This is not the first time. Previous attempts to bring former KLA – Narco – Terrorist commander Ramush Haradinaj to justice have failed because of alleged witness intimidation, and worse. Not that would ever diminish Bill Clinton’s obvious affection for this brutal warlord.
A number of the witnesses called to testify against Haradinaj apparently died under suspicious circumstances.
At the end of the trial Judge Alphonsus Orie remarked, “The Chamber gained a strong impression that the trial was being held in an atmosphere where witnesses felt unsafe.” He said that there were “significant difficulties” securing testimony from a large number of witnesses. Of the almost 100 witnesses giving evidence, 34 had to be granted “protective measures” such as using a pseudonym during the court proceedings or having their faces and voices distorted. Eighteen were issued with subpoenas forcing them to attend.
One key witness, former KLA member Shefquet Kabashi, absconded at the last moment from his hotel room leaving a note which said that security conditions were not “fulfilled for a witness to testify properly” at the tribunal. He said he had been threatened during the only other KLA trial ever held at the tribunal—that of former commanders Fatmir Limaj and Isak Musliu—and claimed other witnesses who had testified under protective measures had been killed. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2008/04/kla-a16.html
That for which Ramush Haradinaj had been previously accused: Ethnic cleansing, murder, abductions, beatings, torture, and attacking refugees. Definitely Bill Clinton’s kind of guy:
The indictment alleges that after 24 March 1998, KLA forces under the command and control of Ramush Haradinaj mounted a systematic campaign to seize control of the area between villages of Glodjane/Gllogjan and Decani/Deçan and particularly the villages of Dubrava/Dubravë, Rznic/Irzniq, Ratis/Ratishe and Dasinovac/Dashinoc in order to drive ethnic Serbs out of the villages where they were living and that they also continued to launch attacks against the camp of refugees of Babaloc/Baballoq near Decani/Deçan (this camp had been the target of similar KLA attacks since 1997).
The indictment states that the KLA forces under the command and control of Ramush Haradinaj, including the “Black Eagles” under the direct command of Idriz Balaj harassed, beat or otherwise drove Serbian civilian and Roma/Egyptian civilians out of these villages, and killed those civilians that remained behind or had refused to abandon their homes and that they continued to mount similar attacks against the Serb and Roma/Egyptian civilians, as well as Albanian civilians perceived as collaborators. The indictment further states that many abductions by KLA forces took place in the Dukagjin zone and that tens of civilians went missing. The indictment also alleges that the KLA forces acting under the command and control of Ramush Haradinaj had full control of the operational zone and did not tolerate the presence of any other Albanian factions fighting against the Serbs, such as the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosovo (“FARK”).
The indictment alleges that in the second half of May 1998, a make-shift detention centre was established at the KLA headquarters in Jablanica/Jabllanicë and that between then and August 1998, at least 16 non-combatants were detained, beaten and tortured there. One is known to have died while the others are still missing. http://www.icty.org/en/press/indictment-against-ramush-haradinaj-idriz-balaj-and-lahi-brahimaj-released-public
Ramush Hardinaj, like the current ‘President’ of Kosovo Hacim Tachi, has also been implicated in heroin trafficking, human organ harvesting, and the sex slave trade.
Background:
Indictment against Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj Released to the Public
The Hague, 10 March 2005
JL/MOW/946e
Indictment against Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj Released to the Public
Today, 10 March 2005, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia released the detailed charges against Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj. The indictment was confirmed on 4 March 2005, by Judge Bonomy.
THE ACCUSED
Ramush Haradinaj, also known as “Smajl” was born on 3 July 1968 in Glodjane/Gllogjan in the municipality of Decani/Deçan in Kosovo. At all times relevant to the indictment, he was a commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and had overall command of the KLA forces in one of the KLA operational zones, called Dukagjin. He was one of the most senior KLA leaders in Kosovo. This operational zone encompassed the municipalities of Pec/Pejë, Decani/Deçan, Djakovica/Gjakovë, and part of the municipalities of Istok/Istog and Kline/Klinë.
Idriz Balaj, also known “Toger/Togeri” or “Lieutenant” was born on 23 August 1971 in Iglarevo/Gllarevë in the municipality of Kline/Klinë in Kosovo. At all times relevant to the indictment, he was a member of the KLA and acted as the commander of the special unit known as the “Black Eagles”. He was subordinate to Ramush Haradinaj, reported directly to him, and worked closely with him.
