Holbrooke visits Kosovo mass grave to 'bear witness'
'We need to remember what brought us here'
Truthseeker, you may be the only breathing person still pumping Holbrooke and Walker. You are most definitely a loner and a rebel in this instance. In despite of all evidence presented by the international press and intelligent communities, you, and you alone, will shill for Holbrooke, Walker, Albright and the rest of the Racak-Kosovo co-conspirators at this date and time? Simply outrageous. Like shilling for the Muslim Brotherhood wasn't bad enough.
You really need to polish up your "researcher" skills or re-examine the situation from a historical perspective. Ambassador Holbrooke & Walker sanctioned the KLA/UCK, during the period from October 13, 1998 and January 14, 1999, to carry-out a total of 599 terrorist attacks and provocations, of which 186 were against civilians and 413 against members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic of Serbia.
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International press,
THE NEW YORK TIMES:
THE AMERICANS ALREADY KNEW?
On Friday, the day before American ambassador William Walker sensationally “discovered” the so-called massacre in the village of Racak in Kosmet, State Secretary Madeleine Albright held a meeting behind closed doors in Washington, at which she revealed to a few members of the team close to her that the agreement on normalization of relations in Kosmet was due to fall apart at any moment, The New York Times wrote on January 19.
The New York paper cites the statement of an anonymous official in the American administration who pointed out that Albright, obviously, had reliable information regarding events in Racak and practically announced them.
Last Sunday, the American secretary of state, claims the same source, revealed to functionaries of the White House and the Pentagon that “the administration is facing a critical moment” with respect to reaching a decision on Kosmet and outlined that Washington had three options: to give up, to continue “wallowing in the mud” or to take “decisive action”. The secretary of state, claims the New York paper, told her colleagues that she favored “strong pressure”.
Today’s text in The New York Times clearly shows that Washington knew in advance of the whole scenario of the so-called massacre in the village of Racak, which is now being used to justify new pressures on Yugoslavia and Serbia.
More than symptomatic is the fact that Madeleine Albright, in warning the functionaries in the Pentagon and the White House that the climax of the Kosmet crisis was soon coming, delivered a series of compliments regarding the head of the OSCE verification mission in Kosmet, William Walker, who, only one day later, would take upon himself the key role in the realization of the scenario of the so-called massacre.
FIGARO QUESTIONS OSCE CLAIMS REGARDING EVENTS IN RACAK
A Film refutes Walker and terrorists
Eyewitness accounts by Albanians are refuted by film shot by reporters of Associated Press, the French paper stresses, stating that the gully where the bodies were was discovered only on the day after the fighting, even though observers were present in Racak within half an hour after the fighting ended. The French daily Figaro today [Jan. 23] casts doubt on the statements of OSCE regarding events in the village of Racak, asking the question whether terrorists of the KLA staged the so-called massacre in an attempt to turn their military defeat into a political victory.
In a text bearing the heading "Kosovo - Shadow of Doubt Falls on a Massacre", Figaro writes that the version offered to the world by OSCE regarding events in Racak should be re-examined and that, by analyzing available facts, an answer should be found to the question of what really happened in Racak. The available facts - film shot both during the fighting at Racak and yesterday on location by Renaud Girard, special reporter for Figaro - refute the claims of OSCE and of the Albanian separatists that Serbian security forces massacred 45 civilians on Friday, points out the French daily.
William Walker with his hands in his pockets conducting a so-called "investigation of the massacre". Walker refused to allow representatives of the domestic media to be present during his "investigation process" and personally selected the teams of reporters who could accompany him
Yugoslav experts in forensic medicine, who yesterday began to perform autopsies of the bodies of those killed in Racak, declared that "not one of the bodies showed evidence that the victim was executed," writes Figaro.
Since questions exist as to what actually happened in Racak, this paper felt that it was important to try to reconstruct the chronology of events on the critical date. According to Figaro, at dawn the Serb police surrounded and attacked the village of Racak, known to be a base of the separatist KLA. The police had nothing to hide, since at 8:30 a.m. they invited a television crew (two reporters of the American Associated Press) to film the operation. Members of the OSCE mission were also present: on location were two vehicles with American diplomatic plates. The OSCE observers stayed on location the whole day, situated in a valley from where they were able to observe the village, writes Figaro.
At approximately 3:00 p.m., a police report was made public via the International Press Center in Pristina, which stated that, during the course of fighting at Racak, 15 "KLA terrorists were killed and a significant quantity of weapons was confiscated". At 3:30 p.m. the police forces, accompanied by the television crew of Associated Press, left the village, taking with them a heavy artillery piece of 12.7 mm caliber, two hand-held artillery pieces, two sniper rifles and approximately 30 Kalashnikovs manufactured in China. At 4:30 p.m., a French reporter drove through the village, where he encountered three orange OSCE vehicles. The international observers were calmly talking with three adult Albanians in civilian clothes. They were looking for possible injured civilians. Upon returning to the village at 6:00 p.m., the French reporter saw the observers taking away two women and two old men, who were very lightly injured.
