Bei starken Regen saufen die Anwohner in der Kenete - Spitale bei Durres ab, mit ihren illegalen und besetzten Häusern.

5.12.2008 by Atahualpa.

 Nun haben diese Leute keinen Strom, kein Wasser  denn es ist deren Philosophie, die nächste Wasser- und Strom Leitung anzuzapfen und zugleich sich auf fremden Grundstücken anzusiedeln. Die Bande i  Durresi (Unter Capos von Lul Berisha) ist dort ja bekanntlich auch beheimatet, so das es auch Morde in der Gegend gibt.

Durrës- reshjet, banorët e Kënetës pa energji dhe ujë

» Dërguar më: 05/12/2008 - 19:55

• Situata pas reshjeve të fundit që përfshinë vendin, vazhdon të mbetet problematike në zonën e Kënetës në Durrës. Banorët ankohen se nuk i ka parë askush nga autoritete, si pasojë e reshjeve ato kanë mbetur pa energji dhe uje te pijshëm  DURRES- Reshjet e dendura që përfshinë të gjithë vendin tonë, ku me dhjetra shtëpi mbeten të përmbytura si rezultat i motit të keq shkaktuan shumë dëme materiale, duke u kthyer në një problematikë dhe për zonën e Kënetës në qytetin e Durrësit. Si rezultat i reshjeve të dendura shumë prej kolektorëve në këtë zonë vazhdojnë ende të jenë të bllokuara. Banorët ankohen lidhur me këtë situatë, ku uji ka hyrë në banesat e tyre. Ata shprehen se askush nuk ka marrë asnjë masë për ta për më tepër që ekziston ende frika e reshjeve të tjera të mundshme, ç’ka do ti rrezikonte më tepër banorët e zonës së Kënetës. Ata kanë mëse tri ditë pa energji elektrike dhe pa ujë të pijshëm. (a.r/news24/balkanweb) http://balkanweb.com/sitev4/index.php?id=30572 So wird man Land Besitzer in Abanien: Man baut sich so eine Tafel, und setzt die in der Nähe einer Wasser- und Strom Leitung hin und möglichst an oder noch besser auf der Strasse. Und dann jammert man über den Staat, der den Land Banditen nicht auch noch kostenlos Strassen usw.. baut.

Geschrieben in Economy - Wirtschaft | Drucken | Keine Kommentare »

Schwere Proteste gegen ein Skandal Projekt einer Sizilianischen Firma am Cap Karaburun - Albanien

5.12.2008 by Atahualpa.

Opposition Grows to Albania Wind Project

 

05 December 2008 Tirana _ Opposition is mounting against a deal between Albania and Italy to build one of Europe’s biggest wind farms, after a Balkan Insight investigation lifted the lid on shady aspects of the agreement.

………………………

Environmental groups, meanwhile, are outraged that the Ministry of Environment issued a permit for the wind farm on the Karaburun peninsula – the site of the nature reserve park – as this is one of the most pristine sites in the Mediterranean.

Although the Albanian Energy Regulatory Agency approved a licensed for the construction of the wind farm in September 2008, after the Environment Ministry issued a permit, Enpower Albania has not completed a feasibility study proving there is enough wind to justify the project.

Meanwhile, experts have pointed out that even if it is constructed, Albania will not benefit because the electricity will be transported to Italy.

 http://balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/15336/

Erstaunliche Erklärungen von Wirtschafts Minister Genc Ruli, einem der dubiosesten Politiker in Albanien, weil er nun 18 Jahre egal für welche Regierung in einem Amte ist. Genc Ruli war sogar Innenminister einmal vor 15 Jahren, als der Schmuggel nach Montenegro organisiert wurde.

Ganz erstaunlich ist die Zustimmung für dieses Mafia Projekt, wo die komplette Energie angeblich nach Italien geleitet wird durch den Natur Schutz und Fischerei Minister: LUFTER XHUVELI

http://www.moe.gov.al

LUFTER XHUVELI weiss sehr genau, das dieses Fake Projekt nur dazu dient, für Milliarden über eine Politische Real Estate Immobilien Firma enorme Profite zu machen, weil Albanische Politiker direkt über die Betreiber Firma in Italien daran beteiligt sind.  

So sieht Karaburun heute aus!

Zur Legende von LUFTER XHUVELI, sei noch gesagt das er richtiger Professor schon unter dem Kommunistischen System in Albanien war 1975-1997: Professor of Genetics of Plants,  “Agricultural University of Tirana” und deshalb sollte man seinen derzeitigen Hintergrund sehen: nämlich über 1975-1997: Professor of Genetics of Plants,  “Agricultural University of Tirana”, !!!

LUFTER XHUVELI Hintergund Info:

Die Albanischen Fischer erzählen, das er mittels Fischer Booten bei Vlore direkt am Schmuggel beteiligt ist. Dies zum Hintergrund Wissen und in Wirklichkeit bewegt ein LUFTER XHUVELI, absolut Nichts im Natur Schutz! Aber die Zustimmung für ein derart dubioses Projekt, ist absolut Skandalös.

Ausführungen des Ministers Genc Ruli in den Kommentaren, oder gleich direkt aus der Minister Website zum Thema, wo 250 Wind Generatoren für den Export errichtet werden sollen und Genc Ruli in betrügerischer Weise vorrechnet, das obwohl für Export Geschäfte keine MWST anfällt, der Staat über 200 Millionen € MWST verdienen würde: Die Lizenz hat eine Firma Enpower Albania Sh.p.k erhalten.

http://www.mete.gov.al/news.php?idm=674&l=a

Das in der Antike als “Tor zur Unterwelt” bekannte Cap Karaburun (bei Vlore und der Insel Sazan), soll durch illegale Statements und Staats Aktionen, bei Bruch Internationaler Vereinbarungen und ratifizierter Abkommen in einen angeblichen Windpark umgewandelt werden, was eines der sattsam bekannten Methoden des gigantischen Grundstücks Diebstahles ist und der Geldwäsche über Ferien Haus Immobilien.

