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When will it end...
On 4 Jul 01, at 1:16, Rick Rozoff wrote:
> STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
>
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> 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.
>
>
>
>
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