Not much.SC Politics is closed and we have a new spot http://network54.com/Hide/Forum/84302 which is sort of the same but at least is moderated to a degree.Some of the jerks are still on this new board.

Excellent article from todays National Post ( http://www.nationalpost.com/ ). I'd like to thank Dr. Daniels for telling the truth. Any comments?

Anything goes in Kosovo's election
The vote was declared fair before it even took place

Anthony Daniels
National Post
PRISTINA - The recent municipal elections in Kosovo have been hailed as a great triumph for democracy. Unfortunately, most of the people who have done the hailing are the very people who organized the elections in the first place, that is to say, the international bureaucrats of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. In other words, the news emerging from Kosovo bears the stamp of self-congratulation.

In fact, virtually no electoral rule was not broken on polling day, often flagrantly. The OSCE announced the elections were free and fair several weeks before they ever took place, thus displaying an extraordinary clairvoyance, and again while polling was continuing. The OSCE once strenuously denounced the former president of Albania, Dr. Sali Berisha, for having declared an election was free and fair before the counting had been done.

According to the rules of electoral politics, no armed men are supposed to be present near polling stations: The soldiers of NATO were everywhere present. Voting is supposed to cease at pre-arranged times, but the voting stations in Kosovo were sometimes open twice as long as they should have been, thanks to the organizational chaos and incompetence of the OSCE, which necessitated extension of the hours of voting. Ballot boxes are supposed to be sealed before they are removed for counting, but many were not. The list of violations was endless.

Many of the voters waited up to six hours to vote. Their patience was exemplary, but they would have been justified had they been very angry with the OSCE. None of the OSCE officials supervising the elections at the local level to whom I spoke was able to explain to me the voting system, though they were in charge of the counting. They tended to blame the Albanian Kosovars for the chaos, however: first because there were too many of them (approximately half the population of Toronto), and second because they had all arrived at the polling stations at the same time.

I am not suggesting the OSCE committed fraud, though fraud is well within its normal repertoire of behaviour. It has long had a tendency to judge the fairness of elections not by the way they are conducted, but by the desirability of the results as viewed by Western governments. But the self-congratulation of the OSCE after its gross violations of the rules it laid down itself for the elections in Kosovo will provide Kosovar Albanians with every excuse in future to conduct genuinely fraudulent elections. They will be able to say they are only following the precedent set by the OSCE.

The OSCE was also silent on the significance or meaning of these municipal elections. The main choice confronting the voters was between candidates supporting Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of the Kosovar passive resistance to Serbian rule in Kosovo, and those supporting Hashim Thaci, the leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (the KLA).

In the event, Dr. Rugova, a decent man, won a resounding victory, but it would be naive to suppose his victory settled very much. One look at the hard-faced Mr. Thaci should be sufficient to persuade anyone that he is not the kind of man to accept the will of the people peacefully. Many of his men are already in virtual control of the police, and the Western soldiers who are still patrolling Kosovo are perfectly well aware they have not disarmed the KLA. Somewhat ominously, Mr. Thaci has already said the elections were "stolen" from him, though for the moment he has promised to abide by the results.

The KLA is widely believed to be deeply implicated in organized crime. Eighty per cent of the cars in the province are stolen -- which is why they cost only a sixth of what they cost in neighbouring Macedonia. The KLA runs protection rackets in restaurants, cigarette smuggling and gasoline distribution. Members of the organization helped themselves to houses and businesses after the war was over, and in the centre of Pristina, the capital, a huge burnt-out sports complex is testimony to a KLA feud over who "owned" it, though it was quite clearly public property.

A representative of the LDK, Dr. Rugova's party, told me the LDK will be moderate in its demands that supporters of the SDK, Mr. Thaci's party, hand over the positions they were given after the war to elected LDK representatives. The reasons for this moderation are, I suspect, not merely a laudable desire for reconciliation, but an awareness that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun, especially in times like these. To paraphrase Mao slightly, one Kalashnikov is worth a thousand votes.

It appears, then, that the Western occupation of Kosovo protects the Kosovar Albanians from two potential sources of violence. The first is from Serbia itself: They regard Vojislav Kostunica as being more dangerous and extremist than Slobodan Milosevic. (They are all disturbed by the swiftness of the Western rapprochement with Serbia.)

