Need a Liver? Kill a Serb.

Well well well. For perhaps the first time in history, the mainstream media have deemed the dismemberment of Serbs newsworthy. More accurately, they have deemed newsworthy the dismemberment of the Serb and non-Serb victims of our friends, and almost all living Albanians’ great heroes, the KLA. (Recall the crowds cheering “KLA! KLA! KLA!” last month from Tirana to Pristina to Times Square. Below is just a taste of one of the many KLA activities they were cheering.) The new information is revealed in the forthcoming book The Hunt by Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor for the Hague Tribunal. A few reports, starting with — gasp — the AP (which both the International Herald Tribune and Fox News deigned to carry):

Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor is looking into reports that dozens of Serbs captured by rebels during the war in Kosovo were killed so their organs could be trafficked, the prosecutor’s office said Friday.

The Serbian prosecutor’s office said it received “informal statements” from investigators at the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, that dozens of Serbs imprisoned by Kosovo Albanian rebels were taken to neighboring Albania in 1999 and killed so their organs could be harvested and sold to international traffickers.

Bruno Vekaric, the Serbian prosecutor’s spokesman, said later on B92 radio that Serbian war crimes investigators have also received their own information about alleged organ trafficking, but not enough for a court case. Vekaric said Serb investigators also received reports suggesting there might be mass graves in Albania containing the bodies of the Serb victims.

Serbian media reported that the issue was brought into the open in a book written by former U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte that is to be published in Italy on April 3.

According to Serbia’s Beta news agency, which carried parts of the book in Serbian, Del Ponte said her investigators had been informed that some 300 Serbs were killed for organ trafficking.

The Beta report quoted Del Ponte as saying in the book that her investigators were told the imprisoned Serbs were first taken to prison camps in northern Albania where the younger ones were picked out, and their organs were later sold abroad. … Beta reported that Del Ponte says in her book that tribunal investigators looking into alleged war crimes by the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army were not able to complete a case on the organ trafficking claims and bring it to trial…

The Hague Prosecution learned while investigating war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army against Serbs and other ethnic communities that people that disappeared in 1999 in Kosovo were subjected to surgery in which their kidneys and other organs were taken from them and then the smugglers were selling them to foreign clinics, Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal wrote in her book ‘Hunt’.

‘The victims were most likely abducted after [the] NATO bombing when international peace-keeping forces were already deployed in Kosovo’. Even high KLA members were involved in the operation of smuggling of organs, Del Ponte writes but [does] not specify their names.

She further writes that a group of ‘reliable’ journalists told the investigators and UNMIK officials that in [the]summer of 1999 Kosovo Albanians transported by trucks about 300 abducted non-Albanians in camps in Kukes and Tropoja in the north of Albania. Younger and healthy prisoners were medically examined and detained in Burel and in the neighborhood.

In one room that was used as an operating theatre, the surgeons were taking organs from the victims. Via Rinas airport near Tirana the organs were transported to clinics abroad for clients that paid for them. One source claimed to have personally participated in one of such deliveries at the airport.

The victims left with one kidney were kept locked and later on killed for other organs.

‘Other prisoners in the barrack knew what was to happen to them’, Del Ponte wrote. Among female prisoners there were women from Kosovo, Albania, Russia and former Yugoslav republics. Two sources claimed to have been helping in the burial of victims at a nearby cemetery…

Byzantine Sacred Art blog has more: A Glimpse at the Harrowing Truth: What happened to Kosovo Serbs Kidnapped by KLA?

Over 1,300 Kosovo Serbs, in addition to those…whom we know have been killed and whose remains were handed over to their families by the UNMIK during the past 8 years, are still listed as missing. In some cases the entire families were kidnapped by the KLA/UCK at some point during the 1998-1999 war and after UN/NATO took over the administration and security of the southern Serbian province…

Over the years, we have learned that a number of kidnapped Kosovo Serb girls and women have been used as sex slaves, kept under the lock and key in the dark, moldy cellars of Albanian bar and brothel owners, underfed, repeatedly raped and beaten, until they are deemed no longer useful and killed like dogs.

There were also reports in the Serbian media about Kosovo Serb boys and men being forced to work in unsecured, illegal private mines, but with uncooperative UNMIK and indifferent KFOR (NATO) no investigation was ever initiated, and Serbian families of the Kosovo-Metohia missing are still without answers.

