Treaties and Dreams

http://original.antiwar.com/malic/2009/06/09/treaties-and-dreams/
 

Treaties and Dreams

by Nebojsa Malic, June 10, 2009

Kosovo Armistice, a Decade Later

 

On June 10, 1999, the military-technical agreement (MTA) between NATO and the Yugoslav Army went into effect, along with UN Security Council Resolution 1244. Between them, they provided a somewhat graceful ending to NATO's first war. Conceived as a three-day demonstration of force, predicated on a disgraceful ultimatum, justified by an onslaught of vicious propaganda, the assault on then-Yugoslavia nearly tore the alliance apart on its 50th birthday. Just four years later, the invasion of Iraq saw it tossed aside in favor of a "coalition of the willing."

 

NATO never honored its obligations from the MTA or UNSCR 1244. Kosovo was turned over to the KLA, whose campaign of murder, pillage, and arson drove out hundreds of thousands of non-Albanians from the province. Over the next 10 years, Serb religious and cultural heritage has been systematically destroyed, and most of the surviving Serbs have been driven out or killed. Meanwhile, the UN and NATO authorities gradually created institutions of statehood and eventually sponsored a declaration of "independence" by the KLA regime.

Armistice, Not Surrender

In the face of such overwhelming evidence, one would be tempted to conclude that the treaty signed by NATO and Yugoslav officers in a tent near Kumanovo on June 9 was an unconditional surrender. Or, as Alliance spokesman Jamie Shea put it at a June 7 press conference, a "complete acceptance of our non-negotiable conditions." Yet it was nothing of the kind.

The MTA was an armistice, painstakingly negotiated over five days. The government in Belgrade accepted the proposal put forth by NATO emissary Martti Ahtisaari (accompanied by Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin) on June 3. Yet Yugoslav and NATO officers negotiated till June 9 before settling on a text. During that week, NATO continued to bomb – as evidenced by the briefing given by Luftwaffe Maj. Gen. Walter Jertz at the aforementioned press conference.

On the anniversary of the armistice, the Belgrade daily Politika published an interview with one of the participants in the talks, Maj. Gen. Obrad Stevanovic of the Serbian police. Stevanovic said that the final text of the agreement only mentioned NATO in the context of its obligation to halt the bombing, and that KFOR was supposed to be a UN force. Likewise, there was no mention of the Rambouillet ultimatum.

In the end, none of that mattered much. Once NATO and the KLA came into possession of Kosovo, the MTA and 1244 were dead letters. Stevanovic maintains that none of the officers involved could have known NATO would not honor the deal, or that KFOR would fail to protect the civilians from the KLA. Yet that is precisely what happened.

A Strange Coincidence

With the benefit of hindsight, NATO turning over Kosovo to the KLA may seem like an obvious and foregone conclusion. After all, did the Alliance not just launch an illegal war of aggression on behalf of this terrorist organization hastily re-branded as "freedom fighters"? At the time, however, things seemed less clear-cut.

The war had not gone well for the Alliance. There were too many "mistakes," too much "collateral damage," and too little proof for tall tales of massacred Albanian civilians. That didn't stop the media from repeating them ad nauseam, but every day that Belgrade held out, the Alliance got weaker. On the other hand, the Yeltsin regime sold Belgrade down the river in early June, most likely at Washington's insistence. The proposal offered to Milosevic on June 3 was sufficiently watered down that he could accept it and claim a diplomatic victory.

Granted, that meant nothing once NATO got actual possession of the territory and the KLA could do as it pleased. Neither Milosevic nor the Russians were in any position to challenge that, however. Milosevic was ousted in a black-op "popular revolution" in 2000 and replaced with a client regime. Yeltsin was pressured to resign at the end of 1999, with his betrayal of Belgrade probably playing at least a partial role.

In the tragedy of Kosovo that ensued, few noticed that the war officially ended on a very symbolic date. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but there aren't many of those when it comes to the Balkans. Namely, June 10 was the date on which the first Albanian national movement was established in distant 1878, a crucial year in Balkans history.

1878 and the Congress of Berlin

By the mid-15th century, all of the Balkans had been conquered by the Ottoman Turks. The tide of Ottoman conquest, once seemingly unstoppable, began to recede after the failed siege of Vienna in 1683. The 18th century was marked by fierce wars with Austria and Russia, pushing the Turks back. Starting in 1804, uprisings by the Serbs and the Greeks further weakened the Ottoman hold over the Balkans.

As part of an administrative reform in 1864, the Ottoman Empire broke up its old provinces into smaller units called vilayets. In one of those provinces, Herzegovina, the excesses of Ottoman taxation provoked a rebellion in 1875. Using the distraction, Bulgarians rose up in the spring of 1876 but were cruelly suppressed. At this point, Serbia and Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Despite Russian military aid, they were soon forced on the defensive. In April 1877, Russia entered the war; by March 1878, the Ottomans were defeated, and Russian forces were within reach of Istanbul.

With Austria-Hungary and Britain alarmed at the extent of Russian gains in the proposed Treaty of San Stefano, Germany's chancellor Bismarck called the Congress of Berlin. Intended to be a reprise of the 1815 Congress of Vienna, which had created four decades of peace in post-Napoleonic Europe, the Berlin affair merely sowed the seeds of future Balkans conflicts and ultimately the Great War.

For example, the San Stefano treaty outlined a sizable, independent Bulgarian state. At the Congress of Berlin, only a third of the outlined territory was recognized as Bulgaria; another third was set apart as "East Rumelia," and the rest (Macedonia) was restored to Ottoman rule. Though East Rumelia was peacefully integrated into Bulgaria in 1885, the issue of Macedonia proved a major bone of contention between Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece, marring the victory over the Ottomans in 1912 and resulting in Bulgaria joining the Central Powers in 1915 (and the Axis in World War II).

The Congress of Berlin is also where Austria-Hungary received a mandate to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina, which put Vienna on a collision course with Belgrade and resulted in the Sarajevo assassination of 1914.

The League of Prizren

On June 10, 1878, Albanian religious and tribal leaders founded the League of Prizren, demanding greater recognition of Albanians within the Ottoman Empire and the consolidation of four vilayets – Shkoder, Kosovo, Ioannina, and Monastir (see a rough map here) – into an Albanian province. Though ultimately unsuccessful and disbanded after just three years, the League marked the beginning of an Albanian national movement. Just as Bulgarians saw the borders set out in Berlin as a grave injustice and considered the San Stefano borders their birthright, the Albanians claimed the four provinces as "ethnic Albanian lands" and have fought to acquire them ever since.

The independent Albania that was established in 1912 included the province of Shkoder and a part of Ioannina. Kosovo became a part of Serbia, and the vilayet of Monastir – i.e., Macedonia – was divided between Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece. The part that went to Serbia is today the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Following the Nazi-led invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, parts of Kosovo and today's Macedonia were given to Italian-occupied Albania. Upon Italy's surrender in 1943, Albanian leaders formed the "Second League of Prizren" and sought Nazi patronage in establishing an "ethnic Albania."