But even if Kosovo is given its independence, which can surely be only a matter of time, and even if Serbia were to be prevailed upon to respect it, the occupation of Kosovo by the Western powers would still be necessary for the safety of Kosovars, for they would still need defending from Mr. Thaci and his boys.

In the meantime, one cannot help noticing the irony of the situation. Here was a war that was fought in the name of ethnic tolerance, but which has resulted in the complete and presumably final elimination of all visible trace of Serbian culture from the overwhelming majority of Kosovo. You would never know Serbs had once lived in Pristina. And so the ethnic cleansers (provoked by NATO bombs) have been ethnically cleansed.

Of course, the true, underlying motive for the West's Balkan policy is to revive the fortunes of the Toyota Motor Company. I don't think I have ever seen so many four-wheel drive vehicles (all painted white) as I saw in Pristina, belonging to the UN, the OSCE, UNMIK, the FAO, the UNHCR, the Council of Europe and many other humanitarian entities.

Anthony Daniels is a doctor, author and writer based in England.

TESTIMONY OF A HOSTAGE FROM CHECHNYA

---

She has a round pretty face of a semi-girl, semi-woman. There are dimples on her cheeks and her hair is carefully hidden under a heavy shawl. This is probably the way her grandmother and mother wore it. She might have dressed like this while living in a small Siberian town for nineteen years.


She was named Tatyana at birth but she was deprived of this name for many months. The Chechen terrorists who abducted Tatyana gave her as a "present" to Mufti Abdel Aziz Mukhammed Abdel Wahhab. He said his name was Sheikh Mansour. Those who read excerpts from a diary printed in Argumenty i Fakty No. 38 will remember that he called another slave of his Aisha...


...This nightmare haunts her every night. She sees a face with open jaws and bloodshot eyes and feels an unkempt beard stab her face. A smell from his mouth was bestial, a mixture of garlic, tobacco and the odour of rotten teeth. This man, whom she condemned hundreds of times, was again close to her in her nightmares. Memory can play strange tricks.


She had a good start in life. She finished school in 1995 and took a job as a helper in a nursery school. Everyone advised Tatyana to continue her education but she refused. She dreamed of an ordinary woman's happiness: a beloved husband and three or four children. That's why she became a helper. It seemed that happiness was so close. When Tatyana was 18, her friend Lena introduced her to Anatoly. At the age of 22, he seemed mature and reliable, probably like the father she did not remember. She always wanted to find someone who would become her husband and father at the same time.


Anatoly seemed perfect for this role: tall, broad-shouldered... They rented an apartment and lived as man and wife. "At first I did not know where all that money came from. Out of the blue, he would stop the nearest car in the street and ask the driver to take us to a restaurant. He would give a large order and enjoy to see me surprised and scared." Tatyana learned later that Anatoly was a drug dealer. He sold mainly heroin, which he bought from travelling Afghans and Chechens.


The personnel of the Department for Combating Drug Trafficking detained Anatoly on November 5, 1998 in an apartment of a woman who made a living buying stolen things. Drugs were found on him. Anatoly met an acquaintance of his from Chechnya in the temporary detention ward. The acquaintance gave him the phone number of Ruslan, who was able to help him escape to Chechnya and avoid militia persecution.


Tatyana: "Two weeks after the arrest, Tolya (Anatoly) showed up and said that he escaped from the detention ward and that we had to move out. We packed. Drug addict Sergey sheltered us in the storage area of the Altay shop for a day. When Sergey was under the influence of drugs, Anatoly stole his passport and we went to the airport. We bought tickets to Makhachkala. It was only on the plane that I learned that we were going to Chechnya..."


Captivity


They arrived in Makhachkala on November 23, 1998 and took a taxi to a village on the Chechen border. They reached the village of Gekhchi in a taxi driven by a Chechen. Ruslan's wife and parents lived there. Ruslan said that Tatyana and Anatoly could stay in his house until Anatoly got a new passport. Ruslan left for Makhachkala a couple of days later, Anatoly held meetings with Ruslan's acquaintances in Grozny and Urus-Martan.


Tatyana: "On December 2, 1998 Anatoly returned at around 2 p.m. and went to bed immediately. He said he was tired. At about 5 p.m., while Anatoly was still asleep, a man in fatigues and balaclava came in, took me by the hand and made me go outside. On seeing many people in balaclavas with automatic rifles, I started shouting and tried to break free. I was forced into a read Jeep of the Patrol make. Then they brought out the sleepy Anatoly and put him into the car."


