Stolen Kosovo. The Truth About Kosovo

Stolen Kosovo. The truth about Kosovo WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2009.

“ In war, truth is the first casualty ” Aeschylus

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The title is not mine, but it captures entirely the idea that I want to explain. Because the indepence of Kosovo, declared unilateraly on February 17, against Resolution 1244 of the UN [*], is the final step in the process of “stealing Kosovo”. I have thought wether to use this title or another more dramatic, “ The last two serbs in Kriljevo” [*]; but it wouldn't be so graphical.

Battle of Kosovo, 1389.

Because we speak about one process that began more than 600 years ago, with the Battle of Kosovo, in 1389 [*],and that will finish very soon in the ethnically clean Kosovo that the UCK, and other Albanian extremists before them [*][*], have dreamt; one Kosovo without serbs obviously, but one Kosovo without romans too [*], slavic muslims [*], egyptians, jews, turks and any without any other minority but albanians [*].

In the last times we have seen a lot of documentaries about Kosovo; about the war and the post-war situation, including the Milosevic trial; explaining another story, quite different from the one that we was told by the mass media.

I will use these documentaries like an leit motiv to explain some facts about Kosovo that are still little known. Almost all of these documentaries have been broadcasted only in their home countries and at least one of them, has never been broadcasted in TV. It is the case of the documentary from which the title of this article is taken from, Stolen Kosovo (Uloupené Kosovo) [*] from the czech director Vaclav Dvorak; made for the czech television, it was censored by the governement after the independence of Kosovo was recognized by the Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.

This documentary has been critisized for its partiality, but there is one thing that nobody can deny; we have all seen the serbs crimes (even, as we will explain later, exagereted and sometimes even just imaginary crimes) so maybe it is moment to see the crimes commited against the serbs. On the other side, it has many interesting aspects; for the first time we see images of the ethnic cleansing against the serbs began by the albanians in the 80s, images that, I confess, I had never seen before.

THE SECOND LEAGUE OF PRIZREN

The idea of the Great Albania is not new. In the beginning of WWII, Bedri Pejani, a militant and extremist supporter of Greater Albania, wrote to Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler to request his assistance in establishing a Greater Albania and in return offered to raise an Albanian fighting force to work with the German Wehrmacht to achieve this aim. Himmler agreed to the request and ordered the formation of two ethnic Albanian Waffen SS Divisions and sponsored the foundation of the Albanian nationalist organisation which became the Second League of Prizren. [*]

During World War II and the Holocaust, Kosovar Albanians killed 10,000 Kosovo Serbs and expelled 100,000. Kosovo-Metohija was made a part of a Greater Albania by Adolf Hitler [*]. Meanwhile, under Albanian and German rule nearly 100,000 Albanians moved into Kosovo [*]. During the war years Serbs and Montenegrins in Albanian occupied territory were brutalized by the SS "Skanderbeg" division which was comprised of Albanian soldiers under German officers. Albanian village police units also were involved in these activities directed against Serbs. After the war, thousands of Serbs and Montenegrins were prohibited from returning to Kosovo (by the Government of Tito) , and thousands of Albanians immigrated into Kosovo [*].

TITO

During the Tito dictatorship all nationalisms were prohibited and prosecuted. In this environment, Alija Izetbegovic, who became in 1990 the first president of Bosnia and Herzegovina , published in 1970 a manifesto entitled The Islamic Declaration, expressing his views on relationships between Islam, state and society.

80's

During the 80s the attacks against serbs grew dramatically. New York Times correspondent David Binder filed a report in 1982 (11/28/82): " In violence growing out of the Pristina University riots of March 1981, a score of people have been killed and hundreds injured. There have been almost weekly incidents of rape, arson, pillage and industrial sabotage, most seemingly designed to drive Kosovo's remaining indigenous Slavs--Serbs and Montenegrins--out of the province. ” [*][*][*]. The nationalists have a two-point platform," the Times' Marvine Howe quotes a Communist (and ethnically Albanian) official in Kosovo (7/12/82), "first to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger with Albania to form a greater Albania. "[*] .