Living the Dream

It is unclear whether Imperial leaders and generals knew the symbolism of June 10 when they chose that date for the Kumanovo agreement to go into force. It is, however, clear that NATO's occupation resulted in the establishment of the "independent state of Kosovo" in February 2008, as well as the 2001 insurrections in Macedonia and southern Serbia. Thus the "Albanian lands" claimed by the League of Prizren have been put under de facto Albanian control – thanks to the American Empire.

The latest example came just two weeks ago, on May 31, when the prime ministers of Albania and Kosovo ceremoniously opened a tunnel on the Pristina-Durres highway (built with Turkish funding). The Albanian prime minister, Sali Berisha, was quoted as saying:

"Today, one of the Albanians' most beautiful dreams has become reality. This is a tunnel of the unification of the nation. Today we decided that there are no obstacles, that there is nothing that can divide us, not only spiritually, but also physically." (Emphasis added.)

However, the one constant in this "beautiful dream" since 1878 has been that it could only be realized with the help of outside powers, and by force. From the Ottoman Empire to the Axis, all the sponsors of Albanian aspirations ultimately failed, and their victory proved ephemeral.

In 1999, the American Empire was the "indispensable nation," and it looked as if its power would last forever. That is by no means a certainty any longer. The question now is whether history repeats itself or merely rhymes.

WILLIAM MONTGOMERY | The Balkan Mess Redux

The Balkan Mess Redux

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By WILLIAM MONTGOMERY

Published: June 4, 2009

President Obama recently said of Iraq, "What we will not do is permit the pursuit of the perfect stand in the way of achievable goals." It would be a major step forward if this same approach was applied to Bosnia and Kosovo.

In both those countries, we have become trapped in policy "boxes" that make it impossible to achieve stability or long-term solutions, despite enormous investments of personnel and resources for almost two decades.

This is because we continue to insist that it is possible, with enough pressure and encouragement, to establish fully functioning multiethnic societies in Bosnia and Kosovo with no change in borders. And we have consistently ignored all evidence to the contrary and branded as obstructionist anyone who speaks openly about alternative approaches.

The reality is that no amount of threats or inducements, including fast membership in the European Union or NATO, will persuade the Bosnian Serbs to cede a significant portion of the rights and privileges given them under the Dayton Agreement to the central government, as the Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and the international community are determined to bring about. The Bosnian Serbs are determined to have full control over their own destiny, and fear that if they continue to transfer authority to a central government, the more numerous Bosniaks will end up in control.

The end result is continued tension between the two Bosnian entities, a dysfunctional country, and the prospect of many more years of efforts by Western politicians — like Vice President Joe Biden on his recent visit — to pound a square peg into a round hole.

I know of what I speak: For more than 15 years, I was one of these pounders. I finally came to understand that the historical experiences in this region have implanted a mind-set very different from our own. We keep expecting the people in the Balkans to think and react as we do: It is not going to happen.

In Kosovo, the reality is that most of the Serbs have already left and will not be coming back. Many of those still remaining do so only because they hope or believe that they can ignore the central government of independent Kosovo and continue to look to Serbia for political and financial support.

Those Serbs living north of the Ibar River in particular act as if they are in fact living in Serbia. President Boris Tadic and his moderate government are trapped into supporting the Kosovo Serbs to prevent a nationalist backlash while trying to move toward the E.U.

These contradictions are becoming ever more obvious. But that is not the major danger.

Up to now, Kosovo Albanians have been patient with the refusal of Kosovo Serbs to recognize the independence of the former Serbian province, deferring to the international community to sort this problem out. But already opposition Kosovo Albanian politicians are starting to criticize the Kosovo government for its passivity on the matter.

This frustration will grow, leading to further deterioration of relations among Kosovo, Serbia and the international community, and an increase in violence against Kosovo Serbs.

In both Kosovo and Bosnia, we need to consider different solutions — ones which we may not like and which will have complications of their own, but which will be really...achievable. This is the only way the international community can bring its involvement in the Balkans to an end.

In Kosovo, this probably means some form of partition between the Albanians and the Serbs combined with joint recognition, pledges of full rights for minorities and a variety of sweeteners from the EU.

Bosnia is more complicated. There, a solution probably involves shaping a different relationship within Bosnia and permitting the Republika Srpska, the Serbian portion of the divided country, to hold a referendum on independence. This would have to include a lot of guarantees about future relationships, and be done as a complete package led and implemented by the international community.

In both cases, there would need to be a demonstrated will and readiness to use military force to prevent violence along the way.

There is another reason to broaden our thinking. We in the West act as if we control what happens in the region. This is not the case, as the outbreak of violence in 1990-91 in the former Yugoslavia and the growth of the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1997-99 demonstrated.

The fact is that both in Bosnia and in Kosovo, independent local forces can take matters into their own hands and in a very short time bring about renewed violence that we will be hard-pressed to contain. And we simply cannot afford to become even more entangled in the Balkans.

Like an alcoholic whose first step is to recognize he has a problem, we need to accept that the current policies are not tenable. Only then can we start thinking constructively about solutions which can bring lasting stability to the region.

William Montgomery is a former U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria, Croatia and Serbia/Montenegro and a former special adviser to the president on Bosnia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/opinion/05iht-edmontgomery.html?scp=2&sq=kosovo&st=cse

Kosovo's Minorities flee - The Guardian

Date: Friday, June 5, 2009, 6:09 AM The flight of Kosovo's minorities (The Guardian) The EU insists that Kosovo is a tolerant and multi-ethnic society. So why are its minorities leaving?   Ian Bancroft guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 3 June 2009 20.30   A highly critical report by Minority Rights Group International (MRG) maintains that members of minority communities are beginning to leave Kosovo over a year after its unilateral declaration of independence, due to persistent exclusion and discrimination. In contradicting the conclusions of the EU's general affairs and external relations council, the report once again demonstrates the emptiness and evasiveness of statements by members of the international community asserting Kosovo's supposedly multi-ethnic character. Without urgent measures to improve the position of minorities in Kosovo, such a discourse will increasingly serve only to parody, not portray, the reality on the ground.   The report, Filling the Vacuum: Ensuring Protection and Legal Remedies for Minorities in Kosovo, concludes that Kosovo "lacks effective international protection for minorities, which is worsening the situation for smaller minorities and forcing some to leave the country for good". These minorities include not only Kosovo's Serbs, but also Ashkali, Bosniaks, Croats, Egyptians, Gorani, Roma and Turks, who together make up around 5% of the population of Kosovo according to local estimates.   MRG's conclusions clearly contradict those of the recent meeting of the EU's general affairs and external relations council, which "noted with satisfaction the initial results achieved by EULEX in assisting the Kosovo authorities in consolidating the rule of law and in contributing to a safe and secure environment for all inhabitants, regardless of their ethnic origins". The divergence between such statements and the reports of human rights organisations such as MRG has become a distinctive feature of the international community's efforts to provide positive assessments of Kosovo's institutions. The result is policies that are insufficient to contend with the substantive problems faced by local communities. Though the government of Kosovo have often been commended for its stated commitment to upholding minority rights, MRG's report goes on to describe how "a lack of political will among majority Albanians and poor investment in protection mechanisms have resulted in minority rights being eroded or compromised in the post-independence period". According to MRG, Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence has left "a vacuum in effective international protection for minorities"; a vacuum that the Kosovo government seems both unwilling and unable to fill. Without tackling deficiencies in the area of the rule of law - reconfirmed by a newly released report by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), which describes Kosovo's courts as being "inefficient, opaque, and hampered by persistent institutional obstacles" - the plight of minorities will continue to be of secondary importance to the apparent need to proclaim Kosovo an example of a tolerant and multi-ethnic society. Indeed, Mark Lattimer, the executive director of MRG, also emphasised how "restrictions of movement and political, social and economic exclusion are particularly experienced by smaller minorities". Such conditions are only likely to be further aggravated by the worsening economic situation in Kosovo, especially for the Ashkali, Egyptian and Roma communities that suffer from deeply ingrained poverty and marginalisation. MRG has long drawn attention to the many failures to uphold the rights of minority communities in Kosovo, with a 2006 report, Minority Rights in Kosovo under International Rule, describing the situation of minorities as the worst in Europe and "little short of disastrous"; the international community having allowed "a segregated society to develop and become entrenched". Despite these and other warnings from human rights organisations, the international community has continued to not only ignore the difficulties faced by minority communities in Kosovo, but to regularly proclaim success with respect to minority rights protection. While both the international community and the Kosovo government insist that minority rights are guaranteed and conform to the highest international standards, MRG's report instead highlights how the segregation of Kosovo continues unabated. Indeed, it is increasingly clear that the litany of failures with respect to minority rights has been further exacerbated and entrenched by Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence. In sidelining the imperatives of re-integration, the international community's approach towards Kosovo is likely to have ramifications elsewhere in the Western Balkans. Without immediate and substantial steps to tackle minority rights issues, especially the return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees, Kosovo will remain the most segregated territory in Europe and a constant source of tension and instability for the entire region.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/03/kosovo-minorities-eu-government