Das Haupt Problem ist einfach, wie es im Artikel ebenso steht, das durch derart illegale Praktiken, die gesamte Region dort illegal bebaut und damit zerstört wird, wie man es bei Durres und Sarande am besten sieht. Es sind die seit über 10 Jahren Geldwäsche Systeme der Süd Italienischen Cosa Nostra und der Albanischen Politischen Mafia, welche sich auch Nichts Neues einfallen lassen. Immer waren es erfundene Projekte, wie hier Energie Parks, oder es sind auch mal Kinder Hospitals usw.. wo dann ganze Regionen plötzlich illegal von der Politischen Mafia besiedelt werden und das Orikum Desaster ist ja nicht weit davon.

Der Albanische Wirtschafts Minister Genc Ruli unterzeichnete ein Statement mit der Italienischen “Moncada Costruzioni” , das ein Windpark mit einem Investitions Volumen von 2,5 Milliarden € im Natur Park bei dem Cap Karaburan gebaut wird, der die gewonnene Energie über ein neues Kabel nach Italien weiter leitet.

In Wirklichkeit handelt es sich um ein Mafiöses Immobilien Projekt, denn die Firma “Moncada Costruzioni” plant ein Netzwerk von Strassen im National Park von Karaburun, um dort hohe Geldsummen zu waschen und über den Immobilien Verkauf reich zu werden und Italienische und Albanische Politiker, über die sattsam bekannten Geldwäsche Banken in Zypern zu bedienen und zu beteiligen.

Das Albanische Mafia System kann jeder leicht erkennen, denn über 400.000 Immobilien wurden auf gestohlenen Grundstücken gebaut und am liebsten entlang der Strassen, Wasser- und Strom Leitungen.

Deshalb gilt, was dieser Artikel sehr gut beschreibt, das man mit derartigen dubiosen Projekten in Wirklichkeit über Tausend Hektar Natur Park in die Mafiösen Immobilien Geschäfte der “Politiker”,( wobei man in Albanien ja genügend Erfahrung hat mit der Sizilianischen Mafia hat) umwandeln will.

Der Chef der Sizilianer Firma aus Agrigent im Interview in 2006!

Salvatore Moncada: Intervista filmata - Moncada Costruzioni

Und was er selbst ausführt, über die Sizilianische Mafia etc.

Across the island in Agrigento, industrialist Salvatore Moncada described himself as proof businessmen can stand up to mobsters.

He has repeatedly refused demands made of his 180-employee company, Moncada Costruzioni Srl, Italy’s fifth-largest producer of wind energy. In one case, Moncada’s testimony helped jail a mobster who demanded $7,500.

At one point, Moncada wore a wire to a meeting with a mobster. “I was sweating a little bit,” he recalled. But no threats were made and the gangster wasn’t arrested.
http://www.katu.com/news/national/13766102.html

Trotzdem muss man sich fragen, woher er 2,6 Milliarden € hat und überhaupt seine durchaus bekannte Firma, welche Nr. 5 ist im Windpark Geschäft in Italien.

Moncada Costruzioni

L’azienda di costruzioni ha di recente diversificato la propria attività nel settore delle energie rinnovabili, collaborando attivamente con entità estere.
Intervista a Salvatore Moncada, socio di Moncada Costruzioni.
(Flash 7 required)

L’azienda

Costituita nel 1991 come società edile, negli ultimi cinque anni la Moncada Costruzioni si è trasformata in una realtà integrata, nella quale le capacità progettuali e realizzative preesistenti si sono specializzate ed integrate con le migliori competenze e tecnologie disponibili nel comparto dell’energia eolica.

Il Gruppo è già titolare di 5 impianti eolici in funzione, cui ne saranno presto aggiunti altri tre, per una potenza complessiva installata di 205 MW.

L’attività di sviluppo e progettazione di parchi eolici non si ferma al solo territorio nazionale, ma sono state avviate pratiche autorizzative anche in Tunisia ed Albania, per potenze rispettivamente quantificabili in 1.000 e 500 MW circa.

Per quanto riguarda lo sviluppo della geotermia, la Moncada Costruzioni è titolare di un progetto per la costruzione di una centrale geotermoelettrica nell’isola di Pantelleria, mentre sono in corso trattative per l’acquisizione di due impianti industriali nel comparto delle biomasse.
Moncada Costruzioni S.r.l.
Via Pastore, 6
92100 Agrigento
Tel: 0922 607824
e-mail: info@moncadacostruzioni.com

Xhemal Mato, who attended the presentation in Agrigento, says this will result in “the urbanisation of the area, with a lot of infrastructure, and that’s where the mafia comes in. The moment they start building the road, villas will follow”.

Ein Statement ist ein Statement und praktisch ist das eine Projekt Vorgenehmigung, bzw. Absichts Erklärung und mehr nicht. Erstaunlich ist auch, das überhaupt keine Details bereits für diese vorläufige Zustimmung dem Wirtschafts Ministerium vorgelegt wurden.

Noch ist Nichts passiert, weil derartige Statements absolut wertlos sind, wenn man nicht auf den schnellsten Wege, alle gesetzlichen Auflagen, wie Pläne, Geologische und Topograhische Untersuchungen vorlegt. Allein das würde bei der Fläche schon ein Vermögen Kosten.

Auch wenn nur das Council der Regierung (Këshilli i Ministrave - KRRTRSH) als höchste Instanz derartige Genehmigungen geben kann, ist allein die Vor Genehmigung des Wirtschafts Ministers Genc Ruli, eine äusserst bedenkliche und Gesetzwidrige Aktion.*

Damit so ein Windpark gebaut werden kann, bedarf es nach den vorgeschriebenen Geologischen und Vermessungs Arbeiten, vor allem eines Beschlusses des KRRTRSH - Councils der Regierung! Solche Beschlüße haben bis heute nur sehr wenige Projekte erhalten und in diesem Falle sind die Aussichten sehr schlecht, den allein die Unterschrift unter einem Statement, ist illegal denn die Küsten Region unterliegt dem Managment Plan der Weltbank (KRRTRSH Beschluß), und etlichen anderen International gültigen Abkommen, gerade auch für das Cap Karbarun. ** unten!!!