Lahi Brahimaj, also known as “Maxhup” or “Gipsy” was born on 26 January 1970 in Jablanica/Jabllanicë in the municipality of Djakovica/Gjakovë in Kosovo. He is a close relative of Ramush Haradinaj. At all times relevant to the indictment, he was a member of the KLA and acted as the Deputy Commander of the Dukagjin Operative Staff or as the Dukagjin zone contact person to the KLA General Staff. Stationed in Jablanica/Jabllanicë, he was subordinate to Ramush Haradinaj, reported directly to him, and worked closely with him.
According to the indictment, Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj are individually criminally responsible for planning, instigating, ordering, committing, or otherwise aiding and abetting the commission of the alleged crimes. “Committing” does not mean that the three accused necessarily each physically committed all of the crimes charged. “Committing” in this indictment includes the participation of each of the accused in a joint criminal enterprise.
JOINT CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE
The indictment alleges that the joint criminal enterprise of which the accused were members came into existence on or before April 1998 and that it’s purpose was the consolidation of total control of the KLA over the KLA operational zone of Dukagjin by attacking and persecuting certain sections of the civilian population there, namely the unlawful removal of Serb civilians from that area, and the forcible, violent suppression of any real or perceived form of collaboration with the Serbs by Albanian or Roma civilians there. The criminal purpose included the intimidation, abduction, imprisonment, beating, torture and murder of targeted civilians.
THE CHARGES
Ramush Haradinaj is charged with:
17 counts of crimes against humanity – Article 5 of the Tribunal’s Statute: persecution (harassment, inhumane acts, destruction of property, unlawful detention, deportation or forcible transfer of civilians, murder, rape); inhumane acts; deportation and other inhumane acts; imprisonment and other inhumane acts; murders and other inhumane acts; rape and other inhumane acts, and 20 counts of violations of the laws or customs of war – Article 3 of the Tribunal’s Statute: cruel treatment; murders; rape.
Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj are charged with:
16 counts of crimes against humanity – Article 5 of the Tribunal’s Statute: persecution (harassment, inhumane acts, unlawful detention, deportation or forcible transfer of civilians, murder, rape); deportation and other inhumane acts; imprisonment and other inhumane acts; murders and other inhumane acts; rape and other inhumane acts, and 19 counts of violations of the laws or customs of war – Article 3 of the Tribunal’s Statute: cruel treatment, murders, rape. All crimes alleged in the indictment occurred between 1 March 1998 and 30 September 1998 in the territory of Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia and were directed against the Serb civilian population and those members of the Albanian and Roma/Egyptian civilian population in Decani/Deçan, Pec/Pejë, Djakovica/Gjakovë, Istok/Istog and Kline/Klinë municipalities perceived to be collaborators or not supporting the KLA.
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
The indictment alleges that after 24 March 1998, KLA forces under the command and control of Ramush Haradinaj mounted a systematic campaign to seize control of the area between villages of Glodjane/Gllogjan and Decani/Deçan and particularly the villages of Dubrava/Dubravë, Rznic/Irzniq, Ratis/Ratishe and Dasinovac/Dashinoc in order to drive ethnic Serbs out of the villages where they were living and that they also continued to launch attacks against the camp of refugees of Babaloc/Baballoq near Decani/Deçan (this camp had been the target of similar KLA attacks since 1997).
The indictment states that the KLA forces under the command and control of Ramush Haradinaj, including the “Black Eagles” under the direct command of Idriz Balaj harassed, beat or otherwise drove Serbian civilian and Roma/Egyptian civilians out of these villages, and killed those civilians that remained behind or had refused to abandon their homes and that they continued to mount similar attacks against the Serb and Roma/Egyptian civilians, as well as Albanian civilians perceived as collaborators. The indictment further states that many abductions by KLA forces took place in the Dukagjin zone and that tens of civilians went missing. The indictment also alleges that the KLA forces acting under the command and control of Ramush Haradinaj had full control of the operational zone and did not tolerate the presence of any other Albanian factions fighting against the Serbs, such as the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosovo (“FARK”).
The indictment alleges that in the second half of May 1998, a make-shift detention centre was established at the KLA headquarters in Jablanica/Jabllanicë and that between then and August 1998, at least 16 non-combatants were detained, beaten and tortured there. One is known to have died while the others are still missing.