MILOSEVIC

In 1989, in these circumstances, and after the controversial SANU Memorandum [*], Milosevic makes his famous speech in Kosovo, June 28, 1989 [*]:

"Serbia has never had only Serbs living in it. Today, more than in the past, members of other peoples and nationalities also live in it. This is not a disadvantage for Serbia. I am truly convinced that it is its advantage. National composition of almost all countries in the world today, particularly developed ones, has also been changing in this direction. Citizens of different nationalities, religions, and races have been living together more and more frequently and more and more successfully.

(...)

Equal and harmonious relations among Yugoslav peoples are a necessary condition for the existence of Yugoslavia and for it to find its way out of the crisis and, in particular, they are a necessary condition for its economic and social prosperity."

In 1990, Milosevic, uses the attacks against serbs as a pretext to suppress the autonomy of Kosovo.

The war of Bosnia [*], witnesses the creation of the myth of the malefique serbs. As an example, the case of the allegedly concentration camp of Trnopolje:

Time creating public opinion

But later it has been proved that these images were a fabrication, as explained in the documentary "The pictures that fooled the world" [*].

UCK

The origins of the UCK are difficult to establish but it became famous when in 1996 they killed 21 civilians accusing them of collaboration with the serbian authorities. Officially they were presented as “freedom fighters”; their secret goal was the independence of Kosovo, yes, but only like a step to the achieving of the Great Albania. And its financial sources are too really dark [*]. And their methods were more than dubious. As several albanian leaders of that period confess in the BBC documentary “Moral Combat. NATO at war” [*] (transcription here), their strategy was to hit the serbs and wait for their revenge on albanian civilians; this they thought would make the international community to take part in their war:

HASIM THACI, KLA LEADER: Any armed action we undertook would bring retaliation against civilians. We

knew we were endangering a great number of civilian lives.

DUGI GORANI, KOSOVO ALBANIAN NEGOTIATOR: The more civilians were killed, the chances of international intervention became bigger, and the KLA of course realised that. There was this foreign diplomat who once told me 'Look unless you pass the quota of five thousand deaths you'll never have anybody permanently present in Kosovo from the foreign diplomacy.

Abuses committed by the UCK have been broadly documented, e.g. by Human Rights Watch ([*], Page 75) ([*] Page 13).

AMERICAN ADMINISTRATION AND WESTERN MEDIA

"And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride." Bob Dylan & Jacques Levy, "Hurricane"

After the fall of the Soviet Union, as explained in the BBC documentary "The Power of nightmares. The rise of the politics of fear", the USA administration was in need of one enemy, to take the place the collapse of the Soviet Union had left empty.

Besides t he american administration had big interest in the balkans. And the serbs were perfect because they had been traditionally allies of Russian. America wanted to increase their influence in the area. And like in Afghanistan , one war was the perfect pretext. After the war their objective was achived with the building of Camp Bondsteel .

Camp Bondsteel.

Another relevant point, ignored sistematically by the western media, is the fact that the American administration wanted to use the balkans for US-backed Nabucco project to provide alternative energy sources to Europe [*].

According to Colonel Robert L. McCure, "Engineering planning for operations in Kosovo began months before the first bomb was dropped." [Lenora Foerstel, Global Research, January 2008].

One of the objectives underlying Camp Bondsteel was to protect the Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian Oil pipeline project (AMBO), which was to channel Caspian sea oil from the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Burgas to the Adriatic .

Coincidentally, two years prior to the invasion, in 1997, a senior executive of Brown & Root Energy, a subsidiary of Halliburton, Edward L. (Ted) Ferguson had been appointed to head AMBO. The feasibility plans for the

AMBO pipeline were also undertaken by Halliburton's engineering company, Kellog, Brown & Root Ltd.

