After Milosevic, Crime, terror flourish in 'liberated' Kosovo

The National Post ^ | December 10, 2003 | Isabel Vincent

[pankot]

Multiculturalism brought to us courtesy of Bill Clinton and Wesley Clark.

[BenLurkin]

Ah, the CLintoon legacy.

A great deal of suffering caused by CLintoon's self-felt need to engage in some grandiose foreign adventure.

At least it was never in our interest. Clintoon must have figured that with no American interest to harm, the ill results of the bombing of Serbia would have little or no political blow-back.

Seems Clintoon didn't count on Al-Queda benefiting from his gross incompetence.

[Hoplite]

You should fact check the articles you post - this author doesn't appear to be able to do that for herself.

However, given your recent posts on Milosevic's trial, it doesn't appear that facts are you main area of interest, does it.

[miltonim]

Serbs, who now make up 5% of the population of Kosovo, down from 10% before the NATO campaign, are the main targets of the paramilitary groups.

[Hoplite]

And the Sudeten Germans didn't fare too well after Czechoslovakia was liberated either.

The difference is, we weren't inundated with Nazi propaganda which ignored German crimes while detailing the volksdeutch's plight.

[Dan2001]

There is only one mistake in Vicent's article of which I have already notified her. You may not like anything that criticisez the Hague, but facts are hard to ignore, especially today. Here is the correction for your refernce my friend,
According to statistics collected by the UN criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, 1,192 Serbs have been killed, 1,303 kidnapped and 1,305 wounded in Kosovo since NATO/UN has been in Kosovo. According to my info, the numbers are correct, except for the part "this year". These figures have been provided by the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia through the local Red Cross organization and the ICRC, UN police and the Hague Tribunal’s investigators

This comment:

According to statistics collected by the UN criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, 1,192 Serbs have been killed, 1,303 kidnapped and 1,305 wounded in Kosovo this year. In June, 1999, just after the NATO bombing, 547 Serbs were killed and 932 were kidnapped.

Should read:

According to statistics collected by the UN criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, 1,192 Serbs have been killed, 1,303 kidnapped and 1,305 wounded in Kosovo: these are totals since Nato’s attack, published this year. The bodies of several hundred of the 1,303 kidnapped have been recovered and these are included in the total killed. In June, 1999, just after the NATO bombing, 547 Serbs were killed and 932 were kidnapped. These numbers are included in the totals given above.

Also according to the testimony of Kosovo Albanian political leader Bujar Bukoshi more than one thousand ethnic Albanians were slaughtered by the KLA in this period.

As for your facts on the Milosevic trial, if you dont like the facts, then that is not my problem. The facts are the facts, go read the transcripts of each session at www.un.org/icty

I watch the proceedings every day and have built my opinion on that.

[jedi]

...it doesn't appear that facts are you main area of interest, does it.(sic)

Run some facts by us, with sources.

[Cicero]

Interesting. The National Post took a sharp leftward turn under new management. They looked as if they were trying to imitate the Globe & Mail. After a while, Mark Steyn quit, because he felt he no longer fit in.

But for the past week or so, I have seen a ton of very conservative stories posted here from the National Post. I wonder whether they have made a business decision that their leftward turn was losing them a lot of subscribers? If so, that's good news, because it was about the only conservative news outlet in Canada.

[Hoplite]

According to statistics collected by the UN criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague

Then find a link to the ICTY source of this information.

Shouldn't be too hard, right?

Take the 328 or so listed here, add to the UNMIK's tally of murders since it started keeping records (the two sources overlap, mind you), and if you assume all the deaths on the UNMIK list are Serbs, you still get 328 + 454 (1999) + 246 (2000) + 136 (2001) + 68 (2002) + 37 (first half 2003 only) = 1201.

Happily, UNMIK keeps track of the ethnicities of the victims, so the corrected tally goes 328 + 155 + 55 + 30 + 6 + 37 (% Serb unk.) = 611.

In short, you continue to perpetuate the Milosevic era modus operandi of spreading misinformation and outright lies rather than facing up to the facts and the consequences of Serbian nationalism.

As to my take on the trial vs. yours, you better get your "It was a kangaroo court and the verdict was decided beforehand" posts ready, 'cause by ignoring the damning testimony that has been heard against Milosevic in your oh so objective analysis, that's going to be your only realistic course of action come Slobo's judgement day.

[tracer]

The Klingon Legacy and the Energizer Bunny -- they both keep going, and going, and going.