...They were taken to Urus-Martan and put in the house of the parents of field commander Khaled Akhmadov. Brothers Akhmadov abducted dozens of hostages in the period between the wars. Besides Tatyana and Anatoly, eight more hostages, notably four foreigners and four Dagestanis, were kept there. The abducted Daghestanis included Academician Chaguchiyev, his son Raul and brother Abdurakhman. They had been seeking their relative missing in Chechnya. The fourth Daghestani's name was Shakh.


Tatyana: "Khaled Akhmadov made one of the [hostages], who could speak some Russian, say that he had arrived in Chechnya, on an intelligence-gathering assignment from a foreign secret service. This 'evidence' was recorded with a video camera. Guards beat him mercilessly when he mispronounced words or stumbled. Khaled interrogated Tolya upon our arrival in Urus Murtan. Khaled wanted Tolya to say that he worked for FSB (the Federal Security Service). Khaled refused to believe it when Tolya said that we were on the run from the militia.


"Tolya was taken away two days later and I never saw him again. Khaled told me the next day that [Tolya] was decapitated. He also said he would like to kill me but the Koran prohibited the killing of women...


"The foreigners were taken away a week after that. Khaled said the next day that he and his brothers had murdered the foreigners in the forest because they caused a lot of problems. The Daghestanis told me that brothers Akhmadov recorded the execution with a video camera and watched the tape in the next room."


Sheikh Mansour


A few days after those horrible events, the prisoners were moved to the cellar of Khaled's new house.


Says Tatyana: "I was there with two Ossetians, a Chechen and a Ukrainian. Talking was strictly prohibited. In January, Khaled Akhmadov beat me up severely and then raped me. I see his face every night now. And it continued in the same way. Field commander Apti Obetayev and his friend Ramadan - I don't know his surname - raped me, too, one after another. To stop from going mad, I tried to think that I was with my husband, Tolya.


"I think it was on February 23. They led me out of the cellar and brought me up, into a room with Khaled and three men whom I didn't know. Khaled said he wanted to make a present for me. He said from now on my master would be Sheikh Mansour and pointed to a slender man. Later in the day I was brought to his flat in the centre of Urus-Martan. The next day I decided to escape. I crawled out of the window onto a balcony but returned into the room when I heard the door bang. Mansour's guard suspected that I was trying to escape and told his master about this. He beat me up severely and forced me to write down information about my relatives, their names and addresses. I asked Mansour why he needed that information. To know were to look for me, he replied: 'If you try to escape again, I will throw you to the fighters.'


"Mansour regularly beat me, ordered me to stand on one leg, with my arms raised, by a wall. If I lowered down the leg, he hit me on the back. Mansour used to tell me that he hated Russians and had come here to fight them: 'I have fought them in Afghanistan, and now I am fighting them here.' I saw a gun wound on his right arm, but I don't know if he was wounded in Afghanistan or somewhere else.


"About a month after he took me over, Sheikh Mansour brought me to the village of Yermolovka, where Arbi Barayev and his fighters lived. I often saw Khattab, Basayev, Khaled Akhmadov, Obetayev and other field commanders in his house. Sheikh Mansour read the Koran to the fighters and was honoured as their spiritual mentor. On the whole, there were more Arabs, Turks, Tajiks and Uzbeks than Chechens there.


"Soon my Arab decided to marry but he needed to get rid of me first. He told me one day that he would present me as a slave-prisoner to some fighter. I wept and asked him to let me go. He agreed to do this, eventually. He cared for me in his own way.


"I will remember May 31, 1999 for the rest of my life. That day Mansour bought me a bus ticket to Nalchik. He told me on parting that a new war would begin soon. In Nalchik I changed for the bus to Novorossiisk and came to my granny Nastya. I called my mother from her and was home several days later. Now that I look back, I am surprised that I was such a fool: to leave my mother and home and go God knows where. The doctor keeps giving me tablets, and they are effective in the daytime. But I have the same dream every night: Akhmad's bloodshot eyes, his rough beard touching my face, and the terrible smell from his mouth, from which you cannot hide anywhere."

