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Several sources are indicating DESERTION from YUGOSLAV ARMY UNITS!!!

More as the story unfolds

Zoja

Agence France-Presse:
Illegal clinic involved in baby organs trade discovered
Report

TIRANA, Oct 18 (AFP) - An illegal clinic allegedly involved in a
traffic of baby organs was discovered in the Albanian capital Tirana,
the independent [Albanian] daily Koha Jone reported Sunday quoting
sources from the state prosecutor's office.
Discovery of the clinic was part of an investigation on alleged
baby- trafficking from Albania to Italy that had begun earlier this year,
centred on a suspected ring of smugglers of babies, whose mothers were told they were stillborn.
Fresh allegations of "baby organs trafficking" came the day after the Albanian press reported the end of the state prosecutor's investigation
of the illegal traffic of babies to Italy.

It remained unclear whether the babies operated on in the illegal clinic survived. Their number was not immediately known.

The clinic was administrated by Albanian and Pakastani doctors and surgeons who "operated on babies and sent their organs to Italy," reportedly
upon the orders of Italian and Albanian Mafia bosses, the daily said.
"Skilful surgeons have carried out many operations on babies and sold their organs in Italy, earning large amounts of money and arms for
the KLA," !!!
a senior
prosecution official was quoted as saying.

Sources said that most of the babies were sent to Italy for illegal adoption and organ-trafficking. It is believed that many women, prompted by their poverty ,and forced by their husbands , have
SOLD THEIR BABIES to the doctors.
The "babies scandal," as media named it, became known in April when grave diggers in a public cemetery near Tirana discovered that some
coffins, of allegedly buried stillborns, were empty.

>From "The Democrat", May 1999
FAILURE OF DIPLOMACY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Returning OSCE human rights monitor offers a
view from the ground in Kosovo

by Rollie Keith

Mr. Keith is a Canadian who served as an OSCE Kosovo Verification
Mission (KVM) monitor during February and March of this year.
He was the Director of the Kosovo Polje Field Office, just west of the
provincial capital of Pristina.


Canada is currently participating in the NATO coalition air bombardment
of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, ostensibly to force compliance
with the terms of the Rambouillet and subsequent Paris "Interim
Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo". The justification
for this aggressive action was to force Yugoslavian compliance and
acceptance to the so-called "agreement" and to end the alleged
humanitarian and human rights abuses being perpetrated on the ethnic
majority Kosovar Albanian residents of the Serbi an province of Kosovo.
The bombardment then is rationalized on the basis of the UN Declaration
of Human Rights taking precedence over the UN Charter that states the
inviolability of national sovereignty. While I am concerned with human
rights abuse, I also believe many nations, if not all, would clearly be
vulnerable to this criticism; therefore, we require a better mechanism
to counter national human rights violations than bombing.

What, however, was the situation within Kosovo before March 20, and are
we now being misled with biased media information? Is this aggressive
war really justified to counter alleged humanitarian violations, or are
there problematical premises being applied to justify the hostilities?
Either way, diplomacy has failed and the ongoing air bombardment has
greatly exacerbated an internal humanitarian problem into a disaster.
There were no international refugees over the last five months of the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) presence
within Kosovo and Internal Displaced Persons only numbered a few
thousand in the weeks before the air bombardment commenced.

As an OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) monitor during February
and March of this year, I was assigned as the Director of the Kosovo
Polje Field Office, just west of the provincial capital of Pristina.
The role of the 1380 monitors of the KVM, from some 38 of the OSCE's 55
nations, including 64 Canadians, was authorized under UN Security
Council Resolution 1199 to monitor and verify cease-fire compliance, or
non-compliance, investigate cease-fire violations and unwarranted road
blocks, assist humanitarian agencies in facilitating the resettlement
of displaced persons and assist in democratization measures eventually
leading to elections. The agreement which was the basis of the KVM (I
refer to it as the "Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement") was signed on
October 16, 1998, ending the previous eight months of internal
conflict. Given its international composition, the KVM was organized
and deployed
quite slowly and was not fully operational on a partial basis until
early in 1999. By the time I arrived, vehicles and other resources
along with the majority of international monitors were arriving, but
the
cease-fire situation was deteriorating with an increasing incidence of
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) provocative attacks on the Yugoslavian
security forces. In response the security forces of the Ministry of
Internal Security police supported by the army were establishing random
roadblocks that resulted in some harassment of movement of the majority
Albanian Kosovars. The general situation was, though, that the bulk of
the population had settled down after the previous year's hostilities,
but the KLA was building its strength and was attempting to reorganize
in preparation for a military solution, hopeful of NATO or western
military support. Consequently the October Holbrooke-Milosevic
agreement
restraining the Internal Security police and army was not strictly
adhered to, as unauthorized forces were deployed to maintain security
within the major communities and internal lines of communication. In my
estimation, however, the KLA was left in control of much of the
hinterland unchallenged, comprising at least some fifty per cent of the
province. In addition the parallel Albanian government of the Kosovo
Democratic League (KDL) continued to provide some leadership to the
majority of the Albanian Kosovars.

