A Place to Stand: COMMENTS ON KOSOVO

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

COMMENTS ON KOSOVO

// posted by neil craig @ 5:48 pm

Comments:

Superb work, Neil!

Have a look at the following:

Documentation About 3,562 Srebrenica-Region Serbs Tortured and Killed by Naser Oric’s Muslim Hordes

Medak Pocket, Croatia: Serbian Woman Impaled Alive

Click on the following link for a large number of articles (many with photos):

http://byzantinesacredart.com/blog/general/_bosnia/

Also,take a look at the following:

Finally, Hubert [aka Henry] Wieland, personal representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the [UK] Daily Telegraph (July 24, 1995, electronic edition):

"we have not found anyone who saw with their own eyes an atrocity taking place."

Excerpted from:

Tim Butcher, "Serb Atrocities in Srebrenica are Unproven," The Daily Telegraph [UK], July 24, 1995.

Shadows of Srebrenica:Not letting facts get in the way

http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m072002.html

The Politics of the Srebrenica Massacre

http://srebrenica-report.com/politics.htm

Srebrenica Propaganda Challenged by Independent Research

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=750

"I never saw the Yugoslav Federal Army mistreat anyone in Kosovo" Roland Keith, Commander in the OSCE's Kosovo Verification Mission, 1999.

LIES AND MYTHS ABOUT MILOSEVIC AND THE SERBS

by Rodney Atkinson

http://www.freenations.freeuk.com/news-2006-03-27.html

ROLAND KEITH TESTIFIES AS THE "TRIAL" COMES SCREECHING TO A HALT

In direct contradiction of almost all of the prosecution’s Kosovo-Albanian witnesses, Keith said that the KLA had a detachment or what he called a “home guard” in every village. He said that the KLA even manned check-points at the entrances to the villages, which makes it all the more amazing that so many the prosecution’s Kosovo-Albanian witnesses never saw the KLA.

Keith said that he never saw the MUP or the Yugoslav Army (VJ) mistreat anybody, and that the MUP and VJ forces cooperated with him fully.

Keith said that the KLA was a different story. He said that the KLA refused to cooperate with the KVM on many occasions. He also said that the KLA violated the cease fire agreement regularly.

Keith said that the MUP and VJ abided by the cease-fire, and that the VJ mainly stayed in its barracks.

According to Keith’s testimony, the format followed in Kosovo was for the KLA to initiate an attack and for the authorities to retaliate.

When Keith first arrived in Kosovo he was sent to the village of Glogovac, where he witnessed a KLA sniper attack on the MUP.

One week later he was sent to Kosovo Polje where he established the KVM’s field office.

The village of Grabovac was in his area of responsibility and according to Keith, a platoon of KLA terrorists was occupying a wooded area in the environs of that village. He said that those KLA members were armed with rocket-propelled grenades, assault rifles, machine guns, and various other weapons.

He said that this KLA platoon would engage in sniper attacks against workers at a mine that operated in the vicinity of the village.

Keith spoke of another instance of KLA violence when the KLA ambushed a MUP patrol on the Pec-Pristina highway. According to Keith one Serb police officer was killed and another was gravely wounded in the attack.

Keith said that in this instance the VJ came to assist the police, and that a tank was used. But according to Keith the VJ showed restraint and only used machine-guns and not the main armaments of the tank to deal with the KLA attackers.

Keith repeatedly asserted willingness of the Yugoslav authorities to cooperate. He said that he had been working together with the Serbian police to facilitate the return of Albanian villagers, who had fled amid fighting in 1998, from the village of Donji Grabovac.

Keith said that the police had even offered to provide these villagers with small arms so that they could defend themselves from whoever might try and harm them. Unfortunately, he was evacuated from Kosovo before he could see this effort bear fruit.

Keith said that the KVM’s leadership had certain political objectives and that it did not really seek the normalization of the situation in Kosovo. It would appear that he had more to say on this topic, but neither Mr. Kay nor Mr. Nice was particularly willing to discuss it and so it went by the way side.

Keith also said that the villagers would wildly exaggerate claims of displacement of population. He said that they would claim that hundreds of people were chased from a given village, when in reality only a handful of displaced persons would have left the village.

Of course that didn’t stop Mr. Nice from reading out lengthy passages from the OSCE’s “Kosovo-Kosova: As Seen, As Told” book which relies heavily on the accounts of the same unreliable villagers that Keith was talking about.

Mr. Nice took great pains to waste as much time as possible. He read out even more lengthy passages from the OSCE’s “blue book.” Nice asked Keith to comment on things that were alleged to have happened in Prizren and in other parts of Kosovo which were outside of his zone of responsibility.

Mr. Keith behaved like the military professional that he is and confined his testimony to places and events that he had direct knowledge of.

