone his political skills and made him into one of the province's most moderate leaders.
On being elected prime minister, he made an attempt to reach out to Kosovo's dwindling Serbian minority by switching to speaking Serbian as he called on the Serbs to consider Kosovo their home.
Hasim Thaci was born in 1968 in the Drenica region, a stronghold of the ethnic Albanian revolt against Serbia.
He was a student activist in 1989-91, and later went underground to join the KLA, which was formed in 1993. It was at that time that he acquired the nom de guerre of "the Snake" on account of his success in evading capture.
He is married, with one son.
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