The AMBO agreement for the 917-km long oil pipeline from Burgas to Valona , Albania , was signed in 2004 [*].

But why did the western mass media take part in this farce? Is it so crazy to think that the western media hid one part of the truth to the public opinion? The point is that it was not the first time that the western media took part in a campaign to justify one war in the eyes of the public opinion.

The war of Bosnia was not the first time that the Mass Media were used to create the proper feeling among the voters towards a militar campaign. As explained in the documentary "Weapons of mass deception" [*].

And even in the case of the first Gulf War "How the public relations industry sold the Gulf War to the US", by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton [Part1][Part2].

KOSOVO VERIFICATION MISSION

"Early in October, NATO approved a plan for bombing Yugoslavia in the event of Milosevic refusing to comply with this resolution. Armed with this threat, US ambassador Richard Holbrooke went to Belgrade accompanied by US General Short, who was to be in operational charge of the NATO bombing if it happened. On 12 October 1998, Holbrooke reached an agreement with Milosevic for the implementation of Resolution 1199. Later (25 October 1998) General Klaus Naumann and General Wesley Clark went to Belgrade representing NATO and it was agreed that the Yugoslav military and police presence in Kosovo be reduced to pre-war levels.

In addition, 2,000 international inspectors, the Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM), were to be allowed in to monitor the ceasefire, under the auspices of the Organisation for Security Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and NATO was to be allowed to make aerial reconnaissance flights over Kosovo." (David Morrison) [*]

After the Holbrooke agreement in October 1998, in which Milosevic agreed to a ceasefire in Kosovo and to reduce his forces there to pre-war levels, in October 1998, William Walker is appointed to be the head of the OSCE's KVM.

William Walker with Javier Solana

The strategy of the UCK was successful, and the UN put William Walker to lead the KVM. His activity in the following weeks was controversial: he presented always an interested point of view of all incidents, always guided towards creating an image in the public opinion eyes(e.g. he condemned in the same terms the murdering of one teenager while he was sitting in one bar, like the deaths of several members of the UCK during one fight with the Serbian forces) [*].

Was this the proper man to be chosen to head the KVM? If we look carefully his CV it doesn't seem so; he is pointed responsible of covering the murdering of six catholic priests in El Salvador in 1989. Walker insinuated that they had been killed by the guerrilla of the FMLN, when everybody suspected (as later was demostrated) that the army of El Salvador was behind the crime [*].

During the KVM presence, the KLA operated with veritable freedom, while the FRY troops were controled and monitored. It is during this period, under the protection of the KVM that the KLA flourished [*], as declared by General Klaus Naumann, on June 7, 2000:

"I think it is fair to say that Milosevic honoured the commitment which he had made to General Clark and myself on 25 October 1998. He withdrew the forces and he withdrew the police. There may have been some difference as to whether there were 200 or 400 policemen more or less but that really does not matter. More or less he honoured the commitment. Then the UJK or KLA filled the void the withdrawn Serb forces had left and they escalated. I have stated this in the NATO Council in October and November repeatedly. In most cases, the escalation came from the Kosovar side, not from the Serb side." (Robin Cook, at the House of Commons [*]).

On March 29, 1999, George Robertson declared “up until Racak [15-16 January 1999] the KLA were responsible for more deaths in Kosovo than the Yugoslav authorities had been" (George Robertson, at the House of Commons [*]).

"The killing continues in Kosovo. I regret to report that most of the killings since the Holbrooke agreement have been carried out by the Kosovo Liberation Army. Since the Holbrooke package was signed, 19 members of the Serbian security forces have been killed. Five Kosovo Albanians are known to have been killed – all of them in the full uniform of the Kosovo Liberation Army. I cannot

stress too strongly that a ceasefire will hold only if both sides cease firing.", Robin Cook, at the House of Commons [*].