Round table held on 29 May 2009 on Kosovo

Round table held on 29 May 2009 on Kosovo

Publication day: 3/6/2009

On 29 May 2009, IDC Paris organised a debate on the right of Kosovo to
secede from Serbia.  The main speaker was Slobodan Samardzic, the former
Serbian minister for Kosovo, who argued that the secession was illegal and a
violation of international law.  His paper is published under the section
"Research" on this web site.  Two neutral experts kindly agreed to come and
reply to his arguments, Dr Eric de Brabandere of the Grotius Centre for
International Legal Studies at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands
and Professor and Dr Cedric Ryngaert of the Universityof Leuven in Belgium.

Slobodan Samardzic served as adviser to and then minister under Vojislav
Kostunica, the man who overthrew Slobodan Milosevic after contested
electrions on 5 October 2000.  He therefore embodies a new spirit of
pro-Western orientation in Serbia.  Yet Mr Samardzic, who is Vice-President
of Kostunica's party and a professor of political science at the University
of Belgrade, bitterly contests the way in which Serbia has been let down by
her European and American allies.

His main argument focussed on United Nations Security Council Resolution
1244 of 10 June 1999, which fixed the status of Kosovo following the NATO
bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.  That resolution, he insisted, thrice
reaffirmed Kosovo's status as an integral part of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia of which today's Serbia is the successor state.  (Kosovo, indeed,
was always part of Serbia within the Yugoslav federation.)  The resolution
provided for negotiations about the future status of Kosovo and these
negotiations did indeed take place, from 2005 onwards.  However, they were
broken off when the Albanian authorities in the province declared
independence in February 2008, with the support of the European Union and
the United States.  He added that the period of UN administration of the
province (1999 – 2008) had been a period of systematic persecution against
the Serbs and other national minorities in Kosovo.

His two respondents were in considerable agreement with the former
minister.  Eric de Brabandere said that secession was a political issue on
which international law did not necessarily have the right to adjudicate. 
Not everything can be governed by international law, he argued.  Cedric
Ryngaert took a different view, saying that there was a body of
jurisprudence on the right of secession and that the essential point was
that it was illegal except in cases of massive violations of human rights.  

Natalia Narochnitskaya, the president of the Institute, asked what
confidence one could have in the new European Union administration of the
province when it was releasing from prison or refusing to prosecute people
convicted or suspected of war crimes.  She also emphasised the long list of
desecrations perpetrated against Serb Orthodox churches in the province.

There was a strong debate after the main speakers had finished.  A former
French ambassador to Croatia clearly disagreed with Mr Samardzic and Mrs
Narochnitskaya.  He claimed that the status of the new EU administration in
Kosovo, EULEX, was legal because confirmed by a report of the UN Secretary
General, and he countered the allegation about the desecration of churches
saying that hundreds of mosques had been destroyed in Kosovo prior to June
1999.  Mr Samardzic in turn countered both points, first by denying that the
Secretary General has the right to rescind a Security Council Resolution
(which created a UN administration) and second by claiming that the
destruction of mosques was due to NATO bombing not attacks by Serb forces.

Others who intervened included a former commander of French special forces
in Kosovo in 1999, who said that the NATO war had been based on a massive
campaign of disinformation.  The audience included senior army officers,
government officials, academics and students

http://www.idc-europe.org/actualites.asp

Risky business in the Balkans

 

http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/peter_worthington/2009/06/01/9634846-sun.html

Risky business in the Balkans

By PETER WORTHINGTON

Last Updated: 1st June 2009, 3:26am

 

Since Barack Obama became U.S. president, both Vice-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have separately visited Europe and made disquieting observations about the Balkans.

In March, Clinton commented in Brussels that the Obama administration was "determined to listen, advise (European Union countries) and through agreement arrive at wise solution to common challenges."

Among the "common challenges" was that the "Balkans is in danger of becoming part of the forgotten past." She added the ominous view that "it will not be allowed for unfinished business to remain there."

What "unfinished business" is that, one wonders?

Well, it certainly isn't rapprochement with Serbia, where VP Joe Biden was last week. Many recall Biden's 1999 sponsoring of the bombing of Serbia and his remark on Larry King Live that Serbs were "a bunch of illiterate degenerates, baby killers, butchers and rapists."

The "unfinished business" mentioned by Clinton is formal recognition, of Kosovo as an independent state -- which violates the original terms of the U.S.-sponsored war against Serbia on behalf of Kosovo.

Since that 78-day air war (which the U.S. had predicted would bring Belgrade to its knees within 48 hours), Kosovo has unilaterally declared independence which many countries have accepted and Slavic countries (such as Russia) have rejected. (Canada is nervously "assessing" the situation, aware that Quebec has the potential of someday being a Canadian Kosovo).

A recent panel discussion on the Balkans presented by the Lord Byron Foundation at Toronto's Royal Canadian Military Institute (RCMI), brought together experts on the subject, including James Bissett, former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia.

The panelists agreed that recent moves indicate "reinvigoration" of the former Clinton policies, whereby then-secretary of state Madeleine Albright worked assiduously to go to war on behalf of Kosovo.

That was arguably, one of the greatest errors and miscalculations of the Clinton regime. The justification was that Serbs were intent on genocide of Albanian Kosovars when, in fact, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) provoked Serbian reaction, and fabricated massacres.

Embarrassing as it should be to those who supported the Kosovo war, no evidence of mass graves has ever been found. Atrocities on both sides, yes, but no massacres. The "war" was utterly unnecessary.

