America's Tangled Kosovo Web
Posted by Julia Gorin
Re-reading a 2007 Der Spiegel article recently, I came across some information about the brother of indicted war criminal and U.S. buddy Ramush Haradinaj. Daut Haradinaj was speaking at an event honoring a dead Albanian poet-nationalist after serving a prison sentence for manslaughter.
According to the article, many saw his appearance at the ceremony "as a sign of his willingness to fill the breach if his brother Ramush is sentenced at his upcoming trial in The Hague."
As we know, some heavy U.S. and UN pressure (and evidence-tampering) later — and a few dead witnesses later — Ramush Haradinaj was acquitted because of "insufficient evidence."
Haradinaj picked up his political career where he left off, with the blessing of the U.S. and UNMIK (UN Mission in Kosovo), and so Daut didn't need to step in, but at least we know our pal Ramush has an equally competent and murderous brother who would have been encouraged to pursue politics had things turned out differently. Indeed, according to the article, the Haradinaj clan has more than just two such winners:
According to the indictment, Ramush Haradinaj, a.k.a. "Smajl", was accused of 37 counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, kidnapping and torture, during the Kosovo war in 1998.
The indictment also stated that his brothers, Daut, Frasher and Shkelzen, were among the members of the "criminal organization" headed by Haradinaj, and that the family home in Glodjane was periodically used as a command center to plan and commit the crimes. Thirty-two corpses of Serbs, gypsies and Albanians, some severely mutilated, were found near the farm. So far Haradinaj has denied all accusations.
Sören Jessen-Petersen, the former UN administrator, long viewed the presumed war criminal as a "close partner and friend" who "sacrificed and contributed so much to a better future for Kosovo."
By 2005, that Haradinaj homestead lined with mutilated bodies served as "a banquet hall where [high-ranking UN and NATO representatives] could meet with Haradinaj to discuss bringing peace to the region."
I'll get back to Daut Haradinaj in a moment, but just to complete the picture about this great friend of the U.S., Ramush Haradinaj:
A report by the UN police force in Kosovo has linked Haradinaj to the cocaine trade. And according to a 2005 analysis by Germany's foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Haradinaj and his associates play a key role in "a broad spectrum of criminal, political and military activities that significantly affect the security situation throughout Kosovo. The group, which counts about 100 members, is involved in drug and weapons smuggling, as well as illegal trading in dutiable items."
If the BND analysis is correct, Haradinaj has apparently made himself a major player in one of Kosovo's key industries. According to experts, the €700 million budget of this province, 90 percent of which is populated by ethnic Albanians, pales in comparison to the revenues earned in the drug trade in Kosovo.
As if this weren't messy enough as regards Ramush, who is welcomed to our shores by our leaders with open arms, let's go back to that ceremony at which Daut spoke:
When the event ends [Daut] Haradinaj jumps into a waiting car in front of the center and is taken to a secret restaurant. At the restaurant, Besiana-F, he meets Ali Ahmeti, the leader of the 2001 Albanian uprising in Macedonia. Ahmeti and his equally famous uncle, Fazli Veliu — both of whom are on a US terrorism watch list and have been banned from entering the United States since May 2003 — have crossed the border into Kosovo to join in the day's celebration. [There is no longer any effective border between Kosovo and Macedonia.]
Upon leaving the restaurant Ahmeti and Haradinaj embrace briefly. Then they climb into SUVs with darkened windows.
So what we have is our good friends the Haradinaj Family naturally being in close ties with folks who are on our terrorism watch list. While Ahmeti and Veliu aren't doing anything in Macedonia that the Haradinaj clan didn't do in Kosovo — indeed, Ahmeti is the leader of a governing political party in Macedonia — the former two randomly ended up as "terrorists" just as Haradinaj randomly ended up as a "peace partner."
The difference between them? Once the Albanians expanded their war into Macedonia, we figured out what their game was, and while the Albanians knew that Kosovo was just one leg of the war for Greater Albania, we had only signed on for Kosovo. Realizing our mistake but unable to undo it, we've been keeping up the charade and continuing to term the Kosovo-Albanian terrorists our "allies," while trying to figure out how to discourage their allies in Macedonia.
Over time, we've been given a better "understanding" of our agenda in the region, and therefore eventually started facilitating Albanian terror in Macedonia. After all, if we want to keep the Haradinajs as "friends" in Kosovo, eventually we're going to have to make friends with their friends in Macedonia. Otherwise, try navigating around this one: "Throughout the fighting," Chris Deliso writes in his book The Coming Balkan Caliphate, "jihadis were also penetrating Macedonia from the other, western front in Tetovo and reportedly had connections with Kosovo Albanian officials such as Daut Haradinaj, chief of general staff of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC)…according to other Macedonian military sources."
Turns out, our pal Ramush's own brother is on our blacklist as well. He reportedly met in August 2001 — just two months after we rescued 400 Albanian terrorists from Macedonian security forces — with Ayman al-Zawahiri's brother Muhammad. According to the Serbian daily Blic, a "number of intelligence services know about this. There is proof that Daut Haradinaj took part in the clashes with Macedonian security services, because of which he was put on the U.S. terrorist blacklist and thrown out of the Kosovo Protection Corps."