"Despite intensive pressure and repeated mediation, it still has not been possible to get agreement even on the composition of the Kosovo negotiating team. The main obstacle has been the refusal of the Kosovo Liberation Army to take part in any team that includes Dr. Rugova, the elected leader of the Kosovo Albanians.", Robin Cook, at the House of Commons [*].

"On its part, the Kosovo Liberation Army has committed more breaches of the ceasefire, and until this weekend was responsible for more deaths than the security forces. It must stop undermining the ceasefire and blocking political dialogue." Robin Cook, at the House of Commons [*].

RACAK

"Racak became the trigger" William Stubner, OSCE

William Stubner, OSCE section chief for human rights in Sarajevo, confessed that "NATO's credibility was at stake, UN credibility it already been practically destroyed in the Balkans". This statement is really important because it implies three points: first, that NATO was not happy with the lack of proves against the serbs; second, that during the KVM there was not remarkable incidents provoked by the serbian forces; and third, and more important, that they had the motivation to accept happily any incident they could use in their interest. Could they be so evil to create the massacre of Racak even knowing it was a fiarce? This could be answered by another statement by William Stubner: "If racak had not occurred, something else like it would have occurred". Ethically it means that, even if the Racak Incident was not what they say, morally it was

justified to use it to end the KVM, because something like that (a massacre by the serbs) would have happen inevitably. And this is the really scary point, because it totally anihilates the pressumption of innocence.

William Walker became famous after the Racak Incident [*], when, without any kind of investigation (just walking with his hands in his pockets, in the "crime scene"), he declared that the serbian forces has murdered in cold blood 45 albanians [*].

We still don't know what really happened on Racak on January 15, 1999, but we have many witnesses that declare that the events were quite different from how the KVM presented them: “The account by two journalists of Associated Press TV television (AP TV) who filmed the police operation in Racak contradicts this tale. When at 10 a.m. they entered the village in the wake of a police armored vehicle, the village was nearly deserted. They advanced through the streets under the fire of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) fighters lying in ambush in the woods above the village. The exchange of fire continued throughout the operation, with more or less intensity. The main fighting took place in the woods. The Albanians who had fled the village when the first Serb shells were fired at dawn tried to escape. There they ran into Serbian police who had surrounded the village. The UCK was trapped in between."

The next morning, the press and the KVM came to see the damage caused by the fighting. It was at this moment that, guided by the armed KLA fighters who had recaptured the village, they discovered the ditch where a score of bodies were piled up, almost exclusively men. At midday, the chief of the KVM in person, the American diplomat William Walker, arrived on the spot and declared his indignation at the atrocities committed by “the Serb police forces and the Yugoslav army”.

The account by two journalists of Associated Press TV television (APTV) who filmed the police operation in Racak contradicts this tale. When at 10:00 they entered the village in the wake of a police armoured vehicle, the village was nearly deserted. They advanced through the streets under fire from KLA fighters lying in ambush in the woods above the village. The exchange of fire continued throughout the operation, with more or less intensity. The main fighting took place in the woods. The Albanians who had fled the village when the first Serb shells were fired at dawn tried to escape. There they ran into Serbian police who had surrounded the village. The KLA was trapped in between. (Christophe Chatelot: "Were the Racak dead really coldly massacred?", Le Monde, 21st January 1999) [*][*][*][*]

William Walker recognised, privately, as stated by Klaus Naumann (NATO director at that time) that the majority of the incident during the the cease of fire were caused by the UCK. Despite of this, and in consequence to his conclusions of the analysis of the Racak incidents, the KVM leaves Kosovo and the future of the region depends only of the result of the Conference of Rambouillet. This was confirmed by the words of Robin Cook at the House of Commons: “A subsequent parliamentary inquiry revealed the Foreign Secretary Robin Cook had told the House on January 18 that the KLA had “committed more breaches of the ceasefire, and until this weekend were responsible for more deaths than the [Yugoslav] security forces.”