Being unsuccessful in drawing Mr. Keith into a hypothetical discussion, Mr. Nice tried insinuating that Keith had written irresponsible and inaccurate articles about the Kosovo war, but Mr. Nice never quite got around to actually challenging the veracity of any specific part of Keith’s work.

Mr. Nice, even though he has taken more time than Mr. Kay with all of the witnesses, is still batting 0 for 3. All three of the defense witnesses have defeated him, and he has come-out looking like an idiot.

Slobodan Milosevic again demanded to have his right to self-defense returned to him, and again Mr. Robinson turned off his microphone, and in an added twist resorted to name-calling and accused Milosevic of being “petulant and puerile.”

For his part Milosevic responded by saying, “I wish, Mr. Robinson, to say something to you in relation to the observation you made in view of my attitude and position. I think that the right to defending oneself is a right of principle -- " and again Robinson cut off the microphone.

Things are not going well for the tribunal. Mr. Kay announced that he couldn’t find any more witnesses who would agree to testify.

The witnesses have banded together and are boycotting the proceedings to protest against the draconian conditions that the tribunal has imposed though its denial of Milosevic’s right to self-defense.

Mr. Kay is asking that the so-called “trial” to be suspended until the appeals chamber has made its ruling on the appeal that he has made against his own appointment.

There will be a hearing tomorrow to consider the future conduct of the trial, but one thing is clear the tribunal has made this so-called "trial" into a total farce. By denying Milosevic the right to self-defense, they have brought all of these problems crashing down onto their own heads.

http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg091404.htm

NATO BOMBING CAUSED KOSOVO EXODUS

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

Slobodan Milosevic completed his re-examination of Col. Bogoljub Janicevic, the former chief of the Urosevac SUP, at the Hague Tribunal on Tuesday.

Milosevic began by questioning Col. Janicevic about satellite photos of Racak that the prosecution had exhibited.

Janicevic pointed out the locations where the KVM observers were located on January 15th 1999, and the location of the infamous Racak gully. From the satellite picture it was clear that the KVM observers had an unobstructed view of the gully. Janicevic said that the KVM observers were so close that they could see the gully with the naked eye.

The witness also refuted the prosecutor’s accusation that prisoners were tortured at the Urosevac SUP building. Mr. Nice’s allegations of torture relied heavily on the OSCE publication “Kosovo/Kosova: As Seen As Told.”

That publication is supposed to an account of what the KVM observer mission saw, but Janicevic testified that nobody from the KVM ever came to the Urosevac SUP building to investigate the claims of torture that got published in “As Seen As Told”. It is also worth noting that KVM Observer Roland Keith questioned the truthfulness and objectivity of that publication when he testified.

After Janicevic concluded his testimony, Milosevic called General Milos Djosan to the witness stand. Gen. Djosan served as the commander of the 52nd Artillery Brigade of the Yugoslav Air Defense.

He was also the commander of the Djackovica garrison. His area of responsibility was the air space for all of Kosovo from 1998 until June of 1999.

Gen. Djosan testified that the officer corps of his unit was comprised of Slovenes, Macedonians, Croats, Albanians, Hungarians, Muslims, and Serbs. He said that the enlisted men were predominantly Serbs.

The fact that the commanding officers were mostly non-Serbs would seem to refute the idea that ethnic cleansing was the objective of the Yugoslav Army.

Gen. Djosan testified that there was no plan to expel Albanians, or anybody else, from Kosovo. He said that if such a plan had existed he would have known about it.

He testified that the KLA increased its activities when the OSCE/KVM came to Kosovo. The witness explained that the KLA was emboldened by the presence of the OSCE observers, and increased their activity.

Gen. Djosan recounted one instance where a KVM observer came to visit his unit and was only interested in inspecting the anti-aircraft missiles. The KVM observer was not interested in artillery that could have been used against people on the ground; he was only interested in missiles that could threaten aircraft.

The obvious conclusion is that this so-called “KVM observer” was a NATO spy on a reconnaissance mission. He wanted to see what sort of artillery the VJ would have at its disposal when NATO started bombing.

Gen. Djosan gave evidence regarding collaboration between the KLA and NATO. He explained that NATO gave the KLA full air support for its combat activities. To make the point even clearer Milosevic replayed the video of Paddy Ashdown chatting with KLA terrorists and inspecting their weapons prior to the war.

As the man responsible for Kosovo’s air defense, Gen. Djosan is intimately familiar with the locations of the NATO bombing raids. As it turns out, all of the locations that the prosecution refers to as “deportation sites” are the areas that NATO bombed heavily during the war.