Noch ist Nichts passiert, aber bemerkenswert stellt hier ein Balkaninsight Artikel richtig fest: “ist erst einmal eine Strasse gebaut, werden sich dort illegal Villen ansiedeln etc. etc.. Deshalb ist hier ein grosses Mafiöses Geschäft zu vermuten, ähnlich wie der Industrie Zone und dem Energie Park in der Porto Romana - Spitale - Durres.
“While presently designated a managed nature reserve, a series of studies has proposed upgrading the whole area into a national park. These include the MedWetCoast project of 2006, the Biodiversity-Strategic Action Plan of 2002, the Coastal Zone Action Plan for the Albanian coast of 1996, and the report on the activity of “Special Protected Areas and Implantation of SPA Protocol” for Albania of 1996.”

Ministri i Ekonomisë z.Genc Ruli nënshkruan marrëveshje me Presidentin e Grupit “Moncada Costruzioni” Salvatore Moncada 02/12/2008

Albania and Italy sign 6 deals and cooperation acts
…………..
Likewise, the Minister of Economy, Energy and Trade Genc Ruli and the President of the Moncada Costruzioni Group Salvador Moncada signed a joined statement for building of a large wind farm in Southern and South-eastern Vlora as well as the interconnection line with constant energy between the Italian transmission network and the Albanian network.

Council Regierung

Wind Farm Threatens Albanian Paradise

By Besar Likmeta and Gjergj Erebara in Tirana

02 December 2008 Continent’s potentially biggest onshore wind-farm could wreak havoc with unspoiled coastline - and may be breaking the law.

Albania’s government risks wrecking one of Europe’s last unspoiled environments – and breaking its own laws – by allowing an Italian company, acting through an Albanian subsidiary, to build a wind farm on a coastal nature reserve and on part of a national park.

The government has transferred more than 97 hectares of land to Italy’s Moncada Energy Group, which through its Albanian subsidiary, Enpower Albania, aims to build a 500 megawatt wind farm in the south of the country.

Both the decision to grant the land the subsequent environmental permit are illegal under Albania’s own law for protecting natural reserves, Balkan Insight can reveal.

The grandiose project to build Europe’s largest wind farm will be on the table for signing when Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, meets Sali Berisha, his Albanian counterpart, in Tirana on Tuesday.

Balkan Insight has learned that the Albanian government changed a law on the transfer of public lands just weeks before the company presented its project, although officials deny the change was connected to any desire on the part of the government to accommodate the Italian company.

Environmental groups, meanwhile, are outraged that the Ministry of Environment issued a permit for the wind farm on the Karaburun peninsula – the site of the nature reserve park – as this is one of the most pristine sites in the Mediterranean.

Although the Albanian Energy Regulatory Agency approved a licensed for the construction of the wind farm in September 2008, after the Environment Ministry issued a permit, Enpower Albania has not completed a feasibility study proving there is enough wind to justify the project.

Meanwhile, experts have pointed out that even if it is constructed, Albania will not benefit because the electricity will be transported to Italy.

……..

The biggest wind farm in Europe:

With a total generating capacity of 500 megawatts, MW, the project will potentially be the biggest onshore wind farm in Europe, Moncada announced in May 2008.

The project will include the construction of a transmission line running from the port of Vlora in Albania to the Italian port of Brindisi. A 400kV power cable, stretching 145km under the Adriatic at a depth of over 900 metres, will allow electricity to be transmitted in either direction. The interconnection line and the wind farm have an estimated cost of 1.25 billion euros. Construction is expected to start in 2010.

Acting on the initiation of the Minister of Environment, Lufter Xhuveli, Albania’s Council of Ministers approved the transfer 97,746 hectares of public forest and pastures from the Karaburun managed nature reserve and the Llogara national park to Enpower Albania on May 8, 2008, to construct a wind energy park and connecting roads and power transmission lines.

However, the decision contradicts Albania’s own laws on protected natural sites. Moreover, the constitution states that any act, like the one approved by the Council of Ministers, or the issue of the environmental permit to Enpower Albania to construct the wind farm, is rendered null and void if it contravenes an existing law approved by parliament.

Admittedly, the decision of the Council of Ministers mainly affects nature reserve land rather than a national park. But it does affect 0.6 hectares of the Llogara national park, and a 2002 law on protected areas forbids all construction “of roads and power transmission lines” in national parks.

Experts point out that several scientific studies had recommended turning the whole area into a national park.

Environmentalist charge that although the procedure used by the Ministry of Environment to issue the environmental permit for the wind farm violate the law, and although they have written to the government and international institutions about this, they have received no response.

They note also that as part of the Emerald Network of Areas of Special Conservation Interests to Europe, which supports the 1979 Bern convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, which Albania signed in 1995, the construction of a wind farm in any part of a national park violates the country’s obligations under the treaty.

Although the law does allow projects on managed natural reserves after they receive an environmental permit, before the permit is granted the decision must follow intense public consultation.

The Aahrus convention that Albania has ratified, and for which has created an office in the Ministry of Environment, requires that this public consultation is undertaken by the Aahrus centre, including the issue of published records.

………..
Albania’s deputy Minister of Environment, Taulan Bino, recalls that the law permits construction within managed nature reserves if they receive the Ministry of Environment permit, which imposes various obligations on the developers.

Bino accepted that if the project touched the national park itself, it would however be illegal.

Balkan Insight also asked the Ministry for access to the environmental impact study and documents filed by Moncada in connection with the issue of the environmental permit.

But the ministry’s director for Environmental Licensing, Gavrosh Zela, refused this request, saying they could only release copies of their decision and of the documents filed by Moncada after 15 years had elapsed.

This was in spite of the fact that Freedom of Information legislation in Albania obliges officials to release all documents that are not classified as national security secrets.