The observers, who did not appear to be too excited, did not say anything significant to the reporter. They only said that they "were not able to assess the outcome of the fighting".
The spectacle of bodies of Albanian civilians in a gully, which shocked the world, was not discovered until the next day, at about 9:00 a.m., when reporters appeared on location, who were soon followed by OSCE observers, writes Figaro.
The village at that moment was under the control of armed members of the KLA, who were directing foreign visitors toward the scene of the so-called massacre. Around noon, William Walker, the chief of the OSCE mission in Kosovo, appeared and expressed his indignation regarding what he had seen, the paper reminds us. All eyewitness accounts from Albanians, according to Figaro, confirm one version of the story: in the middle of the day, the police raided the village, separated women from men, and took the latter into the hills where they subsequently killed them.
It is disturbing, however, that these eyewitness accounts are in complete contradiction with the film shot by the Associated Press crew, stresses the French paper. The film shows an empty village which the police had raided in the morning, moving along the walls of the houses for protection. Shooting began because the police encountered resistance from the trenches which the KLA separatists had dug nearby. The fighting was more intense on the higher ground around the village. Standing in a sheltered place by the mosque, the AP reporters concluded that the KLA separatists, who were surrounded, were desperately trying to break out. About 20 of them succeeded in doing so, a fact which the police confirmed.
"What, in fact, happened? Did the KLA during the night collect the bodies of those killed in the fighting in order to prepare the spectacle of a so-called cold-blooded execution? Another disturbing fact is that on Saturday morning the reporters found very few cartridge shells around the gully where the so-called massacre took place", concludes Figaro.
The report by Figaro's journalist generated a great deal of interest in France: Girard was interviewed by Evropa-1 Radio and by France Info Radio, and many French and Swiss radio stations requested permission to retransmit the interview. Radio Frans Info today [Jan. 23] transmitted this interview every hour.
THE LONDON "GUARDIAN":
BODIES OF THOSE KILLED AT RACAK WERE MOVED
It is becoming increasingly clear that many details of events in the village of Racak, which have been the direct cause of the newest tensions in Kosovo and Metohija and the launching of a media campaign, did not happen as the world until now had been told that they happened, it is stressed in London. After the two French reporters, the London Guardian also leaves much room for doubt in the current version of those events. The paper quotes the statement of officials of the international verification mission, who wished to remain anonymous, to the effect that they were convinced that some of the bodies of the deceased at Racak were later moved.
Foreign and domestic experts have determined the unnatural position of the bodies of the victims and the absence of empty cartridge shells in the location where the victims were reportedly killed.
The verifiers, notes the Guardian, inspected 15 bodies of those killed at Racak and determined that some of them were moved. "We do not know who moved them or why," one of those officials stated. In addition to this, a reporter at the Guardian quotes the statement of a British member of the verification mission, Neal Strechan, who said he was officially invited to Racak, which represents the first public admission that the verifiers were duly informed.
Strechan says that a local Albanian, who was injured, told him that there were 20 bodies in the village. That was all he knew and, he emphasized, he "could not tell him any more than that".
All this promises to cast serious doubt upon the official reports of the verification mission in Britain, as well, and brings into question the true intentions of the very aggressive media and political campaign.
THE GREEK DAILY "EXUSIA":
WALKER DIDN’T "SEE" TERRORISTS
On January 19, the Greek daily Exusia, in article entitled "Serb killed by ‘unarmed’ Albanians”, notes that “in yesterday’s fighting near the village of Racak, William Walker again failed to ‘see’ the Albanian terrorists".
Terrorist weapons found close to the village of Racak after the intervention of security forces and documented by members of the international mission.
The reason for the latest fighting, writes Exusia, was an attack, according to Walker, by “unarmed” Albanians on a team of Serbian specialists who were attempting to investigate. The paper informs us that in yesterday’s fighting with Albanian terrorists, another member of the Serbian police forces was killed and two others were injured.
A member of the so-called KLA provides security for the “investigation mission” of William Walker.
“Regardless of the fact that the Albanian side is responsible for the latest fighting, warnings continue to be directed only to Belgrade, along with the threat that NATO forces will be activated for military intervention,” writes the daily Exusia."
LE MONDE:
A SERIES OF QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS
The French daily Le Monde, in the Thursday, January 21, issue, questions assertions of a “cold-blooded massacre” of Albanian civilians after the fighting between Serbian forces with the terrorists on January 15 in the village of Racak in Kosmet.
The accusation is irrevocable, writes Le Monde, but adds that unanswered questions remain nonetheless. How did the Serbian police manage to gather a group of men and to peacefully lead them to the place of execution when they were under constant fire by the terrorists?
How is it possible that the people living in the village, who returned before nightfall and the observers who spent over two hours in the village did not see the gully in which the bodies were found?
The residents of the abandoned village of Racak did not recognize among the victims of the so-called “massacre” any of their neighbors from the village
Why were so few cartridges found surrounding the bodies and why was there so little blood in the location where 23 people were found with multiple bullets in their heads?
Were the bodies of Albanians killed in the fighting with the Serbian police later gathered in a single place in order to create a horrific spectacle which was supposed to elicit the condemnation of public opinion?