Now, however, the much discussed Carla del Ponte’s book “The Hunt” offers a harrowing detail, revealing why Serbian men [have] been kidnapped throughout Kosovo province during past years instead of being killed on the spot, as is the usual KLA treatment for all non-Albanians, especially those of Serbian ethnicity: because they were used as a livestock for organ harvesting in the illegal trade with human organ transplants.

According to Glas Javnosti, writing about one of the failed investigations regarding the fate of around 300 abducted Kosovo Serbs who were taken to northern Albania, Del Ponte says that the kidnapped young men were not beaten and were well fed. There was an improvised surgery room in one of the houses, where young Serbs had their internal organs removed to be shipped over the Tirana airport “Mother Teresa” abroad, where the organs of the healthy young Serbs were sold.

The victims who had only one kidney removed during the first carve-up were sutured and returned to imprisonment, to live until they would get killed for their other vital organs, when the right buyer is found. According to Carla del Ponte, the Serbs held in this monstrous human stable Josef Mengele would envy, begged to be killed.

Sworn Serbian enemy, Del Ponte describes Kosovo-Metohia province under the KLA/NATO rule as a land with no laws and institutions, [a] land of blood feuds, ruled by the thugs who present themselves as heroes of the “suffering Albanian people”. She claims that UNMIK and KFOR officials, and even some ICTY judges in the Hague, are fearful for their lives if connected to the KLA/UCK crime investigations, and feel threatened by the “Albanian reach”.

In her book, Del Ponte says that those few and far between investigations of the terrorist KLA were the hardest during her appointment as the ICTY chief prosecutor, that her researchers were confronted by the clans, vendettas and political pressures, and that “policemen from Bern and Brussels and all the way to Bronx” are well aware about the insurmountable difficulties when it comes to the attempts to investigate Albanian organized crime.

“We are checking some informal statements we obtained through operative work that, in 1999, two trucks carrying imprisoned Kosovo Serbs were sent to Albania,” said War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukčević.

He said that the informal information had been obtained from Hague Tribunal investigators. According to those sources, there are unregistered mass graves with bodies of murdered Serbs in Albania.

One group was held in barracks behind a yellow house some twenty kilometers to the south of that town [Burel, Albania], states the former prosecutor.

One room in that yellow house, according to the journalists, served as an operation room where doctors extracted prisoners’ organs.

Daily Večerenje Novosti brings more details from the book, which says that the Hague and UNMIK investigators, and several journalist, along with an Albanian prosecutor, made a trip to the yellow house in 2003.

“It was now white,” Del Ponte writes. “Despite the fact that investigators discovered traces of yellow paint on it, the owner denied it was ever repainted.”

In its vicinity, investigators also found pieces of gauze, used syringes, two plastic IV solution bags, “petrified in mud”, empty medicine bottles, including muscle relaxants used during surgeries. [Thank god for Greater Albania’s waste-disposal problems!]

Inside the house itself, forensics discovered traces of blood on the walls and on the floor in one of the rooms. A section of the floor, sized 180 by 60 centimeters, was clean.

“The owner of the house offered a series of explanations to the investigators when it came to the origin of the blood traces. First, he said that his wife gave birth in that room many years ago. But when the wife made her statement and said that all their children were born elsewhere, he claimed that his family used the room to slaughter animals in order to celebrate a Muslim holiday,” Del Ponte writes.

As for the Albanian prosecutor who accompanied them, the former chief Hague prosecutor says he at one point bragged he had cousins who were KLA members.

“There are no graves of Serbs here,” the Albanian official said. “But, if they took the Serbs from the Kosovo border and killed them, they did the right thing”.

…Del Ponte writes that detectives had had to give up on this case because further investigation had proved “impossible”.

UN personnel feared for their lives in Kosovo while some of the judges presiding over the Hague Tribunal for former Yugoslavia were in fear from Kosovo Albanians that have committed atrocities against Serbs and that is why very few cases of Kosovo Albanian war criminals have been prosecuted, writes Carla Del Ponte, former Chief Prosecutor of the UN Tribunal, in her new book.

“I am sure that some of the top UNMIK and even KFOR officials feared for their lives and the lives of their missions’ members,” says Del Ponte…”I think that some of the judges of the Tribunal for Yugoslavia were afraid that the Albanians might come and get them,” writes Del Ponte.