According to a January 12, 1999 report compiled by OSCE/KVM verifiers in Stimlje, the KLA was planning to fabricate “Serbian crimes” in order to falsely place blame on the army and police. It is worth noting that Racak is in the Stimlje municipality, and that January 12th was just three days before the Racak operation. [*]

William Walker investigating at Racak

Already the day after the massacre, Gabriel Keller, the deputy of William Walker, briefed French journalists that 'there was something wrong' with the apparent massacre [*].

The doubts about what really happened in Racak, or better to say, the conclussions of the OSCE on the Racak incident, have grown after the war [*][*][*], when more and more information was published. But the western media have totally ignored them.

And during the Milosevic trial, the prosecution failed to prove that it was a massacre. The prosecution in the Milosevic trial said there was no shortage of witness testimony to back its claims, but a trial deadline on the presentation of evidence meant that it could not give a full account of the alleged killings in the Kosovo Albanian village. The prosecution's investigation into the Racak case examined some 62 witness statements. At first, it counted on 30 witnesses giving evidence at The Hague . The number was cut to five. Of these, only one will testify "in vivo", while the others will give written statements. They will only come to the tribunal to be cross-examined by the defendant. [*]

RAMBOUILLET

The Rambouillet Agreement [*] was the place where NATO decided to stage its play of negotiation, its efforts to avoid the war.

The Rambouillet Agreement included one epigraph that everybody knew the serbs would/could never accept:

NATO personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial waters. This shall include, but not be limited to, the right of bivouac, maneuver, billet, and utilization of any areas or facilities as required for support, training, and operations.

Rambouillet was only a masquerade. As admitted by Madeleine Albright on the BBC documentary on "Moral Combat", she told the Albanian delegation at Rambouillet that they had to sign the agreement, because if they signed and the serbian did too, they would have NATO in Kosovo; and if they signed and the serbs did not, NATO would have the perfect reason to bomb Serbia. The proposal made in Rambouillet was so negative for the Serbian part, that it was even worse than the agreements made after the bombings of Serbia (for example, the Rambouillet agreement included NATO control of Kosovo, while in the agreement made after the bombings NATO forces were under control of the UN.

The failure of the Rambouillet negotiation was the excuse that NATO needed to begin its 'Humanitarian War'.

HUMANITARIAN WAR

The bombing of Serbia began on March 22, and lasted until June 11 . HRW concluded that around 500 yugoslav civilians died during the bombings [*]. Officially the aim of the campaign, in General Clark's words, " was to halt or disrupt a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing ”; ironically the campaign was the real starter and excuse for Serbian radicals about the ethnic cleansing. But, as Noam Chomsky declares [*], “ there were atrocities after the bombing. The way it's presented is: the atrocities took place and then we had to bomb to prevent genocide, just inverted ”.

Which were the real effects of the bombing? Many state that they were totally negative on the humanitarian field; not only because it was the real moment of the beginning of the ethnic cleansing (that did not exist before the bombing), also because they provoked the cease of humanitarian help during the 78 days the bombing lasted, and many other undesired effects [*].

And there were many dark episodes that until today haven't been explained properly: the bombing of the Radio and Television of Serbia building [*], the bombing of the Chinese Embassy [*], use of depleted uranium bombs…

Radio and Television of Serbia, after NATO bombing

According to Amnesty International, "Nato's actions were illegal under Nato's own treaty, which does not permit it to undertake aggressive military action without a UN mandate. " Also, about the bombings it says "As the Amnesty report points out, aspects of the rules of engagement - specifically the requirement that Nato aircraft fly above 15,000ft - actually made full adherence to international humanitarian law virtually impossible. Direct attacks on civilians, attacks that do not attempt to distinguish between military and civilian targets and those with a disproportionate im pact on civilians are prohibited." [The Guardian] [BBC]

And, in fact, NATO has stated that it bombed the television facilities because they were being used as a propaganda tool of the Milosevic government. While stopping such propaganda may serve to demoralize the Yugoslav population and undermine the government's political support, neither purpose offers the "concrete and direct" military advantage necessary to make them a legitimate military target. Casualties among civilians working at these facilities may have been heightened because of NATO's apparent failure to provide clear advance warning of the attacks whenever possible, as required by Article 57(2) of Protocol I.