The indictment also states that during the end of August and the beginning of September 1998, Serb forces temporarily retook the area surrounding Glodjane/Gllogjan and that a Serbian forensic crime scene team conducted an investigation in the vicinity of the canal leading to Lake Radonjic/Radoniq, the Ekonomija Farm in Rznic/Irzniq and the road leading to Dasinovac/Dashinovc. They identified at least 39 bodies and partial remains. Several of these remains have been identified as those of Serb, Roma and Albanian civilians who disappeared between April and early September 1998 in the Dukagjin area.
The indictment alleges that, as commander of the Dukagjin Operational Zone, Ramush Haradinaj ensured that the KLA forces under his control operated in a structured and disciplined manner, provided overall control of planning and organisation of operations, and established a system whereby individuals were targeted for abduction, mistreatment and murder, and whereby a systematic attack on vulnerable sections of the civilian population was carried out; that by excluding all rival KLA forces, Haradinaj secured power for his own troops within his zone, and by attacking Serb forces in rural areas gave his own troops freedom to dominate and persecute vulnerable sections of the civilian population; that he used his own house as a centre of operations, and used his other Haradinaj family member resources and the support of his family members to further the consolidation of this power and his persecution of civilians. The indictment alleges that Haradinaj appointed and maintained his co-accused in positions of responsibility and condoned and encouraged their criminal conduct in such positions. It further states that on some occasions, Haradinaj personally ordered, controlled and participated in beatings of persons detained by his forces and taking no active part in hostilities, and on other occasions by his presence and tacit or overt approval of such criminal conduct he, in his position as Commander, encouraged and instigated criminality by members of his own forces. The indictment also alleges that Haradinaj controlled the continued detention or release or medical treatment of persons held by the KLA in his operational zone, that he participated in the abduction of persons who were later found murdered and that on at least one occasion, he gave his tacit approval as Commander for detained persons to be executed.
The indictment alleges that as Commander of the “Black Eagles” Special Unit, Idriz Balaj worked closely with Ramush Haradinaj and provided direct operational support for his activities, that he personally, and using soldiers under his command, repeatedly abducted, beat, mutilated, tortured and murdered civilians and detained persons taking no active part in hostilities, that he raped a Roma/Egyptian woman, that he personally visited the Jablanica/Jabllanicë detention centre, mutilated and tortured a prisoner there and, by his presence as a KLA commander, provided his tacit or overt approval for persecution and criminal conduct by other KLA soldiers there and knew that the facility was operating in a persecutory and criminal fashion. The indictment also states that Balaj attempted to prevent enquiry into and to conceal the abduction and murder of civilians and the disposal of their bodies at Radonjic/Radoniq Lake.
The indictment also alleges that as Deputy Commander of the Dukagjin Operative Staff and the responsible local KLA commander, Lahi Brahimaj ran the KLA detention facility at Jablanica/Jabllanicë, ordered, supervised and participated in the beating and torture and murder of persons who were detained there and that he personally abducted one civilian and took him to the Jablanica/Jabllanicë detention facility where he was repeatedly beaten, and personally took him from the detention facility to a potential place of execution.
The full text of the indictment is available on the Tribunal’s website
www.un.org/icty. Hard copies can also be obtained from the Media Office.
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Kosovo: The Hague acquits former PM Haradinaj of war crimes amid alleged witness intimidation
By Paul Mitchell
16 April 2008
Kosovo’s former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj has been acquitted of all charges of war crimes committed whilst he was a top commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). However, Haradinaj’s release has been accompanied by renewed allegations that witnesses were subjected to systematic harassment and intimidation and gruesome claims that the KLA “harvested” body organs from hundreds of Serbian prisoners before killing them.
Haradinaj was charged at the United Nations tribunal at The Hague along with two of his former subordinates, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj, with 37 counts involving murder, rape, cruel treatment, unlawful detention and deportation of civilians in 1998. According to the prosecution, the result of their military campaign of fear, violence, and persecution was 48 murder victims. Of these, 13 were found in a small area along the Lake Radonjic canal, less than one and a half kilometres from Haradinaj’s home in western Kosovo. In January 1998, 123 Serb families lived in the area but within four months there were none. Their houses and properties were destroyed and Orthodox churches, cemeteries and tombstones desecrated.