In fact, since the war al-Qaida and Muslim extremists have flooded into the Balkans: Kosovo, Bosnia, Macedonia. The dreaded spectre of militant Islam in the heart of Europe has become a reality, enhanced by U.S. policy and now apparently revived by Obama.

According to the RCMI panelists, European countries are uneasy about what seems a renewed American push in the Balkans. Increasingly, Europeans realize they were hoodwinked into recognizing Kosovo's independence on the pretense it would resolve problems and bring peace.

The opposite has occurred. Russia and China are stronger and more aggressive and influential now; Europe is less inclined to accede to Washington's wishes; the U.S. is weaker, sapped by two costly wars and an untested new president beset by a recession at home.

Islamic world

Possibly, Obama is persuaded that activism in the Balkans on behalf of Bosnia and Kosovo will enhance America's reputation in the Islamic world. If so, it's another error. The Balkans are a graveyard for foreign ambitions.

The U.S. House of Representatives has already adopted a resolution advocating a centralized, unitary Bosnian state, and the RCMI panel was in agreement that previous U.S. interference has contributed to Balkan violence and unrest. Bosnia and Kosovo are potential problems that European countries will inevitably inherit.

For starters, Obama should put a leash on Clinton -- and a muzzle on Biden.

 

 

Opel Sale May Deepen Russian Ties to Germany, Trump East Europe

Opel Sale May Deepen Russian Ties to Germany, Trump East Europe 

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By Leon Mangasarian

May 30 (Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel's blessing of a Russian-backed bid for General Motors Corp.'s Opel unit augurs deeper ties between Moscow and Berlin that may trump concerns of ex-Soviet nations squeezed between the two capitals.

Merkel's government earlier today picked a partnership led by Magna International Inc., a Canadian auto-parts supplier, with Russia's biggest bank, OAO Sberbank, and Russian carmaker OAO GAZ as the buyer for Opel, the European division of GM, which will file for bankruptcy next week.

"This will fuel suspicion in east Europe over Germany and Russia and why the biggest economy in Europe has tied up with strange Russian tycoons to please the Kremlin," said Fredrik Erixon, director of the Brussels-based European Centre for International Political Economy. "Germany is playing off the Poles and the Baltic states against Russia."

Germany is Russia's biggest trade partner, a relationship underpinned by rising German gas and oil imports. Annual German trade with Russia increased five-fold to 68.2 billion euros ($96.2 billion) last year since 2000. With 6,000 German companies operating in Russia, business leaders in Berlin view the global recession as a speed-bump, with manufacturers set to win contracts as Russia diversifies from energy and rebuilds transport and health care.

"Economic ties between Germany and Russia are very important," Merkel said at a joint news conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Berlin on March 31. "There's a lot of potential here."

Under Magna's initial proposal, the Canadian company would get a 20 percent stake in GM's Opel and Vauxhall divisions in Europe. Sberbank would own 35 percent, matching the remaining holding of Detroit-based GM. Magna Co-Chief Executive Officer Siegfried Wolf has described GAZ, based in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, as its industrial partner.

Merkel-Putin Talks

Underscoring the political and commercial mix, Merkel spoke by phone to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on May 26 about "trade and economic cooperation." That followed a May 23 conversation dedicated to Opel, said her spokesman, Ulrich Wilhelm.

Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, was hired by Russian state gas export monopoly Gazprom OAO months after leaving office in 2005 to head the construction of the Nord Stream pipeline that will provide Russian gas to Germany.

The Polish government fears that Nord Stream -- which will run from Russia directly to Germany under the Baltic Sea -- might allow Russia to cut gas supplies to east Europe while still supplying Germany and western Europe.

"Nothing's ever purely economic with the Russians, there's always political interest involved," Karol Karski, of Poland's opposition Law & Justice party and a member of parliament's foreign affairs committee, said in an interview.

Weight of History

German relations with eastern Europe are still burdened by the memory of Nazi crimes from World War II, while Russia's relations with the region are blighted by the post-1945 communist takeover by the Soviet Union.

"These countries are allergic to many things coming from Russia or Germany," Jan Techau, a European and security expert at the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview. "Balancing Germany's ties with Russia and eastern Europe is one of the most difficult German foreign policy questions."

Techau said Opel is part of a bigger picture given that Russia views Germany as a key to its global economic policy.

"Russia wants to move massively into Western markets," he said. "Opel would be a real catch because they'd get a big technological advantage for their auto industry and a foot into one of the world's biggest economies."

Russian Market

The move makes sense for Opel because Russia is set to become Europe's largest car market, said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.

Russia is almost as crucial for German exports as China, and Merkel -- who grew up in communist East Germany -- has sometimes adopted policies linked to Russia that are opposed by eastern Europeans. These range from Nord Stream to her rejection of fast-tracking former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia for NATO membership.

For Germany, closer ties to Russia may also mark a bid to ensure a pivotal diplomatic role as the world's center of gravity shifts away from Europe and President Barack Obama focuses on the Middle East and Asia, says Techau.

"U.S.-Russian relations play out at a different level including security, the soft underbelly of Russia in Central Asia and North Korea," he said. "These are areas where Europe is a small player and it's the Europeans who should be concerned that the new Obama policy will squeeze them out of their old mediator role between Moscow and Washington."

To contact the reporter on this story: Leon Mangasarian in Berlin atlmangasarian@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 30, 2009 03:15 EDT 

Serbia: The Hoax Goes On

The Hoax that Continues a War

Posted by Julia Gorin
 May 17th 2009 05:35:32 PM

We are still in the midst of the 10-year anniversary of our NATO attack on Serbia on behalf of bin Laden-trained/financed KLA terrorists, to help steal Serbian land because Albanians reached a majority in part of that country. The 1999 bombing lasted from March 24 to June 10, a symbolic and historic day for Albanian supremacism.

If Americans deign to recall, the "trigger" event that was used to touch off the NATO assault (which was already being planned for a year at that point), was something called "the Racak Massacre." Following is my account — written for a compilation of essays titled "Kosovo: The Score" — of the American-staged atrocity that led the free world to join the jihad:

Perhaps nothing is more Albanian than commemorating a massacre by Serbs even after the Albanians commemorating it admitted to having staged the massacre. Sometimes there is even a double punch line, as in January when Kosovo Albanians honored the American who avenged the massacre that didn't happen.

On January 15th, the tenth anniversary of "the Racak massacre" — disproved as such even in mainstream media such as the Toronto Sun — Kosovo "prime minister" Hashim Thaci and "president" Fatmir Sejdiu awarded the "Gold Medal of Humanity" to William Walker, head of the Kosovo Verifying Mission that ensured a NATO intervention on behalf of Walker's KLA friends and masters in 1999. (The ceremony, "dedicated to the martyrs of the Racak massacre," was reported by the KosovaLive news agency: "Kosovo leaders vow at Racak massacre memorial never to forget Serbian crimes.") There couldn't have been a better comedy roast for the year 2009, the tenth anniversary of NATO's war against Yugoslavia — launched by a staged atrocity in the town of Racak.