In other words, the areas that were bombed the most generated the most refugees. Gen. Djosan pointed out that there isn’t a single one of the alleged “deportation sites” that wasn’t bombed by NATO. NATO bombed every last place where the indictment claims that “ethnic cleansing” took place. No forced deportation is alleged in any of the places that NATO didn’t bomb.

Gen. Djosan testified that everybody, Albanians and non-Albanians alike, fled during the NATO bombing. He testified that there was an exodus of the general population, not the mono-ethnic exodus of Albanians that one would expect if there had really been an ethnic cleansing of Kosovo’s Albanian population.

The fact that everybody fled from Kosovo during the NATO bombing is proven. On October 15, 1999 the UNHCR published a report entitled “Numbers of refugees displaced from Kosovo 23 March-9 June 1999”. Their report states that “more than 100,000” Serbs left Kosovo during the NATO bombing. Compare that to the total of 862,979 refugees, and you see that there was a greater preponderance of Serbs among the refugees than there was in Kosovo’s general population.

In other words, a higher percentage of the Serbian population fled from Kosovo than the Albanian population. The ratio of Albanians to Serbs in Kosovo became more favorable for Albanians at the precise time when Milosevic is accused of ethnically cleansing the Albanians.

After testifying about the reasons behind the mass-exodus of refugees from Kosovo, Gen. Djosan focused his attention on specific incidents alleged by the indictment in the area of Djackovica, where he was garrison commander.

He will continue his testimony when the trial resumes on Wednesday.

In general trial news, Milosevic announced that he needs at least another 422 hours (in-chief) to complete his defense case. He wants to call 199 more witnesses: 15 Kosovo witnesses, 74 Croatia witnesses, 106 Bosnia witnesses, and 4 hostile witnesses (Clinton, Blair, Schroeder, and Clark).

The judges, who have been reluctant to grant Milosevic more time in the past, have said that they will hold a status conference to consider the matter.

http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg101805.htm

# posted by

Anonymous : February 28, 2008

Thanks Peter. "not found anyone" able to say they witnessed a Serb atrocity is pretty considerable remark. I wil repeat that elsewhere.

PS I have mentioned your article of the Milosevic assassination on a comment on Steve Sailer's blog.

# posted by

neil craig : February 28, 2008

Neil,

You are indeed most welcome. Thank you so much for posting the link to my article on Global Research on that guy's blog!

Hubert [aka Henry] Wieland, the personal representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, after the capture of Srebrenica in mid July, 1995,had - over a 5 day period - interviewed many of the 20,000 people from Srebrenica gathered at Tuzla airport.There was not ONE person interviewed who saw with their own eyes a massacre of Bosnian Moslem men/boys by Bosnian Serb forces take place.

Contrast this with what happened to Jews during the WW2 Holocaust where there were literally tens of thousands of first-hand eye-witnesses to the slaughter by the German Nazi SS thugs.

And yet we have pro-NATO media mouthpieces in the UK like revisionist pro-Izetbegovic/pro-Mesic/Tudjman "historian", Marko Attila Hoare, and British hedge-fund manager Oliver Kamm, who both ridiculously claim that to deny that there was a massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Moslem men in Srebrenica in July 1995 is akin to denying the Holocaust!!

Hoare and Kamm grievously insult and spit on WW2 Jewish Holocaust victims with such disgusting comparisons in order to prop up NATO's pro-Izetbegovic SDA party Islamist-Nazi Srebrenica propaganda myth, whilst having absolutely NOTHING to say about the minimum of 3,562 to 3,870 Serbs beheaded and burned by Naser Oric over a 3 year period in Srebrenica and its adjoining towns and villages.

See photos here:

http://4international.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/the-real-srebrenica-genocide-the-mass-murder-of-serbs-in-srebrenica-and-gorazde/

Please also take a look at the following:

On August 10, 1995, Madeleine Albright showed some satellite photos at a closed session of the Security Council, as part of a denunciation of the Bosnian Serbs, including one photo showing people--allegedly Bosnian Muslims near Srebrenica--assembled in a stadium, and one allegedly taken shortly thereafter showing a nearby field with “disturbed” soil. These photos have never been publicly released, but even if they are genuine they don’t prove either executions or burials. Furthermore, although the ICTY speaks of “an organized and comprehensive effort” to hide bodies, and David Rohde claimed a “huge Serb effort to hide bodies,” [41] neither Albright nor anyone else has ever shown a satellite photo of people actually being executed, buried, or dug up for reburial, or of trucks conveying thousands of bodies elsewhere. This evidence blank occurred despite Albright’s warning the Serbs that “We will be watching,” and with satellites at that time making at least eight passes per day and geostationary drones able to hover and take finely detailed pictures in position over Bosnia during the summer of 1995. [42] The mainstream media have found this failure to confirm of no interest.

