Translated from Italian to Serbian by someone and then its translated from Serbian to English by me, Den Galna Serben from this site: web-tribune.com
Mafia loves fog, as do wolves. These are the words of a police officer in Kosovo and represent a synthesis of reality in which the self-proclaimed state for more than ten years of administration by the UN did not bring either prosperity, judiciary or justice, but only misery and rising crime rates. In Kosovo, in the name of "stability in the Balkans" the ruling class is legitimized and double-knot tied with the Mafia.
Journalists Giuseppe Ciulla and Vittorio Romano, very conscientiously and meticulously examined the phenomenon of Kosovo "and published their observations in a book titled" Wolves in the mist "(" Kosovo: UN hostage to the mafia and the United States ").In it is drawn the balance sheet of international governance in the territory: blocking the process for people who have committed a war crime; sloppy conduct of investigations into the highest political leaders of Kosovo, mainly commanders of former KLA; mysterious disappearance of evidence on the way between the UN and the EU; Reports by OSCE observers who reported sluggishness of the UN, which are collecting dust in some dark corner of bureaucracy; The responsibility of the United States for what is happening on the field.
MAFIA STATE
The territory of Kosovo is the size of the region of Abruzzo, with 14,000 NATO troops it should be one of the safest places in the world. However, according to prosecutors, it is the most important traffic hinge for arms, drugs, human organs, and people in general towards the West. Why is it, ask the authors of the book, that truck loads are not controlled at the borders? And they conclude that: in the heart of the Balkans, which goes towards Europe, there is a self-proclaimed mafia state which takes us into a new Cold War.
And that it is a territory that was handed over to the mob is confirmed by numerous reports obtained by the authors (in the book dozens of faksimiles are published); this is said by prosecutors, people in the secret service, even KFOR troops talks about it in the NATO mission, where they are forced to turn a blind eye to the smuggling of drugs, weapons and human beings. The top of the criminal organizations coincides with the top of the political parties, not coincidentally made up of former members of the KLA. Thus, they have the political and economic power. They are the ones under investigation for bestial war crimes and the traffic of any type of drugs in this corner of the Balkans. The book contains documents that testify that the UN which administer Kosovo for more than ten years are blocking investigations against these individuals. Why?
Who will answer the question how is it possible that the UN mission UNMIK, spent wagons of money to create a modern state, the European mission EULEX created conditions for the rule of law, and that the NATO through the KFOR mission installed an army sufficient to confront the mafia of half of Europe - and that in spite of all this, Kosovo is a "mafia state", which, in addition to that also counting on joining the EU.
Italian police officer who has completed a mission to the UN talks about how he is disappointed of that organization. Answers the question of why Kosovo is a mafia state.
"We had 300 hours of material in which a wiretap of Hashim Thaci is recorded. These recordings ended up in a box in a Washington basement. No one can charge and judge him anymore. Is that enough for you? So the UN is protecting him. And not just him. They block processes, slowing down investigations, hiding evidence of the involvement of local politicians with organized crime. And every time we start an investigation into one of the top local politicians, an order arrives: STOP ".
Truth is learned on the streets, in the silence, or the whispers of international functionaries at dinner. Is there any evidence to what you are talking about, ask the authors. There are many. "After six months of being here I called the boss and told him: we were wrong in everything. These are criminals." Who are criminals? "We, Italy, NATO countries. We were wrong, we bombed the Serbs thinking that Albanians are the victims. And then UN took it into their own hands and turned all this into a mafia state. We bombed the wrong side."
What does Kosovo look like today? Pristina, one of the best restaurants, a few meters from the seat of the prosecution, luxury, Neapolitan music, girls who accompany American officials, cosmopolitan hubbub, Americans have the night off, the Neapolitans in branded clothes, drunk French officials.
Such an image of Kosovo is itself an answer to numerous questions made by the authors of the book. On the streets we are counting Lambourghinis, Ferraris, Mercedes, luxury SUVs. Whose are they? sons of big mafia bosses drive those cars, says the KFOR captain, although the roads are poor whith often run faeces and no light. Forty percent of the population lives with less than 70 euros per month, and 15 percent are extremely poor.
In the streets of Decani, former KLA commander Abdul Mushkolaj can be seen. Accompanied with the thirty most faithful, he became a national hero, was indicted by the Tribunal in The Hague for committed criminal acts. He was acquitted of all charges on 3 April 2008, a number of witnesses against him are killed, or died in the process under mysterious circumstances. In his office, even now is the flag of the KLA and a big picture of Ramush Haradinaj in a military uniform. And a huge photo of Haradinaj's brother Adrian, who died on May 6 in 1997 on the border with Albania. Abdul does not recognize the present, for him, all the international organizations that govern Kosovo and the EU are working on bringing a trap. According to him, the war is always there, just around the corner.