Afghan Conflict Revisited
November 03 2000 at 1:24 AM
No score for this post Ultra Russian Nationalist (login Ultra_Russian_Nationalist)
from IP address 208.14.205.1

---

In February 1989, the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan — withdrawing from the troubled land where the Soviet empire fought and lost its final war. Now Russia is back again supporting its former foe, mujahedin commander Ahmad Shah Masood, who is fighting the radical Sunni-Moslem Taliban movement that controls more than 90 percent of the country.

For years now, all foreign powers have officially denied that they are supplying the warring Afghan factions. But last week Moscow officially raised its stake in the conflict when it announced a meeting between Masood and Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

Of course, Russian officials have secretly met with Masood many times before. Russia has also been the main coordinator of the multinational effort to boost the anti-Taliban forces for years. After the Taliban captured the Afghan provinces bordering Iran in 1997 and sealed a noninterference agreement with Turkmenistan, Iranian weapons supplies to Masood and other anti-Taliban forces have been channeled by the Russian secret services through Central Asia.

Sergeyev’s meeting with Masood is a clear signal that Russian involvement in Afghanistan is no longer a covert operation. This diplomatic demonstration was also backed with barely disguised military support. State-owned ORT television this week showed footage from Afghan territory controlled by Masood in which anti-Taliban forces can be seen using newly painted — Russian military style — Grad multiple-rocket launchers to lob missiles at Taliban troops.

The same ORT report also showed Masood’s troops being supported by Russian-made military helicopters. Of course, all warring factions in Afghanistan have for years been been using old Soviet military equipment that was left behind when the Red Army withdrew. But most of Masood’s present arsenal as shown by ORT did not seem to be of that vintage. On the contrary, it appeared to have been supplied just days ago directly from Russian army stocks.

It has already been reported that Russian military instructors are deployed in Afghanistan and are training Masood’s fighters to use their Russian-supplied heavy weapons. Most likely the rebel-controlled helicopters that ORT filmed this week are actually being flown by Russian pilots. It’s also reasonable to suppose that these helicopters operate out of Russian air bases in Tajikistan, since the small mountainous region Masood controls does not provide adequate facilities to maintain combat-ready helicopters.

By flaunting the level of Russian involvement in Afghanistan, the Kremlin is openly challenging the Taliban: Stop trying to wipe out Masood or Russian involvement may be escalated further. It’s possible that Russia will not confine its support of anti-Taliban forces to mere logistics, but that Russian warplanes could begin a full-scale bombing campaign in support of Masood.

It’s also important to note that Russia officially stepped up its support for Masood just a few days after talks on Afghanistan in Moscow with visiting U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering. It would seem that the Kremlin first got an OK from Washington before officially disclosing the depth of its involvement in the Afghan conflict. It is also possible that the United States itself will take military action against the Taliban in the near future in reprisal for the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen.

With the United States, Russia, the Central Asian republics and Iran all as active enemies, the Taliban would appear to be in deep trouble. But this grand anti-Taliban alliance is shaky: All the partners are highly suspicious of one another; the Central Asian regimes are corrupt and inefficient; several of Masood’s field commanders have also recently changed sides after apparently accepting bribes from the Taliban; and the minority Tajiks supporting Masood will never win a civil war against the Taliban, which is backed by the majority Pushtu tribes.

President Vladimir Putin has been actively promoting himself as the leader of a crusade against Moslem radicals in Chechnya and Central Asia, and he has been soliciting Western support. At least with regard to the Taliban, it would appear that Washington has unofficially authorized Putin’s crusade. But if the Taliban refuse to back down and Russia is dragged into open hostilities, Putin may find himself fighting a determined foe with no true allies supporting him. The resulting disaster may be comparable to the Soviet debacle of a decade ago.

YEP STREETS OF RUSSIA ARE REALLY SAFE

News Release - (19 April 2000)

Kidnapping reaches record peak, Hiscox survey reveals
Worldwide kidnappings for ransom in 1999 reached a record peak, the latest survey released today by specialist insurer, the Hiscox Group.

The Hiscox Kidnap Monitor, the most comprehensive survey of its kind, shows that in 1999 the number of reported worldwide kidnappings for ransom rose from the 1998 peak of 1,690 to 1,789 in 1999, a rise of 5.9%. 92% of those incidents took place in the top 10 riskiest countries.