And they both represent a big-time battery as well.....

[Captain Kirk]

Conservative? How is the story conservative? Now that Bush is in power, conservatives have embraced world policing of this type.

[ex-snook]

"But it made us safer here."

[Cicero]

How is the story conservative?

It's conservative to the extent that they admit that clinton made mistakes and that if Bush is a warmonger then clinton was a warmonger too. The usual media position has been that all clinton's wars were good and all Bush's wars are bad. This and the Guardian article point out that that's not logical. But even to admit that is unusual for a liberal rag. No, it doesn't go all the way. But at least it goes part way.

[Hoplite]

How's about 5,000 tons of Heroin per month is more than Afghanistan's annual production.

How's about 5,000 tons is more than worldwide annual production? Global Illicit Drug Trends (page 16)

How's about I could use members of Saddam's inner circle and leftists sympathetic to his cause and do the same thing for Iraq that this author has done for Serbia?

Or better yet, how's about I don't, cause I'm not some idiot dupe for a mass murdering despot, nor an apologist for his failed policies?

[Dan2001]

"Since the deployment of KFOR and UNMIK in Kosovo and Metohija on June 10, 1999 to August 9 of this year, Albanian terrorists have carried out 6,535 attacks, resulting in the deaths of 1,201 persons, the wounding of 1,328 persons and the abduction of 1,146 persons." Serbian ministry of internal affairs.

You may have different numbers, but they are still numbers, which speak for themselves and clearly prove that Kosovo is still a failure .

SINCE ARRIVAL OF KFOR, 1,201 PERSON KILLED IN KOSOVO

BELGRADE, August 19 (Tanjug) - Since the arrival of KFOR and UNMIK in Kosovo-Metohija on June 10, 1999, Albanian terrorists have carried out 6,535 attacks killing 1,201, injuring 1,328 and kidnapping 1,146 persons, Serbian Interior Ministry (MUP) has announced.

Of the total number of attacks, 6,468 were on civilians (5,932 on Serbs and Montenegrins, 201 on Albanians and 335 on other nationalities), 57 on MUP officers, and 10 on Army personnel.

In those attacks, 1,173 civilians were killed, 24 MUP members and four soldiers, while the injured include 15 policemen. Out of 1,146 kidnapped persons, 1,107 were civilians, 29 policemen and 10 Army personnel.

Among the 1,173 killed civilians, 991 were Serbs and Montenegrins, 109 Albanians and 73 were of other nationalities. Of the total 1,107 kidnapped civilians, 960 were Serbs and Montenegrins, 73 Albanians and 74 other nationalities.

The fate of 846 civilians is unknown, 160 were killed, 12 managed to escape (9 Serbs and three persons of other nationality), while 89 civilians were released, the Serbian MUP figures show.

The fate of 15 kidnapped policemen and nine soldiers is also unknown. Six kidnapped policemen were killed, six were released, while two policemen managed to escape.

To add, I consider the outcome of the trial almost irrelevant as it is obvious. I hope that you watch the daily proceedings and not just read the analysis of the CIJ or the IWPR. And my opinion was only strengthened after General Clark's joke appearance. You may not like that the trial is a political one, but I can't help on you on that.

[Dan2001]

According to UNMIK police figures, a total of 271 Serbs were killed and 650 went missing during, and shortly after, the Kosovo war - Belgrade claims the latter figure is closer to 1,300. Attacks on the minority are still a daily occurrence in the protectorate. To date, three war crimes processes have begun against Kosovo Albanians - two in local courts and one at the Hague tribunal. All three are for crimes allegedly committed by Albanians against their own people - civilians suspected of collaborating with the Milosevic regime. November 13, 2003, IWPR

So it's a disagreement on numbers between the two sides.

[Hoplite]

You said you had an ICTY number - what happened?

It's interesting that you view 1,201 over 4 years as somehow being worse than 5,000+ in three months, which is what Slobo's forces managed to rack up.

Kosovo is a failure alright - a failure for you, Slobo, and all the other nutjobs trying to pass it off as being worse off now than under Slobo.

[Dan2001]

I didn't say I had it. I quoted from a Jurist site and the Hague isn't a credible source anyways. Once again, you seem to be stuck up on Slobo. Get over it and look at what Nato has done and what Cliton's real legacy is.

[Hoplite]

NATO slapped the sh*t out of a mass murdering Balkan despot.

Want a tissue?