This comes nine years after Thaci himself admitted the Racak ploy the very year following its success. Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie, former UN Protection Force commander in Bosnia, cited the admission in an April 2008 statement to the Lord Byron Foundation:

The current Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was the leader of the KLA. He has admitted that the KLA orchestrated the infamous Racak "massacre" dressing their KLA dead in civilian clothes, machine gunning them and dumping them in a ditch and claiming it was a Serbian slaughter of civilians. NATO bought into the ruse and on its 50th birthday looking for a role in the post cold war world the alliance became the KLA's air force and bombed a sovereign nation from the safety of 10,000 ft.

In addition to telling BBC in January 1999, "We had a key unit in the region. It was a fierce battle. We regrettably had many victims. But so did the Serbs," Thaci boasted more recklessly in February of 2000 to a roomful of foreign correspondents. But most of them dutifully kept a lid on the most sensational story of the decade, leaving only Russian National Radio to report it. From a translated summary:

Pristina, March 7th - Leader of the Albanian terrorists in Kosmet [Kosovo-Metohija], Hashim Tachi, told recently foreign reporters, quoted by the Voice of Russia, about the methods of demonizing Serbs, i.e. how his terrorist KLA committed crimes in order to urgently provoke western military intervention in Yugoslavia…According to the foreign media reports, quoted by the Russian radio, obviously "carried away", Tachi mentioned the well known incident in the village of Racak….Tachi revealed a public secret and confessed that the KLA members committed the murder of four Serbian policemen in Racak.

…Indeed, a police action followed, but it was no punitive expedition of Serb special forces against Albanian farmers, but a legitimate operation against the Albanian extremists, who made their stronghold in Racak….[A]n independent international expertise followed, and the OSCE experts from Byelorussia and Finland, established that the bodies belonged to the KLA extremists. In spite of this, NATO and the leading western countries blamed Belgrade for the killing of the so-called Albanian farmers from Racak. That was the first in a series of accusations in an already worked out scenario for deceiving the international public, i.e. preparing the field for the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia, stressed the radio.

More recently, a biography came out last October about the Finnish forensic dentist Helena Ranta, revealing that her report on the massacre was coerced. Finland's Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, whose managing editor authored the book, reports:

Ranta says that officials of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs had tried to influence the content of her reports in 2000, when Ranta was commissioned by the European Union to investigate the events of Racak in Kosovo…"Three civil servants of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs expressed wishes by e-mail for more far-reaching conclusions", Ranta said. "I still have the e-mails."

More than 40 Albanians were killed in the village of Racak in January 1999. The investigation by Ranta's working group was very charged from the beginning. It was commonly assumed that Serb forces had perpetrated a massacre….According to Ranta, in the winter of 1999 William Walker, the head of the OSCE Kosovo monitoring mission, broke a pencil in two and threw the pieces at her when she was not willing to use sufficiently strong language about the Serbs.

Serbia's B92 news also carried the story:

"We all know what William Walker said," [Ranta states]. "He says to this day that it was a massacre and that the Serbs were to blame. But I never said that. I never made any reference to the perpetrators," says the pathologist. "I never said a single word about who stood behind what went on in Racak. That's for the judges to decide, while we forensic scientists just carry out the investigation," she tells daily Večernje Novosti in an exclusive interview.

Ranta claims that Walker is "putting words into my mouth," which was not allowed. "I didn't agree with him. He was angry with me," she says. "What angered him most was that I refused to use the word massacre and say who stood behind what happened in Račak."

A follow-up B92 article included a further detail:

…Ranta appeared in 2003 as one of the witnesses in the Hague trial of Slobodan Milošević. She told Berliner Zeitung newspaper in 2004 that [it] was "negative" that a part of the indictment against Milošević was related to the Račak events, based mostly on the version given by Walker.

Berliner Zeitung was the paper that Toronto Sun's Peter Worthington reported in 2001 had gotten access to the Finnish findings and concluded, "In all probability, there was no Racak massacre at all." Worthington wrote that the whole reason the EU called Ranta in is that the Serbian and Belorussian forensic people were suspicious about the massacre tale. Her report was not made public, but she "gave a press conference at which she was vague, admitting there was no evidence of mutilation or torture, and that Yugoslav authorities had cooperated. But she also called the killings 'a crime against humanity,' widely interpreted to mean Racak was indeed a cold-blooded massacre."

In 1999 independent journalist Richard Poe wrote:

When 45 bodies were found near the town of Racak, a U.S. media blitz accused the Serbs of slaughtering innocent civilians. NATO commander Wesley Clark personally confronted Milosevic with photos of the victims. "This was not a massacre," Milosevic cried. "This was staged."

The New York Times reported this exchange on April 18, 1999, three months after it occurred, but unfortunately failed to explain to readers that Milosevic was probably telling the truth. By the time that article was written, the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, Die Welt, the BBC, and others had already raised doubts about the alleged massacre. Forensic investigators had concluded that the bodies were probably those of KLA guerrillas killed in action. The bodies appear to have been dressed in civilian clothes, then shot additional times and cut with knives several hours after death, in order to simulate a brutal massacre. [Indeed, Madeleine Albright told CBS's "Face the Nation" that there were "dozens of people with their throats slit" and that the only solution was "humanitarian air strikes."]

Below is an interview excerpt by the Serbian newspaper Glas Javnosti from October, with the investigating judge of the Pristina District Court and chief investigator of the Racak site, Danica Marinkovic, as translated by the website De-Consruct.net:

Reacting to the recent confession of the Finnish forensic dentist Helena Ranta…Judge Marinkovic said it was good Ranta had started telling the truth. Judge Marinkovic believes it was time for the state of Serbia to initiate certain legal procedures and the criminal lawsuit against Ranta, Walker, [the] OSCE mission and the others responsible for the criminal involvement in the Racak hoax.

Q: Please remind us, what took place in Racak on January 15, 1999?

DM: A classic battle between the Serbian police and the terrorist KLA [UCK] took place in Racak. In this region — just like in all of Kosovo and Metohija, after all, terrorists were constantly attacking and killing civilians and policemen from the ambush and the police went to find the culprits. By the way, Racak was a large and one of the staunchest KLA strongholds in Kosovo and Metohija. Police announced its action in a timely and professional manner to the OSCE, and OSCE observer[s] joined the police squad. Police clashed with the terrorists in the morning hours and there were casualties on both sides. After the battle, around 11 a.m., the police informed Pristina District Court about the clash.

Q: When did you arrive to Racak?

DM: We arrived to Racak around 14.00 hours [2 p.m.], with the other team members and the police, with intention to carry out the investigative activities. During the clearing of the terrain, among [other things], we found the Browning calibre 12.7mm [heavy machine gun], two Brownings with the pistol calibre 7.9mm with the enhanced charger, 36 automatic guns calibre 7.62mm, two sniper guns, five shoulder-held missile launchers of the Chinese make, 12 mines charged with the hand grenade charger, 22 hand grenades, around 8,000 pieces of ammunition of different calibre, three hand-held radio stations, medical equipment and military uniforms with KLA tags. Everything we found was photographed. So, we have found the entire weapons arsenal among the "peace-loving villagers"!

When we tried to move further to find any of the victims, the barrage fire was opened at us from all the sides — we barely managed to pull out alive. That was the day Walker had published a photo that circled the world, about the alleged massacre committed by the Serbian police. Then-head prosecutor of the Hague tribunal, Louise Arbour was also brought to Racak.