This reminds us that Albanians walk their own tightrope, in their equally contradictory dealings with us. They are constantly torn between — and always playing — their two key allies, which are each other's mortal enemies: Washington/London/Brussels vs. the Saudis and bin Laden himself (who helped train and arm the KLA while we did the same).
How to serve and shower love on both, without offending the other? That is the Albanian dilemma.
Of course, even if the Albanians paraded their al-Qaeda connections, would anyone in the mainstream establishment — the same one that repeated their lies and came up with their own to justify the "liberation" and "independence" — actually call them on it? Somehow I doubt it.
To further illustrate the randomness of which Albanians we term "allies" and which ones "terrorists," let's take the last name Thaci. If it's Thaci of Kosovo, it gets a warm welcome in the U.S., since it's probably our friend, "prime minister" Hashim Thaci. However, if it's Thaci from Macedonia, it's probably Mendux (or Menduh) Thaci, the leader of the main opposition Albanian party but for some reason on the U.S. blacklist.
Yet our friend Ramush Haradinaj just had a lovely meeting last month with our blacklisted Thaci, in Tetovo, Macedonia.
Thaci's name also came up recently because he went on TV in Albania, on a station appropriately titled "Klan," expecting to be coddled in the country that was the genesis of the Greater Albania plan. Instead, he found that Albania's Albanians had wised up about…Albanians.
DPA Leader shocked in Tirana (Oct. 9):
Albanian intellectuals attacked the leader of Macedonia's DPA party in last night's political debate on Tirana's popular TV channel Klan.
While speaking about the Encyclopedia, Thaci unexpectedly received a major slap for the behavior of Albanians and ethnic Albanian parties in Macedonia.
This is referring to the first Macedonian encyclopedia, which just came out but is already being revised, with the entire board of editors already fired, because it accurately depicts the 2001 Albanian insurgency against the state. It also says that Albanians came to Macedonia in the 16th century, when everyone knows that Albanians were always everywhere before anyone else was. (Uncannily similar to Muslim claims all over the world.)
"Hatred towards their own country, extreme Islamism, extremely low culture". These were the quali[ties] which several Albanian intellectuals used in attacking Thaci, who had come to expect certain political benefits by the Albanian media during his visit.
Thaci's assessment that the Encyclopedia was a political provocation by the Macedonian Government was met with dismay by the participants in the debate, who sharply attacked Thaci and the Albanians in Macedonia as "ungrateful towards the state in which they live".
This is a strikingly rare and honest statement coming from an Albanian, whose intellectuals don't often distinguish themselves from the mob mentality of pan-Albanianism that governs the Albanian outlook. It is also the first recognition I've heard by an Albanian of Albanian ingratitude, to put mildly the quality of a people who demand pensions for the insurgencies they wage against their host states. What we also have here is an Albanian pointing to what our own leaders, along with most Albanians, continue to deny and dismiss: rising Islamism among Albanians.
"Macedonia is the only state in the Balkans where there is internal denial. Albanians always deny the state, even [fight] against it. You made war in the middle of Europe and took up arms against your own country. To this day you ambush Macedonian policemen," said Maks Velo, Albanian writer-critic.
Actually, Macedonia is not the only state in which Albanians deny its legitimacy. Serbia was such a state, and the Albanians in Kosovo — with the help of Albanians in Albania — also "made war in the middle of Europe and took up arms against your own country. To this day, you ambush [Serbian] policemen."
According to Mr Velo, there is a frightening, extreme Islamism among the Albanian parties in Macedonia and it is not a coincidence that DPA's leader Mendux Thaci is on the U.S. blacklist for years.
"The mosques in the villages in Macedonia seem like Iranian missiles. If the Albanians there can not climb to a higher cultural level of social life, not to discriminate against women, to build civil society, you will never be able to go up against the Macedonians in any way, especially not intellectually. With minarets you are not going in Europe. We must achieve greater cultural and economic level," said Velo to Thaci who clearly wished he wasn't there.
Fatos Lubonja, [another] critic…[said,] "When will we learn our lesson that divisions do not lead anywhere, but only to war and discontent?…So I think it is good for you to identify yoursellf as Macedonian. To live in Yugoslavia and then in Macedonia and to speak and work against the state in which you live, it is a cultural disadvantage, it is wrong.
…
DPA's leader Thaci appeared flabbergasted wearing a sour smile on his face. He had hoped to gain political points by visiting Tirana. On his last visit to the Albanian capital, Mr. Thaci had lobbied Albanian politicians to be against Macedonia's admission to NATO.
What we have, finally, are Albanians weighing what is right and what is wrong, as opposed to just what is Albanian. Imagine how wrong things had to go in order for the wrongness to become manifest even to Albanians. It is a wrongness that's gotten as far as it has thanks to the indulgence of Albanian wrongness by U.S.-led Western powers. Recall this from Chris Deliso:
Macedonia took in over 400,000 Kosovo Albanian refugees. However, when the country was no longer needed for Clinton's military adventures, it was forgotten, and the long-term consequences of Kosovo — an emboldened pan-Albanian Balkan insurgency — were ignored…[America] began secretly supporting the NLA [(Albanian) National Liberation Army] from its Kosovo base, Camp Bondsteel, through logistical and communications support as well as secret arms airdrops to Albanian-held mountain villages in northwestern Macedonia.