(...) several civilian factories seem to have been targeted simply because they were owned or operated by political cronies or supporters of Milosevic. (...) the destruction of these objects seems to have offered no "concrete and direct" military advantage that might have justified the attacks under humanitarian law.

We also question the decision to attack Serbia 's electrical transformers in light of the lessons learned from the devastating consequences to civilians caused by the destruction of Iraq 's electrical capacity in 1991 and its consequent damage to Iraq 's water supply, sanitation, health and agricultural systems. Article 54 of Protocol I prohibits the destruction of objects that are indispensable to the survival of a civilian population.

In addition to the above-mentioned rules governing the definition of a military target, humanitarian law sets limits on the means of attack that can be used. In a rule of particular relevance to bombing when aerial observation makes it difficult to distinguish military from civilian objects, Article 51 of the Protocol I forbids attacks "by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects. In addition, Article 57 requires that, in launching an attack, all feasible precautions be taken to avoid, or at least minimize, civilian deaths, injuries and losses, including the choice of weapons and the time of attack.

These rules raise questions about the conduct of NATO's bombing in light of its decision to have most of its pilots fly at high altitudes (above 15,000 feet ) to avoid antiaircraft missiles and fire. NATO could appropriately conclude that, because of its desire to avoid additional risks to its pilots, it would refrain from attacking certain targets because it could not adequately verify that they were appropriate military targets or take adequate steps to avoid endangering civilians. (...) Examples include the April 12 bombing of a civilian

passenger train that was crossing a bridge and the April 14 attack on civilian refugee vehicles on the road between Djakovica and Decani.

The erroneous targeting of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade on May 7 must be evaluated in this light. (...) The May 7 decision to target an airfield in Nis with cluster bombs that resulted in an attack on a hospital and marketplace is an example. Kosovo. Human Rights Watch condemns NATO's use of cluster bombs in Yugoslavia , given the high proven dud rate of the submunitions employed, as indiscriminate in effect and the equivalent of using antipersonnel land mines. From “Human Rights Watch letter to NATO Secretary General Javier Solana”, May 13, 1999 [*].

From left to right: Hasim Thaçi, financed the KLA by trafficking with heroine and cocaine [*], present Prime Minister of Kosovo; Bernard Kouchner, former French Foreign Affairs Minister [* ], was the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head, United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), between 1999 and 2001 [*]; General Mike Jackson, who took part in the in the repression against the catholic community in the Bloody Sunday [*]; Agim Çeku, responsible for war crimes against the serbs of Krajina [*], including the massacre of Medak; and Wesley Clark [*].

On 10 March 2006 Agim Çeku was elected Prime Minister of Kosovo by the Kosovo Assembly. After being sworn in, he declared his support for Kosovo independence (…). Çeku's appointment was backed by former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, who resigned in early 2005 after the ICTY had indicted him for war crimes. [*]

According to The New York Times, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has determined that war crimes were indeed committed during Operation Storm. In a March 21, 1999 article, the Times revealed an unpublished report produced by the Tribunal. Among the report's assertions: “During the course of the military offensive, the Croatian armed forces and special police committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law.”

The Medak offensive in 1993, which Jane's credits Ceku with "masterminding," is also known as the “Medak massacre.” While the name may not ring a bell for most readers in the U.S. , it is remembered in Canada as that nation's largest military action since the Korean War. According to the book, Tested Mettle, Canadian peacekeepers in the “Medak Pocket” engaged Croatian soldiers in a firefight to stop them from terrorizing Serbian civilians. Four Canadians were wounded in the battle, which left nearly 30 Croatian soldiers dead [*][*].