Significantly, Balkan Insight has also learned that after Moncada presented its project to the Albanian government, led by Sali Berisha, the authorities rapidly amended the law on the transfer of publicly owned forest and pasture to private companies for economic projects. They changed the 2005 law on March 19, 2007, two weeks before Moncada presented its project to Berisha.

The changes allow the government to increase the amount of public pasture it can transfer to private companies without seeking approval from parliament from 30 to 100 hectares.

The authorities deny the law was changed to accommodate Moncada. Deputy Minister Bino, who drafted the changes, says they were not related to the project of the Italian company.

Paradise, but not for long:

Experts consider the Karaburun peninsula, which covers 62 square kilometres close to the city of Vlora, alongside the adjunct Llogara national park, one of the most important natural sites in the Mediterranean.

While presently designated a managed nature reserve, a series of studies has proposed upgrading the whole area into a national park. These include the MedWetCoast project of 2006, the Biodiversity-Strategic Action Plan of 2002, the Coastal Zone Action Plan for the Albanian coast of 1996, and the report on the activity of “Special Protected Areas and Implantation of SPA Protocol” for Albania of 1996.

Genuario Belmonte, Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Salento, southern Italy describes Karaburun as an unspoiled paradise. “Karaburun is a mythical place, a postcard of what the Mediterranean used to be,” Professor Belmonte says. “The peninsula is the best asset for the region as a way to attract tourists from the European Union.”

“The area of Karaburn is one of the few protected areas that merits this designation because so many other areas… have been destroyed,” Xhemal Mato, of the Albanian Environmental League, says.

“The fact that the only road leading to the Karaburun peninsula passes though a military base, which has sealed it off from the world, makes it one of the richest environmental areas for flora and fauna in the country,” he adds.

Albanian environmental activists told Balkan Insight that after Mocada unveiled the project at a meeting in May at its headquarters in Agrigento, Italy, they noted from seeing the plans that the company aimed to build a large connecting network of roads. This, they say, will inevitably spawn other constructions.

Albanian environmental activists told Balkan Insight that after Mocada unveiled the project at a meeting in May at its headquarters in Agrigento, Italy, they noted from seeing the plans that the company aimed to build a large connecting network of roads. This, they say, will inevitably spawn other constructions.

According to the Albanian Environmental League, the approved connecting road network totals 870,000 square metres, which will have a huge impact on the peninsula. Based on an average road width of 5.6 metres wide, this means about 151 kilometres of new roads.

Xhemal Mato, who attended the presentation in Agrigento, says this will result in “the urbanisation of the area, with a lot of infrastructure, and that’s where the mafia comes in. The moment they start building the road, villas will follow”.

Balkan Insight put Mato’s claims to Moncada, but the company refused to comment.

Professor Belmonte also warns that the network of roads and related infrastructure could be “the beginning of the end for the natural value of the peninsula”.

Albania’s national tourism strategy, which the government approved in 2005, places emphasis on ecological and cultural tourism. The strategy describes natural sites as prime assets with regard to the overdeveloped coastlines of neighbouring countries.

“The value of Vlora as a tourist destination lies in the absolutely natural areas of Karaburun,” said Professor Belmonte, adding that the wind park would have the same negative transforming effect as recent developments on the coastline around Durres and Saranda.

According to Mato, “The Karaburun peninsula is a backdrop for Vlora and as a rule of thumb, any wind farm should have been sited at least 40 kilometres away.”

The solution to the energy crisis?

No one doubts Albania needs more energy, and that carbon-friendly, so-called green energy is the best form of all. But experts from the country’s Regulatory Energy Agency, ERE, told Balkan Insight that Albania would not benefit much from the wind farm planned in the Karaburun peninsula.

Albanian activists from the environmental league during their visit to Italy said they were told by the company that the electricity from the wind farm would mainly be for export. “They admitted that not one single kilowatt will stay in Albania,” said Mato.

Balkan Insight has not been able to confirm that claim with the company.

………..
According to Mato, Albania has little to gain and a great deal to lose. “I don’t understand what’s for us in this project,” he says.

Besar Likmeta is BIRN Albania editor. Gjergj Erebara is an editor for AlbaniaEconomy.com. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication.

* Genc Ruli: Genc Ruli ist die einzige Person, welche praktisch in Albanien in sämtlichen Regierungen vertreten war und er war sogar mal kurz Innenminister! Eine höchst merkwürdige Person und wer wohl der Hintermann ist, bei solchen “Geschäften”

** Hajdaraga Info!

Peinlicherweise erhielt die US Flotte im Janaur 2003, eine Erlaubnis durch den Mafia Boss und damaligen Verteidigungs Minister Luan Hajdaraga (Neffe von Baskhim Fino, einem anderen Verbrecher der Minister war in Albanien das Cap Karaburun einen der extrem seltenen unberührten Natur Parks in Europa zu Übungs Zwecken mit Schiffs Geschützen und Raketen zu bombardieren. Damals machte halt jeder sogenannte Minister in Albanien. was er wollte und nur damit die Kasse stimmt. Hajdaraja, ging dann für die US Ganoven nach Basra, wo er Vize Konsul war, den bei der Ermordung von über 1 Million irakischen Zivilisten, brauchten die Amerikaner Hilfe von so durchgeknallten Verbrechern! US-Raketentests in Albanien am Cap Karaburun (in der Antike als Eingang zur Hölle bekannt

Zwischen Italien-Brindisi und Albanien-Vlore wird entgültig nun eine 400 kw Strom Leitung gebaut. Distanz 155 Kilometer

Italy Approves Power Link with Albania

19 August 2008 Tirana _ The Italian Ministry of Economic Development has given the green light to the construction of a 400 kilovolt power line which will link its port of Brindisi with Albania.

The project, which will be constructed by the Italian company Moncada, gives the Italian energy grid access to electricity markets in Eastern Europe.

……………..

http://balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/12477/

Shqipëri-Itali, miratohet linja energjitike nënujore 400 kv
» Dërguar më: 18/08/2008 - 19:30

http://balkanweb.com/sitev4/index.php?id=25336

Proteste sind direkt an den Minister LUFTER XHUVELI zurichten, der sogar lt. Vertrag mehrere Obligationen offen hält im Vertrag mit der Sizialinischen Firma. Kurz gesagt: Real Estage Geschäfte, ohne Ende.