…
For Macedonians, the nadir was reached in June [2001, post-Clinton], during a three-day battle at the Skopje-area village of Aracinovo, where NATO ordered the Macedonian Army to stop its operations and then spirited the heavily armed Albanian fighters off to freedom…[T]he public was shocked when it was reported that Islamic fighters and 17 American military contractors from the Virginia-based Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) had been found amongst the NLA's ranks…From that moment, the humiliated and disappointed Macedonian public's worst suspicions seemed to have been confirmed: America and NATO were in full favor of the Albanian guerrillas.
In other words, the U.S. and NATO have managed to out-Albanize the Albanians.
Indeed, rather than teaching Albanians the ways of the civilized world and multi-ethnicity — as is our "mission" in Kosovo — we've been coming around to their way of looking at things. Just check out this job advisory at Camp Bondsteel:
camp bondsteel jobs
JOBS JOBS JOBS.INFO
Just visit Camp Bondsteel and ask someone. But you should know that for most jobs available to locals you will need to be fluent in English. You should also be aware that they don't offer as many jobs to people of Serbian nationality because of the risk of infiltration, so basically this means that if you are Albanian you have a better chance of getting a job.
The most Swiftian part of this is the "risk of infiltration" by Serbs. No worries about infiltration by Islamists or KLA elements, since that is precisely whom Bondsteel serves.
Notice that while rational Albanians like Velo and Lubonja found the Albanian reaction to, and pressure on, the Macedonian encyclopedia shameful, America speaks in one voice with the irrational Albanians:
US and ethnic Albanian officials condemned Macedonia's first encyclopedia yesterday over its description of an inter-ethnic conflict in 2001 and the history of the country's Albanian presence.
[Keep in mind that this conflict which, believe it or not, blindsided us — had us threatening armed conflict that year against the over-reaching Albanians. But again, we eventually came around to their way of looking at things, lent some weapons and manpower, and now are offended at Macedonia's accurate description of that conflict.]
Macedonia was on the brink of a civil war in 2001 when the ethnic Albanian rebel movement, the National Liberation Army (NLA), fought Macedonian security forces for seven months.
The encyclopedia, published by the Macedonian Academy of Science and Arts, says the NLA was an "armed formation trained in camps in Albania and Kosovo by American and British officers and paratroopers." An official at the US Embassy in Skopje, who asked not to be named, dismissed the claims as ridiculous.
"Allegations that American officers trained the former NLA soldiers are baseless and outrageous," the official said. "We are disappointed that this institution would put its name on such a ridiculous claim," the official added. […]
Albanians in Kosovo, meanwhile, burned the Macedonian flag, and the prime minister in neighboring Albania, Sali Berisha, called the encyclopedia unacceptable and urged Macedonian officials to change it.
Indeed, developments such as the following should have rational Albanians like Velo and Lubonja very worried, since it's probable that rather than a Greater Albania, what Albania and Macedonia are becoming part of will have all the lawlessness and irrationality of a Greater Kosovo:
Albanians "one nation" across borders, Albanian PM Berisha says
Pristina - Albanians in Albania and Kosovo are a single nation, Prime Minister Sali Berisha asserted Tuesday at the start of a two-day visit aimed at forging closer ties with the former Serbian province.
'The nation is one and inseparable in spirit and identity,' Berisha told reporters after arriving in Kosovo….Berisha, who started his second term in the office last month, is due to sign a series of protocols in Pristina to further ease the flow of people and goods across the border…
Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said 'it is not a secret' that Albanians in Kosovo and Albania have 'brotherly relations,' adding that they were reflected in the effort to enable free movement across borders.
…
Also, most among the ethnic Albanians who make up the majority in parts of southern Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo aspire to join their compatriots in a single country, which is another source of tension.
Balkans: Kosovo and Albania intensify cooperation
Pristina, 6 October (AKI) - Visiting Albanian prime minister Sali Berisha and his Kosovo host Hasim Taci on Tuesday signed several bilateral agreements which will facilitate movement of people and goods between the two countries and promote customs and border police cooperation.
…
On his second visit to Kosovo since the country gained independence from Serbia last year, Berisha said "There are no two Albanian nations and a national ideal of Albanians must be a European ideal". [He has just put all of Europe on notice that it has no alternative but to accept the eventual reality of a single Albania, consisting of land stolen from Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, and parts of Greece. This was of course after denying, as Thaci and Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu have been doing for years, that anything like a unification plan is afoot.]
Berisha and Taci also signed agreements in regard to the legalisation of status of the people which have illegally settled in the two countries.
After the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo in 1999, the province was put under United Nations control and many Albanian citizens have since illegally settled in Kosovo. […]
As they were doing for a century prior to the war.
Meanwhile, Washington continues to deny that anything like a Greater Albania is in the works. Like I said, out-Albanizing the Albanians.