In her book, Del Ponte details her meeting with the current so-called Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, at the 5th Anniversary of the Dayton Peace Treaty that ended the Bosnian conflict and says that, while sitting at a table, Thaci admitted to her that Kosovo Albanians committed atrocities. … “I looked him in the eyes and told him that I have launched the investigation over crimes that the Albanians had committed in Kosovo. I have not said a word implying indictment against him, but Thaci certainly concluded that I had done so since his face turned into stone,” Del Ponte writes.

Del Ponte also notes in her book Hashim Thaci and Agim Ceku are considered by UNMIK and KFOR as “more than dangerous in the peaceful efforts in the Balkans”.

“Thaci and Ceku, in theory can stir up the minority Albanian rebels, to start violence in Macedonia, South Serbia and other regions,” writes Del Ponte in her book reports news agency BETA…

If one were to follow any of the proceedings at the Hague court, he or she would be amazed to see just how nicely the Serb-hanging intent of that tribunal backfired. (While still hanging a few Serbs, guilty or not.) Del Ponte’s revelations are only the tip of the iceberg.

When we carved up Yugoslavia (though I could use the present tense), we also carved up actual people. Way to go, America. As we continue to enable brutality against the people who were the second-most brutalized party during WWII*, I say to my fellow Americans: Enjoy your new Albanian friends. You’ve earned them. But not to worry: As long as we keep feeding them Serbs, American organs should be safe. However, whether we keep our new masters — I mean, friends — happy or not, their plan is indeed to move on with the Greater Albania project which, as Ms. Del Ponte said, includes western Macedonia, southern Serbia, but also Montenegro and parts of Greece. So what happens when America and the international community call it quits on that project? Will we finally figure out that spilled Serbian blood is followed by the spilled blood of the rest of Western civilization?

*The reason that the Croatians didn’t kill as many Serbs and Jews in the Jasenovac camps as the Germans killed Jews and others in the German-run camps, is that rather than gassing or gunning down the Serbs, Croatians were savoring each kill by hand. From The Jerusalem Post, International Edition, week ending December 21, 1991:

While not using the sophisticated extermination methods of the Germans, the Ustashi, the Croat Fascists, greatly outdid the Germans in their cruelty. Most of the killings were done with cold steel; if there was enough time, the Ustashi would also dismember their victims using handsaws.

Note: In the wake of Kosovo’s declared independence, the three-finger sign of the raised Holy Trinity seen here was referred to by at least one reporter (Catherine Philp of the London Times) as the Serbs giving a “Nazi salute”: “There, as in Mitrovica, they chanted ‘Serbia forever’ as they raised their hands in a Nazi salute.”

The Trinitarian affirmation is Christian, not Nazi (though journalists often don’t see a difference between those two either). Swiss guards at the Vatican hold their hands the same way when they take their oath of service.

Aside from Nazi references, other requisite terms for describing Serbs, currently being recycled, include projections such as Serbian “extremists” and “nationalists” — with no mention of the Albanians’ hyper-nationalist nature, their Nazi history or extremist ties. It all adds up to a newly paved road for the next round of Kosovo-Serb organ harvesting. The shots have already been fired.

The “Siege” of Dubrovnik was a hoax.

No it wasn't. Dubrovnik was surrounded on three sides by JNA forces from Montenegro, from the hinterland in Trebinje, and to the northwest towards Neum and Ploce.

It was the classic definition of a siege.

Dubrovnik had only 600 armed defenders, which of course put paid to the Serbian propaganda that "30,000 Ustashas in Dubrovnik are about to invade Montenegro".

Diocletian,

I’ll be real honest with you. I don’t know if you’ve ever actually been to Croatia, but I know that it is a lovely place and was even more lovely before the war. Whenever people talk of Croatia as a “land”, they always mention the beauty of it.

It really is too bad that things happened as they did and Yugoslavia was dismembered as it was with so much bad blood. I know that the natives of all the ethnicities there really enjoyed visiting all the different republics and taking their “holidays” wherever they chose. Regardless of what one might feel about “Yugoslavia” as a whole, it was a beautiful country, with each of the different ethnic tribes providing their own special cultural gifts.

I truly regret not having visited Kosovo when I was there. For me, Kosovo will always be that special sacred heart and soul of the Serbian people regardless of what happens.

What has happened over there is a tragedy for everyone who called Yugoslavia home, and it makes me sad.

I was born there and have been there many times...the last time being this past August.