For further Environmental Information please contact:

IT & Communication Sector: 

Hier kann man sich beschweren!

For further Environmental Information please contact:

IT & Communication Sector:

Phone: +355 4 2267341
E-mail: info@moe.gov.al
General Secretary:

Office: +355 4 2270-623
Assistant of the Minister:

Office: +355 4 2270-630

Head of the Cabinet:

Office:+355 4 2270-621

Geschrieben in Economy - Wirtschaft, Balkan | Drucken | 7 Kommentare »

Albanische Videos der Geschichte vor 1950

5.12.2008 by Atahualpa.

Albanien 1939 Militär Parade der Italiener

Albanien 1938

Albanien 1936

1928

Kommunistischer Widerstand und Videos, wie die Italiener Albanische Infrastruktur aufbauten

Geschrieben in Geschichte - History | Drucken | Keine Kommentare »

Bush bereut, schiebt aber den Geheimdiensten die Schuld zu. Eine gröbere Verzerrung der Wirklichkeit.

5.12.2008 by Atahualpa.

02.12.2008    14:47 Uhr
Bush und die Massenvernichtungswaffen Reality Reloaded Größte anzunehmende Fehlinformation: Bush bereut, schiebt aber den Geheimdiensten die Schuld zu. Eine gröbere Verzerrung der Wirklichkeit. Von Hans Leyendecker

Schöne neue Weltsicht: George W. Bush bezeichnet die Falschinformation der Geheimdienste als “größten Fehler” seiner Amtszeit. Foto: AP

Als “größten Fehler” seiner Amtszeit hat der scheidende US-Präsident George W. Bush die falschen Aussagen zu angeblichen Massenvernichtungswaffen im Irak bezeichnet.

“Am meisten ist während meiner Präsidentschaft das Scheitern der Geheimdienste im Irak zu bedauern”, sagte Bush in einem Fernseh-Interview: “Eine Menge Leute haben ihr Ansehen aufs Spiel gesetzt und gesagt, die Massenvernichtungswaffen sind ein Grund, Saddam Hussein zu entmachten.”

Er wolle nicht darüber spekulieren, ob er den Krieg auch ohne die falschen Informationen begonnen hätte, sagte er.

Diverse US-Präsidenten haben gelegentlich die Unwahrheit gesagt. Aber die Einlassung Bushs, er sei von Geheimdiensten falsch informiert worden, ist eine der gröberen Verzerrungen der Wirklichkeit. Nach dem 11. September attackierten die USA zwar Afghanistan, weil dort der Auftraggeber des Massenmordes, Osama bin Laden, Zuflucht gefunden hatte, aber das eigentliche Ziel war damals schon der Irak.

Irak-Obsession der Bush-Gefolgsleute

Buch-Autor Bob Woodward hat die Irak-Obsessionen der Bush-Gefolgsleute entlarvt. Vor allem der damalige Verteidigungsminister Donald Rumsfeld, der Falke Paul Wolfowitz und Vizepräsident Dick Cheney hatten den Irak früh ins Visier genommen. Weil Cheney und Rumsfeld den meisten Geheimdiensten misstrauten, wurde Anfang 2002 im Pentagon eine Arbeitgruppe mit dem Titel “Office of Special Plans” (OSP) installiert, die sich selbst “the cabal” nannte. Das heißt “Intrige”, und dieser Name war für die verschworene Truppe, die nur zwei Dutzend Mitarbeiter hatte, keine Übertreibung.

Aufgabe der Spezialabteilung war es, Beweise für eine Verbindung zwischen dem Diktator Saddam Hussein und Osama Bin Laden herbeizuschaffen und das Arsenal der angeblichen Massenvernichtungswaffen Saddams neu zu taxieren. Dabei hatten sie relativ freie Hand, denn seit dem Auszug der UN-Inspekteure verfügten die US-Dienste über keine eigenen Quellen mehr im Irak.

Der amerikanische Journalist Seymour Hersh beschrieb das Verfahren des OSP als Prinzip “Ofenrohr”. Ohne die übliche Prüfung durch den normalen Geheimdienstapparat gelangten OSP-Informationen oder -Erfindungen wie durch ein Offenrohr direkt zum Präsidenten.

Insbesondere die CIA war aus Sicht des einflussreichen OSP eine Truppe von Ignoranten, die Verbindungen zwischen al-Qaida und Saddam Hussein herunterzuspielen suchten. “Die Linse, durch die man schaut, beeinflusst, wonach man sucht”, erklärte Wolfowitz. Die Linse zeigte einen omnipotenten, hochgefährlichen Diktator. Die OSP-Truppe ließ sich mit Falschinformationen von Ahmed Tschalabi, dem damaligen Chef des Irakischen Nationalkongresses, versorgen.

Einige Geheimdienstler der CIA gingen in die innere Emigration oder quittierten den Dienst, die meisten machten mit. Insbesondere der damalige CIA-Chef George Tenet lieferte plötzlich dem Präsidenten die passenden Antworten nach OSP-Zuschnitt: Saddam verfügte angeblich über chemische und biologische Waffen. Er bastelte angeblich an einer Atombombe. Al-Qaida und Saddam arbeiteten angeblich zusammen. Nichts davon stimmte.

……….. So wiederholte Bush im September 2002 die Behauptung der Briten, der Irak sei in der Lage, binnen 45 Minuten chemische Waffen zum Einsatz zu bringen, obwohl sein eigener Geheimdienst der falschen britischen Quelle keinen Glauben geschenkt hatte. Auch tauchte die 45-Minuten-Lüge in dem NIE-Papier nicht auf.

Einen Monat später erklärte Bush, der Irak könne “jederzeit biologische und chemische Waffen an Terroristen geben”. Auch das stand so nicht im Bericht. Am 5. Februar 2003 erklärte der damalige Außenminister Colin Powell vor dem UN-Sicherheitsrat, warum Saddam für die Welt hochgefährlich sei. Powells Beweisführung, die von den OSP-Leuten beeinflusst worden war, erwies sich als Feuerwerk der Desinformation, was den Ex-Außenminister heute sehr verbittert.