There have been a great many bodies gathered at Tuzla, some 7,500 or more, many in poor condition or parts only, their collection and handling incompatible with professional forensic standards, their provenance unclear and link to the July 1995 events in Srebrenica unproven and often unlikely, [43] and the manner of their death usually uncertain. Interestingly, although the Serbs were regularly accused of trying to hide bodies, there has never been any suggestion that the Bosnian Muslims, long in charge of the body search, might shift bodies around and otherwise manipulate evidence, despite their substantial record of dissembling. A systematic attempt to use DNA to trace connections to Srebrenica is underway, but entails many problems, apart from that of the integrity of the material studied and process of investigation, and will not resolve the question of differentiating executions from deaths in combat. There are also lists of missing, but these lists are badly flawed, with duplications, individuals listed who had died before July 1995, who fled to avoid BSA service, or who registered to vote in 1997, and they include individuals who died in battle or reached safety or were captured and assumed a new existence elsewhere. [44]

The 8,000 figure is also incompatible with the basic arithmetic of Srebrenica numbers before and after July 1995. Displaced persons from Srebrenica—that is, massacre survivors-- registered with the World Health Organization and Bosnian government in early August 1995, totalled 35,632.

Muslim men who reached Muslim lines “without their families being informed” totaled at least 2,000, and some 2,000 were killed in the fighting. That gives us 37,632 survivors plus the 2,000 combat deaths, which would require the prewar population of Srebrenica to have been 47,000 if 8,000 were executed, whereas the population before July was more like 37-40,000 (Tribunal judge Patricia Wald gave 37,000 as her estimate).

The numbers don’t add up. [45]

There were witnesses to killings at Srebrenica, or those who claimed to be witnesses. There were not many of these, and some had a political axe to grind or were otherwise not credible, [46] but several were believable and were probably telling of real and ugly events.

But we are talking here of evidence of hundreds of executions, not 8,000 or anything close to it.

The only direct participant witness claim that ran to a thousand was that of Drazen Erdemovic, an ethnic Croat associated with a mercenary group of killers whose members were paid 12 kilos of gold for their Bosnian service (according to Erdemovic himself) and ended up working in the Congo on behalf of French intelligence.

His testimony was accepted despite its vagueness and inconsistencies, lack of corroboration, and his suffering from mental problems sufficient to disqualify him from trial--but not from testifying before the Tribunal, free of cross-examination, within two weeks of this disqualification from trial.

This and other witness evidence suffered from serious abuse of the plea-bargaining process whereby witnesses could receive mitigating sentences if they cooperated sufficiently with the prosecution. [47]

It is also noteworthy how many relatively impartial observers in or near Srebrenica in July 1995 didn’t see any evidence of massacres, including the members of the Dutch forces present in the “safe area” and people like Henry Wieland, the chief UN investigator into alleged human rights abuses,who
could find no eyewitnesses to atrocities after five days of interviewing among the 20,000 Srebrenica survivors gathered at the Tuzla airport refugee camp." [48]

The Politics of the Srebrenica Massacre

http://srebrenica-report.com/politics.htm

# posted by

Anonymous : February 28, 2008

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/Grenades--gunfire-and-fourletter.3786706.jp?CommentPage=1&CommentPageLength=1000#2535320

Peter Robert North,Perth 28/02/2008 23:04:58

#25 Geoff:
"All parties in the former Yugoslavia were guilty of atrocities but it would seem that the Serbs were the worst offenders."

It "would seem"...Geoff? Where is your documented evidence (concrete proof) to support such a charge against the Serbs? Please do not quote US/NATO-EU corporate media or George Soros afilliated sources since they were a party to the conflict.

"Maybe Kososvo is a one off-there is no doubt that it would have been ethnically cleansed by the Serbs if they had had their way and Nato was right to intervene"

Again Geoff, where is your documented evidence to support such a charge? Are you not aware that the Islamist-Nazi KLA was declared "without question a terrorist group" by none other than the US State Department in 1998?

Are you not aware of the fact that the Islamist-Nazi KLA terrorist group - in collusion with the United States under Bill Clinton, and NATO under Javier Solana -was transformed into the "Kosovo Protection Corps", and proceeded to MURDER over 6,000 and EXPEL 350,000 Serbs,Jews,Romanies and Gorani peoples in a "Kristallnacht" Nazi style pogrom?

I suggest you do some research on the KLA ,which it is very well documented was committed to Nazi style racial genocide of all non-Albanians - including moderate Albanians - who refused to support their Heroin trafficking and child-sex slavery racketeering of tens of thousands of schoolgirls from all across Europe and the Balkans.

Google: "KLA drugs sex trafficking"

# posted by

Anonymous : February 28, 2008

A Place to Stand

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

COMMENTS ON KOSOVO

About Me

Links

ARCHIVES