Q: Did you manage to inspect the scene?

DM: No, not even during the next two days. We tried to enter the village again on January 16, but we were again showered with bullets and we had to return. The next day, Walker's deputy John [Drewienkiewicz] arrived to Stimlje near Racak. He tried to coerce me to go in only with him, without the other members of the team. He was telling me that the "innocent villagers" from Racak will be distressed when they see me with the police, and that they will shoot. I asked him: "What are the innocent villagers doing with weapons?" He fell silent, turned around and left. But we didn't manage to visit the scene of the alleged crime on that day, January 17, either.

Only on the fourth day after the battle, on January 18, we were able to get over there. But there were no bodies in the village at all, not a trace. We did not see a single body Walker had shown to the world public, and was being horrified over. We went through the entire village, but all we could see were the trenches, shovels, empty bullet shells, numerous machine gun nests, a deserted KLA headquarters, uniforms… There wasn't a living soul in the village, we could not see a single woman or a child anywhere. And the bodies of the killed KLA terrorists were moved to the village mosque…

Q: What did you find in the mosque?

DM: All of the bodies were dressed in the civilian clothing, but many wore military pants, belts and boots. Underneath they had several pairs of pants or the other clothing, which clearly pointed to the fact they were dressed to spend long time outdoors. Out of 40 bodies of the "peace-loving villagers", 37 had gunpowder residue found on their hands, which unequivocally shows they were discharging firearms prior to being shot. [A] criminal investigation was conducted in entirety and, after the autopsies, it was decisively determined there was no massacre or a "genocide", but that the wounds were exclusively resulting from the bullets. There wasn't even one "massacred" body!

Later on, during the course of investigation, it was determined that [the] majority of the Racak victims were active members of the KLA. Most interestingly, the Belorussian and Finnish forensic specialists who also took part in the autopsies have reached exactly the same conclusions as our own forensic experts. However, Ranta did not want to state that for the public.

Indeed, at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, Professor Slavisa Dobricanin — former director of the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Pristina, who was in charge of the forensics team that autopsied the Racak bodies — revealed that the British general in charge of planning the verification mission, John Drewienkiewicz, threatened "to ship Judge Marinkovic off to The Hague if she tried to conduct an onsite investigation in Racak," trial observer Andy Wilcoxson reported on April 13, 2005, adding:

It is worth noting that William Walker, the head of the OSCE-KVM, was given access to the village by the KLA while forensic investigators were kept out. Walker, instead of taking steps to secure the alleged crime scene, brought journalists to that gully and let them trample all over the place. One of the journalists was Franz Josef Hutsch, a German newspaper reporter.

According Mr. Hutsch, who testified at the trial on October 12, 2004, Walker just stood there while journalists moved the bodies around to take their pictures. He said that the bodies "were put upright, for example, at the edge of the slope so that they would have a bit of shade so that the excessive head wounds wouldn't be seen in a photo to be published. And they were taken from their original positions."

Interestingly, Helena Ranta started talking about the fraud as early as 2007:

German daily Berliner Zeitung…informed that the initial report by the Finnish forensics contained half-truths and contradictory claims, later admitted by Helena Ranta, but without any qualms regarding the dishonorable role she played…[Belgrade news agency Tanjug reports that] three teams of forensic experts — from Yugoslavia, Belarus and Finland — found only firearm wounds on the bodies of the victims…Helena Ranta backed Walker's statement prior to the bombings, saying that she was expressing her personal view. However, on Jan 23, 2007, Ranta admitted to Belgrade daily Blic that the final Finnish forensic report "did not contain proof about either a massacre or execution taking place in Racak."

The De-Construct.net website reported Professor Dobricanin's reaction to Ranta's recent soul-baring about the pressures she was under:

"I'm not surprised by the things Ranta is saying now, but she still hasn't admitted her own statements back then were false. I clearly remember she was constantly under surveillance by the German embassy and the Finnish ministry. The Finnish Minister for Human Rights…was at the Institute all the time, as well as the German embassy's Second Secretary. She was very nervous and constantly outside the autopsy room. She was always in the Institute hallways, talking to someone on her mobile phone", Professor Dobricanin [recalls].

…[Dobricanin] said that, after the autopsy reports were completed and jointly signed without any objections on behalf of the international forensic experts, the members of the international team decided to hold a press conference in Pristina. Members of the Serbian forensic team were not allowed to attend.

"William Walker was extremely nervous. He could barely stand still and he kept drumming his fingers on the chair. He did not speak. It was Helena Ranta that said all of it: that the killed were the unarmed civilians, that the massacre was committed, and that it was the crime against the civilians. The very three things a forensic specialist can not say," Dr. Dobricanin concluded his recollection.

…Danica Marinkovic and Slavisa Dobricanin both testified at the Hague, on behalf of the former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's defense. As expert witnesses, they refuted prosecution charges, especially in respect to the names, gender and the age of the victims. Then-prosecutor Geoffrey Nice went as far as calling the Serbian judge and forensic pathologist "criminals". After a while, when the prosecution data on the Racak KLA victims was "reevaluated", he too quoted Marinkovic and Dobricanin, citing results of their investigation.

Following the evidence presented by the Judge Marinkovic and Professor Dobricanin, Hague prosecution removed Racak charges from all the indictments: from that of the late Yugoslav and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, from the process against the former Serbia's President Milan Milutinovic, and from the processes against another five former Yugoslav and Serbian functionaries.

Five days before beginning airstrikes, Bill Clinton thundered, "We should remember what happened in Racak…innocent men, women and children were taken from their homes to a gully, forced to kneel in the dirt and sprayed with gunfire." The London Times, Peter Worthington wrote in his Toronto Sun article, was even more imaginative, printing "that victims had their eyes gouged out, heads smashed in, faces blown away at close range, all 'farmers, workers, villagers, aged 12-74, men, women, children.'"

The New York Times, meanwhile, reports the website Srpska Mreza — which had been following the Kosovo war propaganda — caught something interesting:

On Friday, the day before American ambassador William Walker sensationally "discovered" the so-called massacre in the village of Racak in Kosmet, State Secretary Madeleine Albright held a meeting behind closed doors in Washington, at which she revealed to a few members of the team close to her that the agreement on normalization of relations in Kosmet was due to fall apart at any moment, The New York Times wrote on January 19.

The New York paper cites the statement of an anonymous official in the American administration who pointed out that Albright, obviously, had reliable information regarding events in Racak and practically announced them.

[The] text in The New York Times clearly shows that Washington knew in advance of the whole scenario….

As soon as Walker delivered his lines, Albright picked up her cue, calling Racak "the 'galvanizing incident' that meant peace talks at Rambouillet were pointless, 'humanitarian bombing' the only recourse," wrote Worthington, whose article was titled "The Hoax that Started a War."