"Our job is not finished, my men and I are ready to fight at any moment. This time, the war would not be within Kosovo. We will be a country that fights against another country. But the UN needs to go. We also do not need the European mission. We need only KFOR soldiers, and the rest should go home, " he concludes pointedly. At the conclusion of journalists that the Albanians continued to drop bombs on the Serbian enclave after the end of the war, he replies that it's just propaganda, and the conclusion that Albanians attacked Orthodox Churches in 2004, he confirmed that he had been arrested in relation to that, released a month later, but makes the following claim:
"Now no one will attack our monasteries. "Yes, he literally pronounced "OUR" monasteries, the authors emphasize. Abdul concludes:
"I have visited many holy places in Europe, but none is surrounded by soldiers, our monasteries look like prisons."
Can the Serbs remain in Kosovo ask the authors of the book "Wolves in the fog?" followed by a choral response of former KLA members, "Only those who have not soiled their hands with our blood, and only those who recognize the independence of our country. Otherwise a new war could erupt. In northern Mitrovica this could happen at any moment, "they warn.
Every neighborhood and every street of Pristina shows Balkan indecision. Looking to the East and the West, losing its own identity, robs it. The statue in bronze of Bill Clinton which the former U.S. President personally opened, the man who inspired the armed NATO intervention against Serbia, who is considered the founding father of the new country, a national hero. In The National Museum of Kosovo, the most valuable and best-known object is the uniform of General Wesley Clark, The NATO commander during the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.
Pristina is different from all other cities. The self-proclaimed Kosovo's capital, there are few Albanian flags, eyecatching are mainly the light blue ones, with 6 stars. Girls in the city center walk in mini-skirts. "Europeanize is, for us young people a way to forget war," they conclude. In the center is not much of Islam but in the outskirts is therefore a market for it, but everything else is reminiscent of the Orient.
Only 100 meters away, as if you are in Europe, America, or elsewhere in the West. Thousands of international officials living in Pristina. An economic rather than a social microcosm. It is a nation that consumes, accustomed to the European budget. Kosovo is a paradise for merchants, entire neighborhoods are in their hands. In four blocks are all the major international institutions concentrated for ten years looking for how to bring Kosovo out of the morass in which it ended up after the war.
Prosecutors' offices, the headquarters of the OSCE, courts and police are neuralgic points of the city. They know the secrets and lies of ten years of international administration. For many officials they were the springboard for a career millionaire. And everything is new in Pristina, the only trace of the past is the statue of Skenderbeg, the national hero of Albania. How far from all this are the Kosovo villages, Mitrovica or Peja. There traditions are jealously guarded.
With what luggage does Kosovo aspire to cross the road to Europe. Italian Ambassador Michael Giffoni said that "Kosovo looks primarily to the United States. The problem is that there is no serious and true model that could be relied upon, there is no relationship with the Albanian model, there is no Kosovo model, the Yugoslav model is lost. Taking the worst from America, bad taste architecture, fast food, hamburger, the rest is stolen from Europe, they copy but mainly all that is bad. And the elite that is leading the country does not have any education. "UN and Europe are therefore a hanger on which Kosovo is attached".
Donor's Conference of European countries funding Kosovo allocated for the period 2007 till 2011. 500 million euros for this self-proclaimed state. And from the end of the war (1999) to the independence of Kosovo, the UN has spent 33 billion euros; record figures. Mountain of money for a country that has two million inhabitants.
Why is Kosovo so important to Europe and the United States, asks the authors of the book. The chorus of the Italian ambassador is "stability of the Balkans"; He added: "This is an area that can not be kept out of the process of European integration." There are no international officials who did not repeat the same refrain. But they do not hear the voices of many young Albanians: "The truth is that we do have in power a mafia, but we like the mafia more than the dominance of the Serbs."
They're the lesser evil. We do not know what dominance they are talking about, and their guarantee, as often heard, is the easternmost U.S. base, because "while we have Bondsteel no one can attack us." And what about those few Serbs that live in enclaves? How does Serbia think to embrace Europe without resolving the problem of the Serbian enclaves? How and who can give an answer to this question?