…….

“Lüge heißt in Kenntnis der Wahrheit die Unwahrheit sagen”, hat Franz Josef Strauß, der ein Meister im Erfinden von Geschichten war, den Umgang mit politischem Schwindel mal erklärt. Nach dieser Definition hat Bush möglicherweise nicht gelogen, denn er hat vermutlich den eigenen Schwindel mal geglaubt.

(SZ vom 03.12.2008/hai)

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Kosovo and the House of war

5.12.2008 by CrniLabudovi.

Dispatches

 

Ramush Haradinaj—Kosovo independence fighter and former prime minister, recently acquitted of war crimes—with his father, Hilmi. Photograph by Jonas Karlsson.

 

House of War

After Ramush Haradinaj led Kosovo’s bloody fight for independence from Serbia, becoming provisional prime minister, he was tried for war crimes by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague. In a clash of 21st-century justice and 15th-century laws, Haradinaj came out the winner.

by William Langewiesche December 2008

Listen to William Langewiesche read this article, or download the podcast here.

The head of the household has the right to occupy the chief place in the house, to possess his own weapons, to control the earnings of those who live in the house, to buy, sell, and alter the land, to give and take loans and enter into guarantees, to construct houses, to assign those in the house to work for free, to possess wine or raki, to punish those who live in the house when they do not behave in the interest of the household. —From the laws of the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjin (Kosovo, 15th century).

In the category of life’s little curiosities, consider the experience of the Austrian engineer who took the aisle seat directly in front of mine in the economy section of Austrian Airlines Flight 372—a small airliner that was loading before takeoff last spring for the morning’s run from Amsterdam to Vienna. The engineer had a thin, moralistic face, and short, gelled hair. He sat very straight with his head bent slightly forward, reading some industry paper and exuding rigidity even from behind. He wore an immaculate white shirt, cuffed around the wrists. The window seat beside him was empty, and surely he hoped to keep it that way. But after a while, among all the inbound passengers of the ordinary sort who fly in the mornings between European capitals, an exception advanced up the aisle and stopped with an apologetic smile to indicate the empty seat. He had the body of a wrestler, and a long thick face, with a mouth slightly open and a protruding lower lip. He wore a blue suit with an open-necked shirt. It was Ramush Haradinaj, an ethnic Albanian and guerrilla commander in the Kosovo war, who the previous day, after three years of process, had been acquitted of war crimes at the United Nations tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, in The Hague.

I knew something of him already—and indeed had booked this flight on the chance that he would be on it. He grew up a country boy in the traditionally rebellious West of Kosovo, as the oldest son of an important Albanian family. Like most Albanian families, his was nominally Muslim, but secular in fact. Haradinaj did well in school, but was viewed as a potential troublemaker by the dominant Serbs, and was barred from attending university. After a one-year stint in the Yugoslav Army, he joined the diaspora in Switzerland and France, where he worked as a manual laborer and nightclub bouncer. During that time he trained for war, competing in marathons, developing contacts, and learning martial arts. He claims to have swum once for 27 hours in the open sea just to prove that he could. Upon his return to the Balkans, around 1995, he began systematically to run guns across the mountains from Albania into Kosovo. After the war started in earnest, he earned the name Rambo for his stubbornness in battle against the Serbs. Picture a blood-drenched fighter holding his ground with a machine gun in each hand. He was wounded many times. He killed a lot of people. Perhaps more than anyone else, he was responsible for provoking Serbia into the campaign of ethnic cleansing which led to the nato intervention of 1999 and the separation of Kosovo from Serbia’s grasp. Later he started a political party and briefly served as the protectorate’s provisional prime minister before being forced to resign because of the war-crimes indictment. To my surprise now, he was unaccompanied in the airplane. He had no handlers, no family, no guards. He slid a small suitcase into the overhead bin.

In the name Haradinaj, the j functions as an i. In Ramush the u functions as a double o. When crowds in Kosovo get excited, they chant “Ra-moosh! Ra-moosh! Ra-moosh!” with equal emphasis on the two syllables. They fire shots into the sky. Single shots. Multiple shots. Ripples from Czech machine pistols. Bursts from Albanian Kalashnikovs. Gunfire is a Balkan language used to express all manner of moods. When love is the emotion conveyed, it can deafen you if you get too close. When vengeance is the message, it can tear you apart. I do not mean to be judgmental, and easily acknowledge that civilized Austria by contrast is a record-holder in genocide. But Austrian airliners at least are quiet. From my seat I said, “Congratulations, Mr. Haradinaj.” We shook hands. He did not know me. The engineer did not know him. He stood to allow Haradinaj to slip into the window seat, then buckled himself in again and resumed his stiff-necked reading. Haradinaj removed his jacket with surprising grace for a man of his build, and began to poke text messages into a mobile phone. He kept at it after the flight attendant ordered the passengers to switch off their electronic devices. Why this restriction? Not for safety, as is claimed, but for lack of official approval. No dogs off leash, no campfires on the beach. I watched the engineer grow upset with Haradinaj’s appalling noncompliance. He refrained from comment, but kept glancing over, as if he could no longer concentrate on his reading.

The takeoff eased the pressure on his soul. Haradinaj stowed his phone for the flight, and gazed out the window as the airplane climbed eastward over Holland. Soon clouds obscured the view. The engineer had gone back to his reading when Haradinaj turned to him and struck up a conversation in fluent English. He was disarmingly open. He said, “I’ve been in United Nations detention in The Hague for a war-crimes trial, but I was acquitted, and now I’m going home to Kosovo. It’s a good day. Yesterday was a good day. I have to change airplanes in Vienna. What about you?” The engineer eyed him doubtfully. Kosovo? He had heard of it. The conversation might have ended there, but Haradinaj opened the in-flight magazine to the route map of Europe and pointed to Kosovo—a country so small that its name could not be contained within the boundaries shown. We have more than two million people, Haradinaj said. Ninety percent are Albanian like me. Ten percent are Serbs. Some are Roma. The groups don’t mix—a problem from the war—and this must change. We have a parliament. Our capital is Priština. It has good cafés. I was the prime minister once. Our government offices have been supervised by the United Nations, but just recently we declared sovereignty. Some countries have recognized us, and the European Union is stepping in now to help. We do not have an army. We are protected by nato troops. There is a lot of building to be done. Unemployment is 50 percent. We need to improve education. The market is so-so. We have agriculture. We need investments.