Latin America still tops the table as the most likely region to be kidnapped in, accounting for over three quarters of all incidents recorded last year. Despite the Former Soviet Union's determination to stamp out crime, it continued to attract record levels of kidnappings with 105 reported in 1999, an increase of 84% on 1998.

Overall, the last 8 years has seen reported worldwide kidnappings for ransom rise by 70%. The total number of kidnappings is likely to be considerably higher, because many incidents - particularly in the former Soviet Union - go unreported to the authorities and are dealt with privately.

Rob Davies, Senior Special Risks underwriter at insurance group Hiscox, commented:

"The combination of political unrest, lawlessness and poverty are key reasons for the rise in the number of kidnappings for money over most of the last decade. Despite the rise in this year's figures, the increase has not been as pronounced as in recent years, possibly because business travellers are now more aware of the dangers in some of these countries and are better prepared."
"The problem remains that in some parts of the world kidnapping for ransom has become an accepted part of life, a problem some authorities are struggling to eradicate. We advise anyone travelling to or working in the "at risk" countries to exercise due caution."

Summary:

Latin America, for the ninth year running, is the worst region in the world for kidnappings. During the past decade over half of all kidnappings occurred in Colombia, with incidents in 1999 alone accounting for almost 70% of the worldwide total. Combined, Colombia and Mexico account for two thirds of the world's kidnap for ransom incidents.

Other countries showing an increase in the incidence of kidnappings over the year include the Former Soviet Union, ranking number 3 in kidnapping, where there were 105 reported incidents in 1999, an 84% increase on 1998 - and well over twice as many as in 1997.

Source: Hiscox Group (The statistics are based on those cases about which Hiscox has obtained reasonably reliable information and do not purport to represent the full extent of the problem.) * Former Soviet Union comprises the Russian Federation and the 14 fully independent republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan

Press enquiries:

Alex Gordon Shute, Hiscox Group: 0207 448 6609
Alan McCormick/Catherine Spaul, Fishburn Hedges: 0207 839 4321

AMAZING, SIMPLY AMAZING

how'bout this instead:

I push it a little further down your SORE throat so you can take a closer look at my belly button?

LOL..

would you like that, Blue ZEBRA?

just don't let me rip yo mouth apart if I get exited..LOL

welcome back, Fred...how was the "maraphon"?

comment
Anything goes in Kosovo's election
The vote was declared fair before it even took place

Anthony Daniels

"I am not suggesting the OSCE committed fraud, though fraud is well within its normal repertoire of behaviour. "

So what is his suggestion then???

I don't think the west occupies Kosovo, especialy after such an expensive war to let any warlord-drugdealer rule it. They took teyr man. A moderate is a man who is obedient.
I think they are right to do so. When corruption and mafia embrace all the aspects of the economy and when an appearence of order is ensured by an occupation army, how do expect to hold fair elections?
Fair elections in Kosovo is a fantasy. In the Middle Ages they married the princess to the man so that he be king. Nowadays they hold elections.
Both method have the same symbolic value and the same level of democracy in such a case. Voting being more in the custom of our time.

---

"Putin may find himself fighting a determined foe with no true allies supporting him. The resulting disaster may be comparable to the Soviet debacle of a decade ago. "

I don't think he will do as bad as the Soviets. And the actors are not in the same role as a decade ago...

Dima,

What's that, a "maraphon"?

"Demie" is it your surname given by Nice-Juicy-Sh!t-Drinker?

well, weren't yougoing for a bike run, Fred?

As for demmie, lol...that's actually the nick of Dima Jr. All Arabian Sore Zebra's lips are all over it at the moment, LOL..


HE SO GOOOD.. HE DA BEST! LOL

Now that Kostunica won the serbian café become "underground"!?
Are they so afraid of the repression of the New Regime? The NWO?

BTW I don't know what's serbian at this café.
...
Mayby once a week...

I SALUTE YOU, ZEBRA, you STAR, youu !

LOL..

Noooo, pffffff!
The marathon was by car! lol
but a preformance anyway: look: 23hours driving. Not counting the stops at the "rasthof" to rest or to sleep (two times 2hours) or to deliver delicious juicy sh!t.
But including the crossing of the D/PL border and the PL/LT.
Big improvement at these borders: just 20 minutes at both of them. Especialy at the German/Pl one where the line was 2km long and more and 2h30 a few months ago.

I SALUTE YOU, ZEBRA, you STAR, youu !

LOL..