About the "yellow house" and that the Serbs were kidnapped and taken to Albania and killed getting their organs, so many pages were written, but for the international institutions to begin investigation into the traffic in human organs in Kosovo 2008, it was needed at the airport in Pristina to deny the Turk, who came in person to the clinic "Medicus" to sell his kidney for 2,000 euros. Thats why the investigation that a forensic doctor conducted at its request in Albania, and his entire work located on a CD for years have been in the hands of UN prosecutors, and when everything passed into the hands of European Prosecutors in 2008- the material was most likely destroyed.
Serbian secret service informed of the existence of the CD. So, this kind of criminal activity continued for ten years, first in a time of war, and then in full swing during activities of the UN and its management of Kosovo. In the book a published document clearly shows on the request of UNMIK and the recommendations sent to the UN to continue the investigation allready in 2005, on this and some other clinics that were seeking a large amount of blood, but that the request is obviously hampered by the UN.
"Snake in the Parliament" is a section of the book with frightening image of the power which criminals, former KLA leaders, who came to the top of government, and who gave the orders for the implementation of the horrific torture of Albanians. Rooms for torture were created by order of Latif Gashi. But it was by decision of the UN "sensitive cases", and thus decisions were arriving only from UN about what to do. Italian Francesco Florit, Judge of the European mission was supposed to judge the snake in the Parliament, the former head of "Ljapi group," a special unit of the KLA secret service, which opened between August 1998, And June 1999. near Podujevo five centers for prisoners, places for torture and most of all for death, and all this at the order of Hashim Thaci. Gashi was commander and personally attended the torture and execution of some of the murders.
Who were the Albanian prisoners? Civilians who had to falsely testify that they were Serb associates and are not sufficiently loyal to the KLA. During the trial Gashi Rustem Mustafa and others from the group denied any involvement. Gashi is arrested on 28 January 2002, Mustafa in August of the same year, protests starts in Pristina and Podujevo in solidarity with those arrested, according to the Secretary General of Thaci's party Jakup Krasniqi "charges against them are a threat against the values of the Albanian fighters for the liberation of Kosovo."
In Kosovo, anything is possible, even threat and execution of witnesses before they appear in court. Investigation follows, judgment which in 2005 is canceled by the Supreme Court, explains the Italian judge. Meanwhile Gashi becoming a parliamentarian, a man very close to Thaci, and judges in UN who are supposed to re-open the process inexplicably have not moved a finger.
It was a hot potato, or as defined by the United Nations, one of those "sensitive cases". Local judges are not able to deal with the pressures of organized mafia, or those from the political leadership. And psychological pressure already functions. On the second of October 2009. District Court of Pristina, where the Italian judge Florit is a member, sentenced Gashi to six years in prison, and Mustafa to four years. And for all the members of the Ljapi group there is an indictment for murder. A rare case. The issue of judicial honor.
But such was not the case with the mayor of Skenderaj. Sami Lushtaku, former KLA fighter, A Thaci man, grabbing the throat of Judge Sami Gerdovcija who need to empty the apartments in the center of Pristina, belonging to Serbs and are illegally occupied by Albanians. He was personally interested in these flats. Mayor threatens to murder the judge in front of the police, which does not respond while the judge calls the President of the Municipal Court, and tells him what's going on in the street, and that same president warns: "Leave everything and go."
That's how the judiciary in Kosovo works in 2005. And OSCE persistently writes reports that Lushtaku is commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, but no use. A man who knows that his phone is tapped threatens a judge, because he knows that he is protected, and in the process, none of the police officers did say what he saw, which he attended; Fear is dominant, although their task was to protect the judge.
All questions and answers are clear to everyone, they are in the relationship between local political authorities and UN officials who together ruled Kosovo until the European mission joined. The answers are also in the inactivity of KFOR and, as evidenced by an Italian carabinieri, "They keep us here to control that there are no conflicts of Serbs and Albanians. And so little effort is needed for us to figure out where the weapons are. It would be enough with an order to search the valley, for half the morning there would be no more guns. "But no one gives the orders.
Did you hear of any court having a secret registry which is marked "sensitive investigation"? Who are the figures in such registry? Stephen Cook, a former U.S. general, with long experience in the Balkans, is retired 2005, and in the following year, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed him as his Special Representative for Kosovo. A year later he is questioned "because of his aggressive behavior, poor professionalism and the closeness to the then Minister for Energy Ethem Ceku." In 2007 UN does not renew contract with him, but still 2008 any blame towards him is removed because of "lack of evidence". Stephen Cook is now advisor to Ramush Haradinaj.
In 2006 he is a strong figure in Kosovo, convened UN prosecutors and judges and tells them that "from now onwards all investigative actions by certain persons whose outcome may somehow destabilize Kosovo have to be granted by me personally." Some judges protested, but his word is law, above the law of courts.