At the end of the trial Judge Alphonsus Orie remarked, “The Chamber gained a strong impression that the trial was being held in an atmosphere where witnesses felt unsafe.” He said that there were “significant difficulties” securing testimony from a large number of witnesses. Of the almost 100 witnesses giving evidence, 34 had to be granted “protective measures” such as using a pseudonym during the court proceedings or having their faces and voices distorted. Eighteen were issued with subpoenas forcing them to attend.
One key witness, former KLA member Shefquet Kabashi, absconded at the last moment from his hotel room leaving a note which said that security conditions were not “fulfilled for a witness to testify properly” at the tribunal. He said he had been threatened during the only other KLA trial ever held at the tribunal—that of former commanders Fatmir Limaj and Isak Musliu—and claimed other witnesses who had testified under protective measures had been killed.
Reports in the media in Serbia suggest that a number of witnesses have died under suspicious circumstances. Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic claims that “nine witnesses linked to the Haradinaj case have been killed in the 2003-2007 period. One survived an assassination attempt.”
It became so difficult for the prosecution to find those willing to testify against Haradinaj that the tribunal’s Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, now Swiss ambassador to Argentina, took the virtually unprecedented step of addressing the court herself. She declared, “You know that many witnesses are reluctant to testify. Some are even terrified. The intimidation and threats suffered by witnesses in this case have been a serious ongoing problem for the individuals concerned and for this prosecution. This problem has not gone away. Witnesses continue to receive threats, both veiled and direct.”
Del Ponte reminded the court that the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution in early 1998 that not only condemned the actions of Serbian forces in Kosovo, but “all acts of terrorism by the KLA or any other group or individual and all external support for terrorist activity in Kosovo, including finance … and training.”
“I make no apology; this will not be an easy prosecution. It is a prosecution, frankly, that some did not want to see brought, and that few supported by their cooperation at both international and local level,” del Ponte concluded.
In her recently released book, The Hunt, del Ponte elaborates on these concerns. The book records how she was forced to complain to the UN Security Council and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan about continuing problems with the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and its chief Soren Jessen-Petersen. Del Ponte claimed the agency was “not always the best co-operator” regarding witness protection and that, after UNMIK began transferring its policing powers, former KLA members carried out “a massive campaign of systematic harassment and intimidation of witnesses.”
Del Ponte explained how UNMIK officials sent documents vital to the prosecution, “which were sometimes organized in a way that could not be used in a courtroom.” In the Haradinaj case they even claimed that confidential information about witnesses had been destroyed. When the files eventually turned up, half were found to be missing. Del Ponte wrote a letter to the UN saying that it was “incomprehensible for such important and sensitive documents to be handled with such a lack of care.”
The Hunt also recounts how important facts regarding the murder of Tahir Zemaj, a witness in the Haradinaj case, had been altered. “It is unacceptable for such information to be hidden from the Tribunal, and a horrible message is being sent to Albanians who would like to cooperate with my office,” Del Ponte added.
Del Ponte recalls how leading UNMIK officials protected Haradinaj. Jessen-Petersen described him as a “dear friend” and a man of “dynamic leadership, strong commitment and vision.” She writes, “Jessen-Petersen’s words of praise for Haradinaj showed not only that the UNMIK administration was weak and controlled by Albanians, who practically rendered the UN mission pointless during the violence of March 2004 [when several Serbs were killed], but that the UNMIK chief, who was also the secretary-general’s special representative, publicly stood on Haradinaj’s side during the trial at the UN Tribunal.”
UNMIK officials were also instrumental in persuading the court to grant Haradinaj the unprecedented right to provisional release during the trial and to run in elections. He headed the list of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), a party he founded in 2000.
“How can the rule of law be implemented if UNMIK chiefs so openly support a person who is accused of some of the gravest crimes in international law? A message is being sent that Tribunal indictments are meaningless, and that one accused is well regarded and even supported by the head of the UN mission. Such developments are very worrying and render our efforts in the Haradinaj case futile,” del Ponte added.
In The Hunt, del Ponte also reveals that an investigation into the murder of 300 Serbs in 1999 was dropped because it was “impossible to conduct.” She says she received credible reports that the KLA transported hundreds of Serbian prisoners into northern Albania where their organs were “harvested” and trafficked out of Tirana airport to be sold to wealthy medical patients.
Her investigators visited a house in a remote mountainous region in Albania, which was allegedly being used as a makeshift clinic. “Prisoners were aware of the fate that awaited them, and according to the source pleaded, terrified, to be killed immediately,” Del Ponte writes.