This low intensity war since the end of 1998 had resulted in a series
of incidents against the security forces, which in turn led to some
heavy-handed security operations, one being the alleged "massacre" at
Racak of some 45 Albanian Kosovars in mid-January. [NOTE; the "Racak
massacre" was so identified by William Walker, an Ameican diplomat
leading an OSCE war crimes verification team. Walker's sordid career,
described in the APPENDIX to the present article, throws considerable
doubt on the veracity of his account of this event, which Javier Solana
himself identifies as a turning point in the development of the Kosovo
crisis. ]

Upon my arrival the war increasingly evolved into a mid intensity
conflict as ambushes, the encroachment of critical lines of
communication and the kidnapping of security forces resulted in a
significant increase in government casualties which in turn led to
major Yugoslavian reprisal security operations that included armour,
mechanized forces and artillery to secure there same lines of
communication. By the beginning of March these terror and
counter-terror operations led to the inhabitants of numerous villages
fleeing, or being dispersed to either other villages, cities or the
hills to seek refuge. As monitors we attempted to follow and report on
these cease-fire violations, but I and my fellow monitors also
continued to work with both Kosovo factions and the
internally-displaced population to promote the other aspects of our
mission. In particular within our field office
area of responsibility, we were making progress to facilitate the
resettlement of an unoccupied village from the previous summer, while
six other villages were about to be abandoned due to the increasing
hostilities. As an example of this humanitarian work, we had conducted
some dozen negotiating sessions with both belligerents as well as
displaced villagers. Our objective was to create conditions of
confidence
and stability and commence the resettlement of the village of Donje
Grabovac. This village of some 700 former inhabitants sits next to a
major coal mine guarded by security forces, which fuels an adjacent
thermal generating plant. On the other side of the village, less than a
kilometre away, the KLA also occupied another village. Donje Grobovac
was the scene of daily shooting incidents and in this case most were
probably initiated by the mine guards. Regardless, tensions were high
and fatal casualties and kidnapping of mine and security forces by the
KLA had occurred prior to our arrival. After our lengthy series of
negotiations, all participants agreed not to provoke their opponents
and we were about to escort former village delegations back to commence
resettlement. If this kind of program could have been expanded and
built upon throughout Kosovo, perhaps supported by an enlarged
international
monitoring mission to better reduce the cease-fire violations, I
believe both the international air bombardment and intensified civil
war would have been avoided. But western diplomacy would have to be
more flexible for this to occur.

The situation was clearly that KLA provocations, as personally
witnessed in ambushes of security patrols which inflicted fatal and
other casualties, were clear violations of the previous October's
agreement.
The security forces responded and the consequent security harassment
and counter-operations led to an intensified insurrectionary war, but
as I have stated elsewhere, I did not witness, nor did I have knowledge
of any incidents of so-called "ethnic cleansing" and there certainly
were no occurrences of "genocidal policies" while I was with the KVM in
Kosovo. What has transpired since the OSCE monitors were evacuated on
March 20, in order to deliver the penultimate warning to force
Yugoslavian compliance with the Rambouillet and subsequent Paris
documents and the commencement of the NATO air bombardment of March 24,
obviously has resulted in human rights abuses and a very significant
humanitarian disaster as some 600,000 Albanian Kosovars have fled or
been expelled from the province. This did not occur, though, before
March 20, so I would attribute the humanitarian disaster directly or
indirectly to the NATO air bombardment and resulting anti-terrorist
campaign.

So what led to this breakdown of the peace process and the air
bombardment? The Rambouillet and subsequent amended Paris ultimatum
"Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo" was divided
into both political and military implementation accords. The political
accord called for a return of political, cultural and judicial autonomy
for Kosovo Province as previously provided in the 1974 constitution and
was generally acceptable to both factions. The stumbling block was that
the Serbian delegation insisted on the long-term territorial integrity
of Yugoslavia and the supremacy of federal law. With the KLA desiring
total independence, however, and American compliance, the Albanian
Kosovars were given the incentive of a referendum in three years time
to determine the ultimate political future of Yugoslavia. On the
military accord, the Contact Group, less Russia, and the Ambassador
Chris Hill's
demand that a NATO force be employed to secure the Kosovo
Implementation Mission of the proposed plan was also completely
unacceptable to Yugoslavia, since it constituted foreign occupation of
their sovereign territory by the western alliance. In turn, the
acceptance by the KLA of their supervised disarmament was only accepted
after American political inducements of obvious independence were
offered. The result then is that proposed agreements were in fact
ultimatums, unacceptable to Russia as well as Yugoslavia, as they left
that nation with the clear alternative of surrender or bombardment.