On each case he adopts another measure, orders police officials of UN to put on their desk the results of investigations relating to crimes of a financial nature, involving figures from the top of Kosovo's communities with the intent to authenticate it before moving into the hands of competent prosecutors. Absolute control.
All these details are recorded in the report of the OSCE. In vain. The result of this control is also the judgment of Lushtaku of only four months prison, which was never realized because no local judge was ready to implement it. So the same man is for the UN, "one person in the top of power who needs to be drawn out," and for the OSCE a "terrorist."
Kosovo is highly illustrated also in chapters of the book "Hitman under the protection of the UN." The emphasis in this section is placed on Ramush Haradinaj and the famous massacre in his directing (7 June 2000, Strelce) when he was wounded and transferred to a U.S. military hospital at Camp Bondsteel, "most secret mysterious place in Europe," which is not on any map, and which can not be approached without permission in a radious of five kilometers. Americans saved his life without asking him about the 6,000 missiles fired that night. They only worried about saving him and as soon as possible have him up on his feet for new political adventures.
In Pec, then begins the process-farce of UN administration. The evidence against him was overwhelming, but witnesses, one after another, losing their head, a main opponent Tahir Zemaj (Chief of Brigade Merđimi) and his son are slain in Peja with 60 shots. Who ever try to resist Ramush Haradinaj - dies. As the investigation progressed, the UN gets more precise information on the assassins in Kosovo, but sabotage the process, lets witness after witness lose their head, knowing that the former KLA terrorists become elected political interlocutors who was awarded the role to "keep the peace in the heart of the Balkans."
Personal bodyguard of Ramush Haradinaj, Bedri Krasniqi, an extremist, a paid assassin, who dreams of the unification of all Albanian people. Receives the task to kill Sebahate Tolaj and Isuf Haklaj, former members of the Merđimi brigade, who joined the Kosovo police and began an investigation into the killing of their former Chief Zemaj. On September 19, 2007 Bedri is sentenced by the UN court to 27 years in prison.
No judge in the world would be able to release him. But only in Kosovo administered by the UN administration, the killer, sentenced to 27 years would be out after serving only 13 months. November 2008 his cell is opened and he comes out in full splendor and luxury suit at the main entrance. Bedri is free because Bedri's bodyguard of Ramush Haradinaj.
This clip of Kosovo reality deserves one more explanation in response to who is to blame for the creation of a gangster state in the Balkans. Two killed policemen - Sebahate and Isuf - were involved in drug trafficking, and Ramush Haradinaj wants to secure one hundred percent control in the traffic of heroin in Kosovo. So, pampered by the United States, protected by UN, guarded by NATO, he has a monopoly on heroin.
The authors were in possession of documents which results in that the secret service and the UN top were very familiar with crimes by Haradinaj and decided to ignore it. And what does EU know? What do the judges and the police know, who in December 2008, received the mandate from the Council of Europe for combating organized crime in Kosovo? There is no doubt that a trail of blood in the enumerated crimes and murders originates from Haradinaj, but he does not go to court.
In the Court in Decani no one goes through a single page for seven long years, everything remains motionless until one morning March 2009.. EULEX is formally tasked to "monitor, teach, and suggests" in Kosovo. International judges are smiling, there are 1,900 of them (including police officers) who have exclusive jurisdiction in five sectors: organized crime, terrorism, financial investigations, multi-ethnic and corruption offenses.
In short, the hunt for big fish and a role to stop the traffic of Afghan heroin refining in Kosovo and distributed via Austria and Italy to the rest of European soil. EULEX Chief of Justice , Alberto Perduca explains that the UN December 2008, have surrendered only 35 open cases to EU officials on which they are supposed to "understand the full criminal issue of Kosovo." Looking through the cases, among those files there is no one by the name Ramush Haradinaj.
Archived cases are sealed in boxes and sent to New York, and a copy ended up on the first floor of the office building of public prosecutors in Pristina. These folders are not taken into consideration by European officials because they are "closed cases". In March 2009 one EULEX official begins to examine the "closed cases" and finds the case of Ramush Haradinaj closed by the UN and in that way being guaranteed impunity. Is it too late?
"Yes, because in July 2010 the statute of limitations on crimes that he has committed expires - technically there is no time to start a new process. During the research of case files, conclusion is reached that for many cases that have complete documentation there is no time because they are not registered in the office of public prosecutions. Italian Francesco Mandoi (EULEX) said that UN police has developed a great ability to investigate and come to a very good knowledge of crimes in Kosovo. Public prosecutors conducted very articulate numerous investigations, and after that there was no process, and are not followed by arrests. Why? You'd have to ask our colleagues from the United Nations. On the question why it is like that, even the author of militant Movement for Self-Determination Albin Kurti gives an answer by the following incident(23 avgust 2009. some twenty EULEX jeeps overturned by members of the Movement, with shouts of "Go home," "UN get out", "EU Out" "everybody out").