Nevertheless in 1995, Ceku, by then trained by U.S. instructors as a general of artillery, was still at large. In fact, he was the officer responsible for shelling the Serbian refugee columns and for targeting the UNdeclared "safe" city of Knin during the Croatian offensive known as Operation Storm. Some 500 innocent civilians perished in those merciless barrages, and senior Canadian officers who witnessed the slaughter demanded that Ceku be indicted. [*]

Another important actor was Javier Solana, SecretaryGeneral of NATO, between 1995 and 1999 who, still nowadays, justifies NATO's intervention [*][*].

Bill Clinton, Javier Solana and Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright was the ideological promoter of the Kosovo Campaign. She is descendent of jewish prosecuted by the nazis and, as she has declared many times, she would not allow something like that to happen again. The problem is that, this respectable basis, lead her to support and promote the bombing of Serbia under false accusations.

U.N. ADMINISTRATION

After the end of the war, the UCK tried to expand the war to other regions of Serbia and FRYM [*]. Meanwhile the crimes of the UCK against serbs went on [*][HRW]. On 2005, the Prime Minister and ex-leader of the UCK, Ramush Haradinaj, was accused of War Crimes.

In June 10, 1999, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 authorizes civil and military presence in

Kosovo, and establishes the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Two days later the KFOR (Kosovo Force) becomes the warrant of peace in Kosovo.

Some 200,000-280,000, representing the majority of the Serb population, left when the Serbian forces left. There was also some looting of Serb properties and even violence against some of those Serbs and Roma who remained. The current number of internally displaced persons is disputed, with estimates ranging from 65,000 to 250,000. Many displaced Serbs are afraid to return to their homes, even with UNMIK protection. Around 120,000-150,000 Serbs remain in Kosovo, but are subject to ongoing harassment and discrimination due to physical threats for their safety. [*]

Bernard Kouchner was the Special Representative of Secretary-General of UNMIK. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Pristina for his services to Kosovo [*], maybe for acts like his declarations after the killings of Milos Petrovic (4), Vojin Vasic (45) and Tihomir Trifunovic (60):

Kouchner in his statement said that by incidents like the one in Cernica everyone loses, except for the regime in Belgrade, adding that such despicable crimes are well received by those who want to see UNMIK and KFOR leave Kosovo and who want instability to remain. "This is not only an intolerable and deplorable crime, but also

an incredibly stupid one, which can seriously harm the progress of bringing Kosovo towards a positive future, and towards acceptance by the Western community of nations, to which Kosovo so desperately aspires," said Kouchner. [*]

The Resolution 1244 also reaffirmed the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. This was going to be proved a fiarce.

THE MILOSEVIC TRIAL

"The ICTY is a political instrument" Paul de Waart [*]

Transcripts of the Trial [*]

Anyone who read articles about Milosevic's trial was surprised about the depelopment of the events; not only the prosectuion failed to prove Milosevic charge of Genocide [*], but also because he was capable to discredit the most important witnesses from the prosecution, as seen in the 2003 Dutch documentary "The Milosevic Case. Glosses at a trial" [Part 1][Part 2].

From the begining there was one point that could never be tolerated: any witness who agreeded to testify agains Milosevic was given inmunity for any crimes he declared having commited, given a new identity, as declared by Captain Dragan "They give me this piece of paper that says that anything that I might said, can not be used against me. Then I think, Jesus, If I am a war criminal, I have killed so many people (...) If I declare he made me do that, they can not use that against me...But that they would use my statement as an evidence against Milosevic" [*]; the paper red exactly:

"This is to confirm a commitment of the part of the prosecutor that any conversation or statement you will make during the course of your preparation to testify as a witness in the case of Prosecutor against Milosevic will not be used against you." [*]