Shedding light on what led up to the Racak hoax is Balkans analyst and writer Nebojsa Malic, who recalled that then U.S. Special representative Ambassador Richard Holbrooke had Milosevic sign an agreement in October, 1998 to withdraw Yugoslav army and police from Kosovo, in exchange for not getting bombed:

The KLA were not a party to the agreement and had no obligations under it. (Maybe Slobo, ever the sap, thought there was an implied obligation to restrain our clients. Fat chance!) The KLA responded to the withdrawal of the Yugoslav forces with an offensive that seized control of about half of Kosovo, forcing tens of thousands of Serbs to flee. Eventually, around December, Milosevic decided he had to send forces back in. The US responded with the usual threats and heavy breathing that he was going to be held accountable. Not sure when, but the OSCE observer mission with the orange vehicles was sent in to monitor Yugoslav behavior (not KLA behavior, of course) and watch out for any atrocities. (Wink wink, nudge nudge, let's have a trigger.) Racak duly occurred.

Indeed, between October 13, 1998 and January 14, 1999, continued the above-mentioned Srpska Mreza report from 1999:

Albanian separatists carried out a total of 599 terrorist attacks and provocations, of which 186 were against civilians, while 413 were against members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic of Serbia. In these attacks, a total of 53 persons were killed (37 civilians and 16 policemen) and 36 persons suffered serious bodily injury (13 civilians and 23 policemen). A total of 43 persons were kidnapped (39 civilians and 4 policemen); of those, three were killed (one civilian and two policemen), while the fate of the other 22 civilians and one policeman remains unknown.

About the attacks on police that triggered the Serbian counteroffensive in Racak, the Greek daily Exusia fairly observed in a January 19 article titled "Serb killed by 'unarmed' Albanians":

Regardless of the fact that the Albanian side is responsible for the latest fighting, warnings continue to be directed only to Belgrade, along with the threat that NATO forces will be activated for military intervention.

Renaud Girard, reporter on the ground for French newspaper Le Figaro, described what he saw:

…At dawn intervention forces of the Serbian police encircled and then attacked the village of Racak, known as a bastion of [UCK/KLA] separatist guerrillas. The police didn't seem to have anything to hide, since at 8:30 a.m. they invited a television team (two journalists of AP TV) to film the operation. A warning was also given to the OSCE, which sent two cars with American diplomatic licenses to the scene. The observers spent the whole day posted on a hill where they could watch the village.

At 3 p.m., a police communique reached the international press center in Pristina announcing that 15 UCK "terrorists" had been killed in combat in Racak and that a large stock of weapons had been seized. At 3:30 p.m., the police forces, followed by the AP TV team, left the village….At 4:40 p.m., a French journalist drove through the village and met three orange OSCE vehicles. The international observers were chatting calmly with three middle-aged Albanians in civilian clothes. They were looking for [possible] civilian casualties. Returning to the village at 6 p.m., the journalist saw the observers taking away two very slightly injured old men and two women.

The scene of Albanian corpses in civilian clothes lined up in a ditch which would shock the whole world was not discovered until the next morning, around 9 a.m., by journalists soon followed by OSCE observers. At that time, the village was once again taken over by armed UCK soldiers who led the foreign visitors, as soon as they arrived, toward the supposed massacre site. Around noon, William Walker in person arrived and expressed his indignation.

All the Albanian witnesses gave the same version: at midday, the policemen forced their way into homes and separated the women from the men, whom they led to the hilltops to execute them without more ado.

The most disturbing fact is that the pictures filmed by the AP TV journalists — which Le Figaro was shown yesterday — radically contradict that version. It was in fact an empty village that the police entered in the morning, sticking close to the walls. The shooting was intense, as they were fired on from UCK trenches dug into the hillside.

The fighting intensified sharply on the hilltops above the village. Watching from below, next to the mosque, the AP journalists understood that the UCK guerrillas, encircled, were trying desperately to break out. A score of them in fact succeeded, as the police themselves admitted.

What really happened? During the night, could the UCK have gathered the bodies, in fact killed by Serb bullets, to set up a scene of cold-blooded massacre? A disturbing fact: Saturday morning the journalists found only very few cartridges around the ditch where the massacre supposedly took place…Intelligently, did the UCK seek to turn a military defeat into a political victory?

Le Monde reporter Christophe Chatelet corroborated Girard's account in his own dispatch that day, asking how the Serbian police could have managed "to gather a group of men and to peacefully lead them to the place of execution when they were under constant fire by the terrorists? How is it possible that the people living in the village, who returned before nightfall and the observers who spent over two hours in the village did not see the gully in which the bodies were found?"

It has also been widely noted that, like the ditch itself, the clothing of the dead "civilians" was curiously blood-free. Yet Walker unambiguously declared that the dead "obviously were executed where they lay," Worthington reported in his 2001 Toronto Sun article, adding, "His OSCE report spoke of 'arbitrary arrests, killings and mutilations of unarmed civilians' at Racak."

The very day that the Western monitors were helping stage and corroborate a "civilian massacre" for the KLA, the KLA couldn't resist shooting at them:

Peace Monitors 'Shot Deliberately' (BBC, January 16, 1999)

The head of the international monitoring mission in Kosovo says he believes that two monitors, shot and wounded on Friday, were deliberately targeted…The two men — a Briton and his locally-recruited interpreter — were in a convoy with Serbian police when they were hit. They were not seriously injured.

…The incident happened as the group were on their way to mediate in a confrontation between ethnic Albanian rebels and Serb forces in the western region of Pec. Mr Walker said: "What I've heard so far about the firing, it was not just one shot or two shots, it was sustained firing. That would lead me to believe that it was a deliberate shooting."

He pointed out that the monitors drove distinctive vehicles and that everyone in the area had been informed that they were going out on patrol…A spokesman for the international monitoring mission said the shots appeared to come from a sniper in territory held by the ethnic-Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army…UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said he was shocked and concerned about the shooting of two members of the KVM.

None of this, however, threw Western leaders off-program, as BBC reported the next day:

Nato is to hold an emergency session on Sunday to consider its response to the massacre of more than 40 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. An American state department spokesman said there should be no doubt of Nato's resolve.

The Nato Secretary-General, Javier Solana, said it would not tolerate a return to all-out fighting and repression in Kosovo.

President Clinton and the head of the international observer mission in Kosovo both blamed Serbian forces for the killings…Those killed in the village of Racak, south of Pristina, were mostly men who had been rounded up and shot at close range. Some had been mutilated.

International monitors say they have also seen the bodies of three women and a 12-year-old boy.

The massacre has prompted the International War Crimes Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia to open an urgent inquiry…Local villagers say the slaughter of the victims, mostly men aged between 18 and 65, was carried out by Serb forces who rounded the group up on Friday night…The Kosovar Albanian political leader, Ibrahim Rugova, has declared Sunday a day of mourning in Kosovo.

Germany, which currently holds the presidency of the European Union, said the international community would not accept such acts of persecution and murder.

In Paris, the French Foreign Ministry expressed disgust at the massacre and called for a meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to investigate who was responsible.

UK Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, said: "Those responsible for the crimes must be held to account before international justice."…The US special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, condemned the killings, saying they were the most serious offence since the outbreak of the violence which has plagued the province in recent months.

So notorious is the architect of the Racak incident, William Walker, that his name is known even to non-watchers of the Balkans, as a 1999 piece titled "Meet Mr. Massacre" by Mark Ames and Matt Taibbi, currently of Rolling Stone magazine, shows:

…After a brief review of the town's 40-odd bullet-ridden corpses, Walker searched out the nearest television camera and essentially fired the starting gun for the war. "From what I saw, I do not hesitate to describe the crime as a massacre, a crime against humanity," he said. "Nor do I hesitate to accuse the government security forces of responsibility."

