STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday July 4, 2:56 AM [You'll recall reading two days ago a report on ICTY witnesses from Racak in which alleged eyewitnesses recounted stories of 63 alleged victims, of both sexes, who were reputedly killed by Yugoslav security forces, replete with accounts of eyes being gouged out, hearts being torn out of ribcages and assorted other gruesome touches. Now, the "witnesses" have reverted to their original story, that 45 Albanian men were killed on January 15, 1999. Notwithstanding, Agence France Presse appears to have located someone who lost both parents, a biological peculiarity that only Carla Del Ponte can explain. That the one incident which provided the pretext for NATO to launch its war against Yugoslavia is riddled with so many mutually exclusive claims would be sufficient reason to have any charges relating to it - and charges relating to Racak are at the very core of the ICTY's "case" - thrown out of any reputable court. But that Finnish and other forensic experts who examined the evidence assert or strongly imply that the deceased were killed in armed combat would alone render all the affidavits gathered by Del Ponte's Gestapo beyond ridicule. It's in the very nature of a kangaroo court, though, to issue indictments first and to fabricate evidence later. Who better than William Walker to have "discovered" the bodies of 44 ethnic Albanian men, generally of military age, the day after a firefight observed by Western reporters and Walker's own OSCE personnel, and to turn the results into a "massacre." [Not that Walker dosen't know a real massacre when he sees one, his experience in El Salvador being what it was.] Provocative question: Why wasn't the "man in his twenties...injured in the back and leg by mortar shrapnel," quoted below, also "taken to a nearby hill where police executed" - in theory - so many others? He was a man of military age in a village controlled by armed insurgents who, given the nature of his injuries, would hardly have been able to flee. Just a thought.] Racak: More than just a name on the Milosevic charge-sheet RACAK, Yugoslavia, July 3 (AFP) - In the southern Kosovo village of Racak -- one of the key massacre sites that finally put Slobodan Milosevic in the dock of the UN war crimes court Tuesday -- the trial of the former strongman brought little relief to families who lost their loved ones. "It's a small relief to see him in The Hague, but there are still lots of war criminals walking free around Kosovo," said Agim Kameri, mayor of Racak, where 45 ethnic Albanian men were brutally killed by Serb forces. It is little comfort to the people of this village at the foot of mountains stretching off to Macedonia that the killings provided the final impetus to push NATO into war and then provided a key case for Milosevic's indictment. The residents, all of whom lost at least one relative that day, are still traumatised by the events of 15 January 1999, and gripped by a hatred of Serbs. "Milosevic is nothing," said Sami Syla, a man in his forties whose father and two brothers were killed by Serb forces. "They have to send to The Hague the whole Serbian government, the paramilitaries, Arkan's men, all those who killed unarmed people," he said. "All the same, it's good that he's there," he said, surrounded by younger villagers hanging on his every word. Syla said Milosevic "deserves the death penalty, but not a swift death like in the United States." "Seven minutes would be a luxurious death for him ... but since the UN court doesn't have a death penalty, we hope he'll get life." Hasan Metushi, who lost his parents in the war, said he knew the initial hearing in The Hague court was on television but did not watch it. But Habi Kameri said he and his whole family watched Milosevic's brief appearance to hear the charges against him, and said with a broad smile: "Oh, it was good, but all the other culprits must pay too." Kameri, a man in his twenties, was injured in the back and leg by mortar shrapnel as the army bombarded the village. According to the indictment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugsolavia, on January 15 1999, Yugoslav forces launched an offensive against the village of Racak. After a bombardment by army units, Serbian police entered the village and started searching it house by house. The inhabitants tried to flee the police but were killed across the village. "A group of around 25 men who tried to hide in a building were discovered by the police. These men were beaten and then taken to a nearby hill where the police executed them. "In total, Yugoslav and Serbian forces killed around 45 people of Albanian origin in Racak and its surroundings," the ICTY said. When US diplomat William Walker, head of the international Kosovo Verification Mission monitoring the conflict, saw the bodies he instantly decried it as a "crime against humanity." The international outrage it sparked provided NATO with a consensus to launched its 78-day air war two months later, driving Milosevic's forces out of Kosovo in June 1999. On the road back to Racak's mosque, Mehdi Halili, an elderly villager, admits to his surprise at seeing Milosevic in the UN dock. "I would never have thought that could happen. I saw it on television this morning and had trouble holding back my tears thinking about what had happened," he said. "The only thing I couldn't understand was why he wasn't handcuffed," he added. Mayor Kameri said he regretted the fact that the new Serbian reformists had not extradited Milosevic of their own free will, referring to the last-minute transfer under a US threat of Belgrade losing support from an international donors' conference last week. "They sold him," he said, demanding the arrest of all the other criminals he said still lived in Serb enclaves in Kosovo, under heavy protection from NATO-led peacekeepers. He was not optimistic about the chances of reconciliation between Kosovo's last remaining Serbs and the overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian population whom Milosevic tried to drive out of the province. "The wolf will never live with the lamb, and the international community still does not grasp that," he said. More than 200,000 Serbs have fled systematic attacks in Kosovo since NATO troops took over the province, and the Albanians are adamant in their demands for independence. On the side of a hill above the village is the cemetery of the martyrs, where large colourful wreaths have been laid on the graves of 44 of the victims. One of the bodies was never found. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