The Magistrate Richard May showed evident hostility against Milosevic (something really unadequate for a judge), more related to the fact that he probably felt that was failing on his mission (getting a credible conviction for Milosevic) rather than his personal opinion of the serb former leader. This can be seen in the episode of the interrogation of UCK leader Sukribuja, when Milosevic shows the contradiction between his statements and the one made by other witness Bile Ilal, about the weapons used by the UCK at Racak. Ignoring the fact that the Racak Incident was the key reason for the bombings of Serbia to begin, Richard May comments: "It's a waste of time" [*]. And after, about the Serbian Police Report from the Racak Incident Mr.May interrups the accused with the words "Yes, we can read it! We can read it. Is there any word of truth in it?"; a really unappropiate comment for a judge, that gave all credit to UCK witnesses.

The witness that was more near to implicate Slobodan Milosevic in war crimes was Radomir Tanic who claimed to have heard Milosevic speaking about Kosovo in his office in the presidential palace. Milosevic demostrated in his cross examination that the witness had never been in his office (not knowing where it was located), that he had lied about his status in Nova Demokratija, and also he declared that some parts of his statement were typos.

Another key witness, Radomir Markovic, supposedly sent by Milosevic to destroy evidences of ethnic cleansing, said about the Prosecution: "They explained my difficult position. They pointed out the consequences which could occur. And the alternative was that I should indicate Milosevic as the one who ordered the punishable fact. That way I wouldn't be prosecuted." [*]

And then, to the question "Did they also offer you a new identity, a new homeland and money, for you and your family, for the rest of your life, if you false accused me?" Radomir Markovic answers "That's correct". [*] Milosevic continues: "Is it correct that this statement about the cleaning up of the terrains was drafter by the same people, and under the supervision of these people, who have pressured you and have tortured you for a year and a half now already?" to which Markovic answers "Yes, that's a conversation with these same people." Milosevic: "Is this statement put together by the people you had these conversations with?" Markovic: "That's correct." After that, Markovic was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment.

The rights of Milosevic were mistreated in all ways, as demostrated clarly with the cases of witness K41 and witness K2, and the percentage of witnesses that Milosevic doesn't even know the real name, or the percentage of closed sessions, that the public never will be able to study.

Only these important facts would lead any trial and the prosecution to investigation, but nothing of that happened. Luckily for the prosecution Milosevic died before the veredict, which made the case close before end. The trial was set up not to judge Milosevic, but to condemn him. As the trial went on, it was more and more evident that the evidences against him were really weak. That's why Milosevic's death was really convenient for the Prosecution. Milosevic was an ill man, but it seems rather strange that a man known to have heart problems, the most important prisoner of Europe, probably of the world, and is being treated for his cardiac problems, dies of a heart attack.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

On February 17, 2008, the Assembly of Kosovo, declared unilaterally the independence. The predictable next step will be the integration into Albania, to finally form the Great Albania. This is confirmed by the declaration of President of the Kosovo Parliament, Jakup Krasniqi, in his visit to Albania on the fall of 2008 [*].

CONCLUSIONS

'Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.' Samuel Johnston

The main issue about the war of Kosovo is how the public was misleaded by the politicians and the mass media. The most evident fact is how the chronology was adapted to justify the NATO's interests. It is possible to trace the real order of the events in any newspaper's library, but when they have summarized the chronology they have always presented the bombing as a consequence of the ethnic cleansing, when it is totally the opposite: the ethnic cleansing was a consequence of (or at least it was made possible by) NATO's bombing of Serbia (including Kosovo).

Other issues are how the UN were used intentionally to justify the invasion of Kosovo, and how its decisions (Resolution 1244) were ignored. This was the death of International Right, the death of UN morality.

Kosovo was the point of no return, when the mass media decided not to broadcast the news, but to manipulate them and shape them as they thought the public opinion would like them.

Milosevic Trial represented the prostitution of International Right. That the most important trial of the last 50 years was a series of irregularities, demostrates that not even now, not even in Western Europe, the right of a Just Trial is guaranteed.