“Are there tourists?” the engineer figured to ask.

“Not yet,” Haradinaj said. He seemed to think the engineer might pioneer the trade. He said, “We have good wine.” He seemed to be speaking the truth as he perceived it. He did not mention the fact that despite a huge influx of foreign funds and advisers Kosovo is a place mostly untouched by the mechanisms of formal government, and controlled beneath the surface by a system of patronage and understandings outside of the law. In that sense it is like many other countries in the world—societies where, for all the vaunted globalization of our age, traditional ways continue to function and are woven into the fabric of progress. What does “modernity” even mean? Kosovo’s economy is largely underground. Fifty percent unemployment? More like 50 percent black marketeering, smuggling, and tax evasion. But there was perhaps no contradiction in Haradinaj’s mind. Kosovo has hardly any street crime. It has affordable restaurants and bucolic valleys. It has a ski resort in the mountains where a visitor would never have to wait in line. There are plenty of beautiful women there, but the country is so calm that the engineer might even bring his wife.

It’s complicated. Kosovo is calm but tense. In dispatches from the international officials in Priština, that is the language most often used. However self-justifying the description may be, it is not entirely wrong. Haradinaj is the embodiment. United Nations prosecutors in The Hague accused him of having organized the slaughter of civilians during the war. Innocent Serbs and suspected Albanian collaborators. Mothers, children, simple farmers. Christ, like pigs in a ditch. He has always denied it. After the war his power was sectarian and based on the fighting he had done, but he shifted with the times to oppose further Albanian-on-Serb violence. In March 2005, when the legacy of war returned to claim him, he became the only sitting prime minister in history to surrender to international justice. Paradoxically, on the eve of his departure, high-ranking international officials attended his farewell dinner. By all accounts it was a fond and teary-eyed affair. The head of the U.N. mission expressed faith in Haradinaj’s future, and called him “a close partner and friend.” If the official went too far, as critics said, it was because Kosovo was tense. Haradinaj was going to be missed not merely because he spoke the language of good government (everyone does), or even because he was an extraordinarily effective executive (though this is the reason given), but because outside of the ordinary channels he was able to handle his own people, however that is done.

 

Ramush and his wife, Anita, as they travel by armored jeep from the capital, Priština, to the villages of western Kosovo. Photograph by Jonas Karlsson.

To the engineer on the airplane he said, “May I ask you something? How old are you?”

“Thirty-six.”

“We are the same age! I am 39!”

What a coincidence. Again, it’s complicated. His mouth hangs open, but no one should doubt that Haradinaj is smart. Experience has shown that he can be brutal, but the mere potential now serves him in peace. He is unassuming, but as the supremely self-confident can be. Toward the end of the flight, having engaged his seatmate without much trying, he jotted down his coordinates and invited him to visit his house, in Priština. He clearly meant it, too. Welcome to this side of Ramush Haradinaj. There are several others.

On the tarmac in Vienna the Austrian police whisked him away, as much to protect him on Austrian soil as to ensure his quick departure on the next flight for Kosovo. I took the same flight, two hours south from Vienna, with a detour around Serbia to avoid interception. Haradinaj sat in the front of the airplane, now wearing a tie. We swept over the ragged farmland southwest of Priština—a plain littered with unfinished brick houses built with money sent home from abroad—and landed at the capital’s airport, where a crowd of about 2,000 waited to welcome Haradinaj under the black-eagle banners of the former Kosovo Liberation Army. nato soldiers watched from the side. One of Haradinaj’s staff spotted me, and hustled me into a small office building for a formal introduction. As we shook hands, Haradinaj said, “You were on the airplane this morning in Amsterdam.”

“And at the trial yesterday in The Hague.”

He said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”

Accompanied by a crush of guards and hangers-on, we emerged into the sunlight of Kosovo. The crowd chanted “Ra-moosh!” Haradinaj raised a hand in greeting. I found a place in the back of a Mercedes in his 10-car convoy, which went careening down the airport road toward the city center, aggressively pushing other traffic out of the way in a manner dear to American security types—who indeed had given this team its training. The driving struck a discordant note in an otherwise reasonable return, and it hinted at bullying by Haradinaj’s entourage, whether uncontrolled or by design. Priština is a city of a half-million that functions like a smaller place. Later I learned that the style of Haradinaj’s arrival did not sit well with many residents there, and that some observed it with dread. The same can be said of his house. It is a large, round-roofed structure that stands on a hill facetiously known as Mount Olympus, and can be seen from much of the city, where its opulence speaks to the spoils of war.

The convoy delivered us there directly. Haradinaj sat in a spacious salon receiving a line of sycophants and friends. Television crews came in and did what television crews do. Eventually the scene quieted. Haradinaj is married to a woman from an elite Priština family, a news anchor on national television, who has borne him two children. The young family had been in The Hague for the verdict, but had missed a flight and was delayed for a day in Vienna. Haradinaj stripped off his tie, pushed his sleeves back, and sat into the night with a couple of advisers, discussing the next day’s events over cigarettes and raki. He planned a pilgrimage to the war—a ceremonial return to the scenes of Albanian sacrifice, and to his seat of power in the rural West, where he would end the day at the family’s compound, paying respects to his father. For the moment it did not matter to him that Kosovar Serbs were hunkered down in their enclaves in fear and anger. He realized that for the Albanians in the majority—even his rivals and those nervous about his return—the verdict in The Hague was seen as a vindication of their conduct in the war. Of course, it was not intended as such. Seen from The Hague the verdict was precisely as narrow as the prosecution’s charges, which were weakened by a lack of forthright witnesses, and pertained only to one man. Haradinaj understood this full well. But he also understood that identity for his people is collective—that the insult to one becomes the shame of many—and that having salvaged his honor in The Hague he had no choice but to share the honor upon his return home.