Was there a diplomatic alternative? I believe there always has to be
political alternatives to war, although I an not a pacifist and I do
believe that defensive hostilities may be justifiable for the right
cause. The western members of the Contact Group, the European Union and
the United States and the Russian Federation could have worked within
the United Nations and kept the Russians on side. As an inducement to
an enhanced OSCE or UN monitoring presence within Kosovo, Yugoslavia
could
have had its 1991 economic sanctions cancelled and economic
restructuring funds offered to promote its integration within the
newEurope, with a guarantee, in return, to eliminate human rights
concerns
within Kosovo. This proposed enhanced OSCE presence, perhaps supported
by a limited armed UN presence, may well have been acceptable to the
western power, in order to monitor a fair and genuine Kosovo agreement.
However, the NATO bombardment has been counterproductive, as it has
created a significant European humanitarian problem of more than
600,000 external refugees that threaten to destablize the surrounding
vulnerable nations, exacerbating regional security. Another estimated
600,000 plus internally-displaced Kosovars are also being subjected to
the deprivations of the full-scale civil war. Then in the end the
international community will also have to rebuild not only Kosovo, but
the rest of Yugoslavian to ensure their future participation in the new
Europe of the 21st century, This is what the failure of diplomacy with
its consequent ill-prepared and ill-conceived air bombardment has
accomplished.

What is crucial to have happen then, is that the unjustified moral
certitude that that has resulted in the demonization and vilification
of Yugoslavia and its nationalist President Milosevic cease, and be
replaced by a rational discourse to enable a fair and just solution to
be agreed to.

NATO has gone to war to prevent the humanitarian expulsion of an ethnic
minority and has caused the catastrophic Kosovo population displacement
to occur. The western government, led by inept diplomats and
politicians, have failed to provide a rational and diplomatic
alternative, and instead have incited an irresponsible public opinion,
whose conscience has led it to demand actions to solve problems that it
does not comprehend. NATO is now in a war that it cannot win. Its
objective of liberating the Kosovo Albanians from Serbian misrule has
been counterproductive, and has resulted in their expulsion. The war
has broken international law, disregarded the UN Charter, and violated
the NATO mandate. This has arguably irrevocably damaged the dreams and
aspirations for rational diplomacy and the rule of law, meant to
establish an international system with limits on great power ambitions.

There were political alternatives to this war, but we also should have
known what would happen. And it did happen. The pointless and degrading
bombing must stop and rational international negotiations must
commence.

The alternative is incomprehensible.


Rollie Keith lives in Chilliwack.


====================

Daniela,

Please, this is rediculous. October 18th! Is your comoputer THAT SLOW???

Please if you want to upload news items, keep it a bit more to the point as well.

Instead, can you go find out at your rich state run sources what's their version of the protests and desertions taking place these days??? (See my news uploads).

Zoja

Is it only the date that is upseting or the content of it ?

---

Not to let down people who expect the continuation
of the yesterdays' references:


REFERENCE #2:

Guardian Weekly,
London, December 1, 1991
Excerpts from an article written by Professor Nora Beloff.
(She covered events in Balkans for many decades for the British press).

Title: "Hope and history in Yugoslavia"

(Quote:)
In Croatia the ex-partisan general Franjo Tudjman was elected president. He had fallen out with Tito and served two
prison sentences on charges of nationalism. By the time I first met him in 1980, he was already
PATHOLOGICALLY ANTI-SERB. He has allowed himself to be SURROUNDED BY USTASHA simpathisers,
many of them returning from Canada and Australia.

Tudjman armed his followers, and though they were unable to break into the all-Serb regions, which were
ferociously defended, in areas of Croat majority they made life for Serbs impossible. With jobs denied and homes
burnt down, TENS OF THOUSANDS FLED LONG BEFORE THE FEDERAL ARMY AND THE
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY INTERVENED...

..Zagreb simply turned its back on the past. TODAY AGAIN, THE USTASHA FLAG HAS BEEN RAISED
(!!!!!!).....

...The internal borders which we treat as permanent fiture of Yugoslavia were in reality drawn up secretly by Tito's
men in 1943 and were designed as ADMINISTRATIVE boundaries...
(End quoute)

And that was written only at the very beginning of the war...

STOP SERBIAN STATE TERROR!

NATO should go in with ground trups and exterminate the last barbarian-army of this century!

NATO should go in with ground trups and exterminate the last barbarian-army of this century!WWW.KOSOVA.NU
(faqja e tanishme)