Now listen: you guys got a rough deal over Kosovo, I've said that all along and continue to say that. But when lying s**tbags like Joan start with their crap about Croatia and Croatians, I'm not gonna let it stand. A few of you Serbs here are quite rational and that's good. You can be a Serbian patriot without lying or engaging in propaganda. Some of you guys do that and that's good.

Others however resort to the same old lies and fabrications, so that's when I step in to counter it.

Thanks for your response, Diocletian. I know that you’re always challenging my stuff about Mihailovich and his chetniks. You won’t change my mind nor I yours about that. I know you’ve issued “challenges” to “us” before to counter your arguments, and I could, but this all gets very exhausting and frustrating sometimes and I have to just “drop it” when I see that it’ll just go nowhere productive. You’re a passionate person and so are others. I know I am. So we’ll always be at odds about “Yugoslavian” (Boy, when was the last time you heard THAT term!?) issues and somebody has to walk away at some point. I hope you don’t take that as “cowardice” or not being able to counter your arguments.

I don’t think you’re being fair to Joan at all. I have to be honest again and admit that I have to agree with her arguments because I feel the same way she does and her interpretation is spot on from my point of view - she just is able to express herself better than I am !

I’m not in love with the Croatians, and I know that the feeling is mutual. I make my feelings pretty clear, but I do hope people here don’t take what I spout personally. I welcome your challenges, Diocletian. It means you’re at least paying attention to what I’m sharing. People should defend their own. Ultimately, regardless of what world power is helping you, you have to take care of each other because the political winds can turn on a dime.

Since you were born in Croatia and have been there many times I would like to ask you something:

From your real sense of things - not from what you read or heard, but what you actually FELT in the air among the people, before all this mess began in the early 1990’s did the people of Yugoslavia truly get along in the real sense of the word, or were resentments bubbling underneath the surface just waiting for the right moment to manifest themselves through war?

Depends on whom you ask and where they're from.

The resentment was always always bubbling underneath the surface, but the regime managed to keep a lid on it. Any democratic expression would have seen violence result in one way or another since issues from the First Yugoslavia and from WW2 were never fully resolved, but rather just papered over. Most Croatians had enough with the second Yugoslavia by 1971 when MASPOK was crushed by Tito. Most Serbs felt cheated by the second Yugoslavia and that was expressed in the SANU document. The Muslims were quite happy with the second YU, as were the Slovenes until Milosevic began his push for centralization. The Slovene-Serb coalition held the first YU together, and played a large part in keeping the second one together.

Now, Yugoslav consciousness reached a peak in the 60s and early 70s, but Croatians of that orientation began to move away from it with MASPOK's end. Serbs had a large Yugoslav element, but at the same time Serb nationalists still had some identification with the "Yugoslavia" notion where Croatian nationalists never had.

I don’t think you’re being fair to Joan at all.

According to Joan, Serbs have never committed massacres. According to Joan, Croatians are bloodthirsty subhumans. According to Joan, Tito was pro-Ustasha.

Only a complete and total idiot can agree with these three positions.

According to Joan, Croatians are bloodthirsty subhumans.

Have you ever read comments from such individuals as: Ronly Bonly Jones, LenS, or JasonC, in the context of Serbs.

The latter two individuals continue to make initial inflammatory statements and when called on those statements remain silent and never back them up. Have you ever noticed that?

This is how frustration builds over time.

I hope this helps.

Admiral Stane Brovet was commander of the Yugoslav navy. He is a Slovene.
I was in Croatia in July 1990, a year before CNN and BBC took up the story. NO tourists, just hundreds of heavily armed CRO soldiers. Cars with Belgrade plates were attacked, trashed, burnt, pushed into the sea. My sources? Not the lapdog press, but Croats, Muslims, and Canada's then ambassador to Yugoslavia. His car was attacked. Vacation houses belonging to Serbs were blown up. I saw the results in 1992.

Many of today's Croatians are innocent of the fact that their forebears were Orthodox Serbs, forcibly converted to Catholicism. From the days of the Venetian Republic and the Holy Roman Empire (later Austrian Empire, then Austro-Hungarian Empire 1867-1918)forced conversions to Catholicism were the norm. “Slavonia, Dalmatia, Dubrovnik, AND Croatia” was the Austrian terminology. Austria also expunged Protestantism from Austria, in her present boundaries and what is now Slovenia. Nolite mingere in patrios cineres ‘don't piss in your ancestors’ ashes, as Horace put it. - My Master's degree is from The Catholic University of America.

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