Was the adamancy and speed of the reaction of the Belgrade government, which gave the head of the verification mission 48 hours to depart from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, indicative of its certainty in what it claimed, asks Le Monde. The French daily states that only an international investigation can establish the truth beyond all shadow of a doubt. In Pristina, the arrival of Finnish and Belorussian forensic experts is expected who will assist their Yugoslav colleagues in expert assessment of the bodies, writes the paper.
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS IN THE VILLAGE OF RACAK
In the early morning hours of January 15, members of the police surrounded the village of Racak, district of Stimlje, with the goal of arresting a terrorist group which, five days before, had killed a policeman, Svetislav Przic.
That terrorist group had carried out multiple criminal acts of terrorism as per Article 125 of the Criminal Code of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and was responsible for the murders of policemen Sinisa Mihajlovic, Nazmija Aluri and Svetislav Przic, members of the police reserve forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs at Urosevac, PC Stimlje (killed in attacks on September 10 and October 29, 1998, and on January 10, 1999); Sasa Jankovic and Ranko Djordjevic, members of the police reserve forces of Ministry of Internal Affairs at Gnjilane (killed on August 2 and October 12, 1998); and the murder of civilians Miftar Reseni (on December 31, 1998) and Enver Gasi (January 2, 1999). The same terrorist group kidnapped members of the ethnic Albanian and Roma [Gypsy] communities in the districts of Urosevac and Stimlje, and set fire to the house of an ethnic Albanian, Djemalj Batici of Racak (on November 18, 1998).
Security forces informed officials of the international observation mission at the beginning of the campaign against the terrorists and it was watched by observers and reporters of foreign news agencies.
Upon entering the village of Racak, terrorist groups attacked the members of the police from trenches, barricades and fortifications using automatic weapons, and hand-held missile and grenade launchers. During the attack, policeman Goran Vucicevic was injured and many official vehicles belonging to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia were damaged. Members of the police used weapons in order to fend of the attack and break up the terrorist groups. Several tens of terrorists were killed in the fighting, most of whom were in uniforms bearing the markings of the terrorist KLA. On this occasion, members of the police confiscated: a Browing heavy artillery piece of 12.7 mm caliber, two hand-held artillery pieces, 36 automatic rifles, two sniper rifles, and a large quantity of munitions and hand grenades, radio stations, and other military equipment and supplies.
During the course of this police action, terrorist Sadik Mujota (born in 1943) from the village of Malopolje, district of Stimlje, was killed, as well as his daughter who was an active member of the so-called KLA terrorist organization. Mujota, along with his brothers, three sons and a daughter, headed a terrorist group consisting of many people which participated in carrying out multiple terrorist attacks on members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia and the Yugoslav Army in the region of the district of Stimlje. The OSCE KVM was advised of the beginning of the action to arrest the terrorists and was present on location. Immediately following the police action, an investigative team headed by an investigating judge of the Pristina District Court, Danica Marinkovic, and by the Deputy District Public Prosecutor, Ismet Sufto, appeared on location but the terrorists who were on the surrounding highlands opened fire and made it impossible to conduct the investigation. The following day, January 16, 1999, the investigation was again rendered impossible because OSCE KVM insisted that the investigating judge conduct the investigation without the presence of the police, with the explanation that fighting might ensue.
During this (classic) police operation of finding and arresting a terrorist group which had committed terrorist attacks, murder and kidnapping of members of the police, and of civilians, in the regions of Urosevac and Stimlje, the head of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission, William Walker, immediately accused “Yugoslav security forces” of massacring 45 civilians in the village of Racak, an act of which he was “personally convinced” and sent an ultimative demand that investigators from the Hague Tribunal be permitted to come to Kosovo and Metohija within 24 hours. At the same time, Walker personally visited the village of Racak, without informing the Yugoslav authorities, accompanied by reporters whom he hand-picked.
By his behavior, his incorrect and malicious interpretations and disrespect for the authority of Yugoslav officials and laws, Walker overstepped his mandate of verifier and the agreement with OSCE in the worst possible manner. On January 17, 1999, the chairman of the Coordinating Team of the Federal Government’s Commission for Cooperation with OSCE Kosovo and Metohija Verification Mission, Dusan Loncar, sent a note of protest to the head of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission, William Walker, because of his inappropriate behavior and particularly because he made it impossible to conduct an investigation in the village of Racak by authorized, legally empowered authorities.
The investigation, which was scheduled for January 17, 1999, from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., and to which Walker (KVM) were invited to verify the process by which the investigation was performed, was never begun due to the fact that the Albanian terrorists opened fire from mortars and heavy artillery from the region of the villages of Rance and Petrovo. On that occasion, one of the fired mortar shells fell close to the investigating judge, Mrs. Danica Marinkovic, while other shells fired by the terrorists posed an immediate danger to the lives of the policemen protecting the investigating judge.
An official protest was sent to Walker due to the impossibility of performing the investigation by the investigating judge and it was asked that the verifiers limit their engagement to the function of verifying the process and the work of our investigating judge and her protection force.
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