We all know how Washington responded to Walker's verdict; it quickly set its military machine in motion, and started sending out menacing invitations to its NATO friends to join the upcoming war party.

How Russia responded is less well-known…It probably sent a chill up the community's collective spine, and pushed its generals into rapid preparations for a new cold war with the United States. As connoisseurs in the art of propaganda and the use of provacateurs [sic], they recognized a good job when they saw one.

…Walker was in Latin America virtually throughout his entire career, until he arrived in Kosovo. He had no experience in the region which qualified him to head the verification team in Yugoslavia….There is a widespread belief not only in Russia, but in other countries, that Walker's role in Racak was to assist the KLA in fabricating a Serb massacre that could be used as an excuse for military action. Already, two major mainstream French newspapers — Le Monde and Le Figaro — as well as French national television have run exposes on the Racak incident. These stories cited a number of inconsistencies in Walker's version of events, including an absence of shell casings and blood in the trench where the bodies were found, and the absence of eyewitnesses despite the presence of journalists and observers in the town during the KLA-Serb fighting.

Eventually, even the Los Angeles Times joined in, running a story entitled "Racak Massacre Questions: Were Atrocities Faked?"

Not that any of this might give U.S. media any pause before bestowing prime print space upon the likes of Walker, as the Washington Times did recently, so he could "refute" articles debunking his war. Walker used the space to re-bunk all the disproved propaganda. Despite the American terrorist's sordid history, Washington Times editors allowed him a free hand in responding to a piece by Serbian President Boris Tadic.

As with all things Balkans-related — wherein media and politicians embellish upon old facts even as new ones discredit them — this goes on simultaneously while the woman at the heart of the Racak matter is spilling the beans, or at least some of them. And no one notices. Ten years of proof that Racak wasn't a slaughter went duly unnoticed by Reuters, which last September 30th printed a photo with a caption reading, "The graves of people that were killed by Serbian forces in January 1999 are visited by relatives during the religious holiday of Eid-al-Fitr in the village of Racak, south of the Kosovo capital Pristina."

It's all part of the pattern in which Balkan-Muslim myths from the 90s are perpetuated by media, politicians, military, NGOs, Holocaust museums, filmmakers and artists even while the Muslims themselves admit to the farce. (Upon Karadzic's capture last year, Richard Holbrooke cited "300,000 deaths" in the Bosnian war — three years after Sarajevo's Investigation and Documentation Centre reduced the original inflated 250,000 figure to less than 100,000.) This is without even questioning why the supposedly secular Balkan Muslims would be visiting the Racak graves on a religious holiday, particularly since the KLA's was a "national" struggle, not a religious one, as we're repeatedly told. U.S. leaders have yet to admit what the KLA themselves have admitted, thereby out-KLAing the KLA itself.

Thaci, meanwhile, has never apologized for the KLA's crimes, while one apology after another is demanded, and extracted, from the Serbian side for what it did and didn't do to counter the terrorist attacks. In fact, the year before the staged Racak massacre — that is, in 1998 alone –Thaci killed 40 Serbs and Albanians, including six of his own lieutenants. Why wasn't this a green light for the world to bomb Albanians?

And given that 1990s Serbian crimes against Albanians, real or imagined, are the basis of the consensus that states Serbia lost all right to Kosovo, why haven't the Albanians who have been terrorizing the province's non-Albanians for the past 10 years (not to mention in preceding decades) lost any right to Kosovo? Perhaps for the same reason that Slobodan Milosevic remains "guilty" despite not having ordered a single crime while Kosovo's leaders are "innocent" despite having committed crimes with their own hands, in addition to ordering them directly.

Meanwhile, the decaying Walker marches on. Shortly after meeting with Walker last June, "opposition leader" Ramush Haradinaj told the UN to get out of Kosovo to make way for the EULEX law and order mission. Walker of course seconded his dangerous clients' motion, telling UNMIK to end the mission once Kosovo's constitution comes into effect.

For his dutifulness William Walker has been rewarded with, among other things, honorary Albanian citizenship. And like Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Eliot Engel, George W. Bush, and Wesley Clark, Walker has a street named after him in Kosovo — like so many other KLA members to whom monuments have gone up all over Kosovo.

When he's not lying in newspapers about his last hoax, Walker is preparing the next one. He has been making frequent trips to Kosovo, where he has met with his old KLA contacts to make a plan for taking Kosovo's more ornery Serb parts by force. Walker's return to the region in March 2007 alarmed French intelligence, the newspaper Novosti reported at the time, in an item titled "William Walker Gives Tasks to Albanian Extremists for an Attack on Northern Kosovo":

The information of French intelligence officers is that [two weeks ago] Walker met with many former KLA members that he had personally trained for special operations against the Serbian forces. The goal of his arrival is the preparation of a scenario and ordering of guidelines to Albanian terrorists for taking measures to seize northern Kosovo…In Pec in the hotel "Metohija" he met with ex-members of [Ramush] Haradinaj's special unit which in 1999 conducted the [harshest] crimes against the Serbs and other non-Albanians…He also met with all of his old spies which he recruited during his Kosovo stay as leader of the UN Verification mission prior to the NATO bombardment.

…According to what the intelligence services of the big powers had informed their governments, Walker was on a mission of preparing terrorists and extremists for performing the final phase in the realization of the project on an independent Kosovo in case plans are not resolved "peacefully."

…The Americans are afraid that the French will give out such plans to the Serbs in northern Kosovo…Certain KFOR contingents that have forces in northern Kosovo received the task of systematically provoking the Serbs everywhere and causing their reactions…Certain KFOR contingents openly fear a sudden operation of Albanian terrorists towards the north, which is possible in the coming months…The plan is to provoke the Serbian security forces to react in the protection of Serb convoys and to then urgently request the intervention of international forces in the protection of the "jeopardized Albanian population in the Presevo Valley from Serbian security forces that are revenging over the loss of Kosovo."

No sooner did Walker have his meetings than Tanjug reported the following:

International representatives have observed, over the recent days, intensified regrouping of armed groups in black uniforms with insignia of the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the territory of Drenica, Pec and Djakovica in Kosovo and Metohija province, the Belgrade daily Vecernje novosti [Evening News] said on Saturday…Forces of the local United Nations (UN) administration UNMIK and the peacekeeping force KFOR have been given strict orders "not to engage in conflict or discussion with the armed groups, and, upon sighting them, to abandon their mission and immediately return to base," Vecernje novosti ["Evening News"] said.

In March 2008, that plan was put into effect when UN and NATO arrested and paraded the mostly female Serbian squatters who wanted their jobs back at the Mitrovica courthouse — in front of cameras and through an Albanian neighborhood. More recently, Albanian houses in Northern Kosovo were set ablaze, with news reports promptly attributing the explosions to Serbs. Since the Albanians haven't yet secured Northern Mitrovica as part of breakaway Kosovo, the completion of the Walker-KLA directive is still ahead for the Kosovo war, now in its tenth year.

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