That Haradinaj has escaped any punishment for the campaign of violence, intimidation and murder that took place whilst he was KLA commander can only be explained by the fact that he was what the Observer described as “the key US military and intelligence asset in Kosovo during the civil war and NATO bombing campaign that followed.”
Haradinaj and the KLA played a key role in the US’s deliberate strategy of breaking up the Yugoslav republic into its constituent parts, ensuring US hegemony within the Balkan region and threatening the broader geo-strategic interests of Russia.
NATO launched the war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 on the pretext that the Milosevic regime had initiated a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo—a charge, incidentally, the Hague tribunal was never able to prove. But the origins of the Kosovo crisis lie in the economic breakdown of the former Yugoslavia that was fuelled by the IMF and World Bank’s structural adjustment plans in the late 1980s and early 1990s. To divert social opposition to the destruction of jobs and living standards and to enhance their own positions, ex-Stalinist bureaucrats and nationalist demagogues in all of the former Yugoslav republics promoted nationalist sentiments and contended for support from the various imperialist powers. Militant Serbian and Albanian nationalism emerged as two sides of this process of social and economic disintegration.
Following reunification in 1991, Germany resolved to further its interests in the Balkans by promoting the secession of relatively prosperous Slovenia and Croatia from Yugoslavia. The US subsequently reversed its initial opposition to the break-up of Yugoslavia and saw in the determination of Serbia’s ruling elite to preserve a unitary state a barrier to its own influence in the region. Both Germany and the US were by this time involved in funding and training the KLA.
Haradinaj returned to Kosovo from Switzerland in early 1998, just as the KLA carried out a series of military attacks aimed at destabilising Kosovo and provoking Western intervention. This sparked a major counterinsurgency operation by Yugoslav security forces, which in turn was used by the US to justify direct military intervention. Western governments and the media began glorifying the KLA as a liberation movement fighting to free Kosovo from a tyrannical Milosevic regime, while it served as a US proxy force on the ground to complement a NATO campaign of aerial bombardment.
After the bombing stopped, the US insisted that the KLA head the ethnic Albanian delegation in talks at the Rambouillet peace conference. The Western powers drew up plans for an administration under their control and the KLA took advantage of its military dominance to impose its rule in the majority of the province’s municipalities, taking over state enterprises and public services. Hardinaj became deputy commander of ex-KLA fighters constituting the Kosovo Protection Force.
The Kosovan separatists continued their campaign for independence by whipping up ethnic conflict. In March 2004, communal violence orchestrated by former KLA leaders resulted in the deaths of 19 people, and some 4,000 people, mainly Serbs, were forced to flee.
Following elections in October 2004, Haradinaj was overwhelmingly endorsed by Kosovo’s assembly as prime minister, despite having been questioned twice by del Ponte’s investigators and his party only placing third in the poll. In last November’s elections Haradinaj’s AAK received just 54,611 votes, less than 10 percent of the total. The record low turnout in last year’s elections—43 percent, down from 80 percent in elections soon after the Kosovo war—indicated a staggering decrease in support for the political parties installed after 1999.
On February 17, 2008, Kosovo’s Assembly declared independence from Serbia while accepting its status as a Western militarised protectorate. All the major decisions about the country’s economy, public spending, social programmes, security and trade will remain in the hands of a NATO-UN-European Union occupation administration.
After nine years of UNMIK occupation, little has improved for the vast majority of Kosovo’s population. In many respects it has worsened. Nearly 80 percent of the population have experienced a decline in living standards since 2003. More than half of Kosovo’s 2 million inhabitants are unemployed and over a third of the population lives on less than €1.50 per day. The minority population have been driven out or live behind barricades and razor-wire in a northern ghetto and may well end up being partitioned.
Back in 1999 after the Western powers, along with numerous former liberals and radicals, had thrown their support behind demands for self-determination for Kosovo and the NATO bombing, the World Socialist Web Site warned that Kosovo would become one of the “small states [that are being] stripped of their national sovereignty, compelled to accept foreign military occupation, and submit to forms of rule that are, when all is said and done, of an essentially colonialist character.” (“After the Slaughter: Political Lessons of the Balkan War”)
For his role in helping to bring this about, it was almost inevitable that Haradinaj would walk free from The Hague.
Adara Press 