A Place to Stand

Picture from the Bosnian war but you get the point

De[construct] report on a Newsnight feature on the Kosovo organlegging:

Allegations that the KLA maintained a secret network of prisons in their bases in Kosovo and neighbouring Albania were made on the BBC programmes “Crossing Continents” and “Newsnight,” broadcast April 9. This is probably the first time a major news network has carried out an investigation into the claims which have been largely ignored, even suppressed, for more than a decade. According to “Crossing Continents,” the evidence reveals “another side to the conflict which the world was not supposed to see.”....

Eight former KLA soldiers spoke to Montgomery, some saying they were “disgusted” by the atrocities that took place....Another recounted how he drove trucks packed with shackled prisoners—mainly Serbian civilians—to Albania where they were tortured and killed: “I was sick. I was just waiting for it to end. It was hard. I thought we were fighting a war but this was something completely different.”

...Burrel in the centre of the country, where the KLA operated a barracks [presumably a NATO "police" barracks since as KLA they had officially been disarmed, but this isn't mentioned} Information about terrible activities taking place at Burrel first reached the International Centre for the Red Cross in 2000 {this is the first admission of it being publicly known at that stage, all we had previously is del Ponte's statement that she had had this reported to her by "reliable journalists" which presumably means western MSM} after KLA fighters reported that Serb civilians were taken there in 1999 and their organs removed and sold abroad for transplant operations...

In “Crossing Continents,” former head of UNMIK’s Office for Missing Persons and Forensics Jose Pablo Baraybar explains, “There were people that are certainly alive that were in Kukes, in that camp, as prisoners. Those people saw other people there, both Albanians and non-Albanians. There were members of the KLA leadership going through that camp. Many names were mentioned, and I would say that that is an established fact.”

“I think that the most shocking thing really is that the international community was sent in with responsibility for providing a safe and secure environment in Kosovo and these acts happened right under their noses… it was a massive failure to protect minority communities from human rights abuses when that international community was supposed to protect them.”[again downplaying by censoring the fact the KLA were our official police]

...Last year, Human Rights Watch reported that “Violence, impunity for common and political crimes, intimidation and discrimination are commonplace,” particularly against the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities.


Baraybar revealed that UNMIK was aware that the KLA operated a “loose network of detention centres” and that there was enough evidence to warrant further enquires, but “no proper investigation was ever carried out.” Since then some of the evidence, Baraybar claims, has been destroyed even though he would have thought well-established “chains of custody” for documents should have prevented that happening.

The article is still a whitewash in 2 ways. Firstly through the fact that despite knowing this for what now appears to be 9 rather than 1 year all the coverage it gets is a few minutes late at night on BBC 2 - were they reporting impartiality this would have had 100 times as much coverage as the entire Gaza war where fewer died & none as cruelly & unusually. Secondly because they tipex over NATO's role - these people were NATO police put in place in a criminal war which every British MP who voted for it & presumably every other national leader, knew to be a war to support NATO organised & armed terrorists engaged in genocide not to prevent non-existent Yugoslav ones. As such every NATO leader is personally an accessory to this & probably every editor & journalist who lied & censored too.

Until we bring these murdering Nazis to trial it is impossible for any other nation to trust any NATO state involved.

UPDATE BBC Radio 4's Crossing Continents was broadcast on Thursday, 9 April, 2009 at 1102 BST and will be repeated on Monday, 13 April, 2009 at 20:30 BST