"EULEX is as UNMIK useless and harmful. You want to know why neither of them are able to arrest the real criminals in Kosovo. The answer is simple, because then all the main leaders of Kosovo would be in jail, the former KLA guerrillas, the same ones that UN has entrusted to govern the country. How can you arrest your partners. This mission is a farce, "concludes Kurti.
And so the international community with one hand wants to guarantee the stability of the Balkans, and therefore enter into agreements with the leaders of the KLA who controll the territory, and with the other to impose law and justice. That's why It sends 1,900 judges and police officers to arrest the criminals and speculators, leaders of the KLA. Can there be stability without justice? And how will it be achieved now when UN for ten years of rule were the ones choosing which process their prosecutors woulld take care of, and which to leave for the Kosovo counterparts.
A tragic reminder of the "Wolves in the fog" and researchers in the field, Giuseppe Culi and Vitorio Romano is collected in a sketching of Mitrovica in the north and the south. What the UN kept secret was operational plans found in the Albanian houses (before they burned down in 1999): Kill the Serb neighbors on a specific signal from Pristina. Each head of the Albanian families had orders to kill three Serbian fathers during the same night. The papers with these plans were destroyed, there is no process, but a UN investigator who examined the case, confirmed the course of events: "The Albanians have using gold, bought the homes in the Brdjana valley, settled down, spread out and through the years Serbs had become a minority; everything with legal methods. It was only the first step. There are plans for 'state of emergency' for definitive expulsion and physical elimination of all Serbs in Northern Mitrovica. Always functions like this: at first there is some sort of a pressure, strong but legal, then comes real ethnic cleansing. They tried 2008 but we stopped them."
November 2008, UN investigators have noticed that something is not right in Brdjani: Minister for Refugees granted nine Albanian families in three years to return to the valley. For the reconstruction is being earmarked millions of euros. The money goes through NGO and ends up in private accounts of three local politicians and "all just one month before the end of the UN mission," said this investigator, and adds:
"And at that moment, we discover the washing cycle of mafia money run by Albanian politicians over the reconstruction of houses in Brdjani. A very complicated investigation that we had to do and hand over in thirty days to new European officials."
UN Administration blocks work and one Serbian official has, in the name of Belgrade, offered the figure of one million euros for the purchase of Albanian houses that were burnt down in 1999. One million euros for muddy ground and four burnt stones in the most vandalized place in the Balkans, an opportunity to quickly be embraced you might think. But Albanian families say thank you but no thank you to the offer: "Do you think it's a heroic act," said an investigator. "From the wiretapped telephone conversations can be heard threats that came directly from Pristina. The command was: stand or die."
A month after the self-proclaimed independence of Kosovo another project for the reconstruction of Albanian homes in Brdjani is presented: hundreds of houses on two floors should occupy the entire valley surrounding the Serb houses. This plan encouraged revolt. The international administration observes that and suggests an agreement: Albanians and Serbs were allowed to each build five houses. The plan is unsustainable.
"I did not understand her then I do not understand her now, but I have only one doubt: Mitrovica has to remain in chaos. Deep in the fog ", believes the man from UN.
The only ones running freely in Kosovo are those without registration plates: speculators. Its a shame, that neither of the two international missions (EU and UN) who overlap in Kosovo does not have sufficient authority to re-establish the rule of law. If there is one thing that is common to both sides of the bridge over the Ibar River, it will be the inscriptions against international organizations: EULEX, UNMIK go home. The government in Belgrade plays a double game, says Marko Jaksic from the shadow cabinet of Serbs in northern Mitrovica, "In public Belgrade vowed to never leave Mitrovica but on the field, de facto, preferences are different. Not surprising, because this government is very strongly pressured by the United States and England."
And Kosovo is, as is clear to all for ten years, in the hands of bandits. And it has been donated to them by us. The bandits are armed, funded and trained by the West, the Italian authors conclude. It is enough to understand the moment of transition from UN to EU and disclosure of scandals: the cases are closed, archived and forgotten. And to understand the fundamental rationale of this international disability, one should start with those that have achieved the greatest benefit from the Kosovo war: the United States.
Milica Ostojić
Translated from Serbian to English by Den Galna Serben from: Web-tribune.com
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