Friday, March 1, 2002
HAGUE TRIBUNAL AND CHICAGO TRIBUNE TAKEN IN BY HOAXTERS
by Thomas Fleming
"Victim by victim, the prosecution in Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes
trial is demonstrating that within hours of the start of NATO's bombing
campaign the Yugoslav government began executing a comprehensive and
systematic plan to expel hundreds of thousands of Albanians from
Kosovo."
After this breathless introduction, the Chicago Tribune's Tom Hundley
(February 28, 2002) goes on to describe the testimony of Halit Barani,
who provided "one of the most chilling pieces of evidence introduced
Wednesday," namely, a "list of `Shiptars' in Kosovska Mitrovica who must
be summarily liquidated." Hundley goes on to explain that "Shiptar"
is "the derogatory word Serbs use for Albanians." In America a
racial slur aggravates a charge of murder. Too bad that "Shiptar" is
also the word Albanians use for Albanians.
Milosevic cross-examined Halit Barani, the Kosovo Albanian politician
who claims to have discovered the hit-list, asking him if he knew that
two of his cousins were the main drug dealers in Mitrovica and that
another relative had fled to Turkey after raping a medical student.
Barani admitted the second charge but he denied that his cousins were
dealers. Since law enforcement agencies throughout Europe have
identified Kosovo Albanians and the KLA as the major players in the
European heroin market, such an allegation is not so easy to dismiss.
Milosevic turned the tables on his accuser and charged him with
compiling lists of Serbs to be liquidated and posting the names in the
library and the Adriatic Hotel. Barani explained his hit-list as an
exhibition "with photographs of massacred Albanians and next to the
photos I put the names of the perpetrators." When pro-life groups post
names and pictures of abortionists on wanted posters, they are accused
of being accessories to murder. By this standard Barani did draw up
something like a hit-list, but did the Yugoslav government? The list
offered in evidence by Barani, according to Milosevic, is riddled with
the kind of grammatical and spelling errors that Albanians (but not
Serbs) typically make. The judge-prosecution team (it is pointless to
maintain a distinction) are calling for expert witness to testify
because in their zeal to get at the truth, prosecutors apparently did
not locate anyone competent in the Serbian language.
Milosevic also cited evidence of Albanian crimes against Yugoslav
policemen. Barani denied what everyone knows to be true, that the
Kosovo Liberation Army was attacking and killing policemen in order to
provoke the reprisals that would outrage international opinion. Those
who support the Albanians regard such attacks as legitimate measures in
a war of national liberation; others regard them as terrorism, but only
members of the KLA would deny they took place. Barani also denied being
a member of the KLA, and the Chicago Tribune's correspondent and editors
are apparently willing to take him at this word and pronounce Milosevic
guilty as charged.
If anyone at the Tribune had done a minimum of checking, he would have
discovered that Halit Barani was the subject of a news story in December
31, 1999, when the Wall Street Journal ran a major piece debunking his
credibility and linking him with the KLA, which gave him access to their
precious satellite telephone network. The title is chillingly relevant
to the current trial: "War in Kosovo Was Cruel,
Bitter, Savage; Genocide it Wasn't." The subtitle is equally telling,
especially in the case of Barani's testimony: "Tales of Mass Atrocity
Arose And Were Passed Along, Often With Little Proof"
Barani had accused the Yugoslav government of murdering Albanian
civilians and stuffing their bodies into the Trepca mine shaft. "Mr.
Barani," commented the Journal's reporters dryly, "is a former actor
with a Karl Marx beard who summarizes Serb war crimes by showing a photo
of a baby with a smashed skull. [He] spent the war moving from village
to village with his manual typewriter, calling in reports to foreign
radio services and diplomats with his daily allotment of three minutes
on a KLA satellite phone."
His "eye-witness accounts" of these atrocities were spread around the
world, and the Kosovo authorities even quoted a "U.S. embassy official
in Athens as saying there are witnesses and still photos of trucks
carrying bodies. Western journalists phoned the embassy, but a
spokeswoman said she couldn't find the supposed source." No better
foundation could be found for other reports emanating ultimately from
Barani's overworked manual typewriter. Nonetheless, concluded reporters
Daniel Pearl and Robert Block, "some commentators stated the theory as
fact."
After debunking the factual evidence of Barani's hoax, Pear and Block
observed that even "Mr. Barani doesn't completely stand by his story. `I
told everybody it was supposition, it was not confirmed information,' he
says. But he adds, `For the Serbs, everything is possible.'" Mr.
Barani's credulity is easily explained by his zeal to establish an
Albanian state and an Albanian's natural desire to retaliate against his
traditional enemy, the Serbs. What explains the credulity displayed by
the Chicago Tribune and the AP wire, which ran a similar story? In
reporting on the Hague Tribunal, "stating a theory as a fact" has become
standard practice. A few days ago, these people were singing the
praises of Daniel Pearl, a real reporter, who lost his life trying to
get the facts of a story. The Tribune staff cannot even risk the paper
cut they might receive if they looked up Shiptar in an Albanian
dictionary. Instead of eulogizing Danny Pearl, they should be emulating
him.
Copyright 2002, www.ChroniclesMagazine.org
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