Blood for Blood

Home for Haradinaj is a plateau called Dukagjin, in extreme western Kosovo, along the mountains of northern Albania, to which culturally it is very similar. It contains perhaps a hundred villages and a few large towns, along with a few—now very few—communities of Serbs. The Albanians are divided into clans and closely knit farming families, among whom the Haradinajs have long stood out. These rural families have never fully submitted to the powers that have claimed the region over time—most recently the Communists, the nationalist Serbs, and the technocrats of the United Nations. Instead, they have largely governed themselves by homegrown rules—a code known as the Kanun, which emphasizes the sanctity of land, blood, and honor. The Kanun serves as a constructive guide to village life, spelling out public and private responsibilities, and, for most infractions, specifying sanctions that are mild. In the case of violent crimes, however, it contains a curious twist: dishonor is believed to lie not with the perpetrator of the crime but with the victim—and indeed with the victim’s entire family. It is said that the family’s blood has been stolen. The family must then reclaim its blood by committing an equal act of violence against any male member of the original perpetrator’s family. This is known in the Kanun as the principle of blood for blood. Given the asymmetries and misinterpretations that inevitably occur, it has led to multi-generational feuds, and vendettas that blossom out of control.

Houses of Haradinaj in Pristina!
According to the British historian Noel Malcolm, an argument in 19th-century Albania over four rounds of ammunition brought about the destruction of 1,218 houses and the deaths of 132 men. The Kanun does provide for voluntary reconciliation, but by the fall of the Ottoman Empire, in the early 20th century, nearly one-fifth of adult-male deaths in the Albanian highlands resulted from blood-feud murders. Nearby, in a single area of western Kosovo where 50,000 people lived, the toll amounted to 600 men a year. These were extremes which later subsided, but the feuds endured even under the imposed solidarity of Communist rule—to the extent that during the 1990s an Albanian nationalist using the mechanisms of the Kanun organized mass ceremonies in which tens of thousands of Kosovars were able to renounce their blood claims against others. A large percentage of the rural population was involved. The harmony that resulted was a short-lived affair, and now even under the enlightened rule of Europe and the United Nations, and in a society that is rapidly modernizing, blood feuds again are on the rise. Such is the reality of Kosovo. In perpetuity its Albanian peasants have lived under the threat of violent death. The need for protection led to a unique architecture still much in evidence on the plateau today: tall fortified farmhouses known as kulas (meaning towers), which are built of heavy stone, largely without windows, and with gun slits on the upper floors. It’s obvious that too much could be made of this. The Kanun reflects the lives of a hard people as much as it forms them. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the Kosovo war was sparked and fought not by the urban sophisticates of Priština but by the tough country boys of places like Dukagjin. They had been insulted by Slobodan Milošević, Serbia’s president, and assaulted by his police. As much as a modern struggle for liberation, this war was their blood feud with the Serbs, and required by honor. The intervention on the Albanian side by American F-16s did not relieve them of the obligation.

Haradinaj’s father knew that the fight was coming and would not spare his sons. He is the hereditary patriarch of a region—a stoic, hooknosed farmer named Hilmi, who is white-haired at 65 now, and has long been sought out for his generosity and advice. His village is called Gllogjan. It is a cluster of stone and brick houses, 20 minutes off a main road, on a rolling plain of fields and forests. About 2,000 people live there. The Haradinaj compound stands apart from the village proper but within the village bounds. Ramush grew up there with special responsibilities as the oldest of the boys. When he was 13, in 1981, he witnessed violent demonstrations during which Albanians were beaten by the police, and after which one of his cousins was sentenced to prison for 15 years. Blood for insult. In his teenage mind Ramush declared war on the Yugoslav state. To people unfamiliar with the backcountry of Kosovo, the idea would have seemed ludicrous at the time. Even in the early 1990s, more than 10 years later, it would have been easy to dismiss the man. By appearance he was a migrant laborer with a Rambo fantasy, practicing kung fu in Swiss gyms and indulging in ineffectual surveillance missions through the Balkan mountains.

 

The cemetery at Gllogjan—below the Haradinaj family compound—where Ramush’s brothers and other Kosovo Liberation Army fighters are buried. Photograph by Jonas Karlsson.

Only in hindsight is it obvious that he wasn’t fooling around. By the early 1990s the elites of Priština were in full separatist rebellion, but using the tactics of peaceful resistance. They were led by an erudite professor of literature named Ibrahim Rugova, who saw himself as a Balkan Mandela. History has since demonstrated that peaceful resistance would never have succeeded. At the time, though, it was a strategy that appealed widely in the capital. Merely a few crude peasants wanted actually to use weapons, and they were scattered and disorganized. Haradinaj set out to fix that. He still lived in Switzerland, but increasingly spent time in the Balkans. In 1994 he and a small group of men took to calling themselves the Kosovo Liberation Army—a name initially so presumptuous that it seemed to Priština’s elites to have been invented by Serb provocateurs. The army on the Dukagjin plateau consisted at first of hardly more than Hilmi’s boys—Ramush and some of his younger brothers, who kept slipping back and forth across the Albanian border. By 1995, however, Haradinaj was building a network of fighters on the ground and supplying them with weaponry that he scraped up in Albania and smuggled across the mountains, often on his own back. In Kosovo I’ve heard it said that the K.L.A. wanted to provoke Milošević into a grotesque over-reaction, in order to trigger the intervention of nato and achieve independence at last—because this is indeed what happened—but Haradinaj, for all his capacities, was not so clairvoyant as that. More modestly he hoped to excite the Serbs into retaliatory measures that would grow the ranks of his forces. In this he wildly succeeded. Morally the strategy was dangerous, because it relied on placing civilians at risk, but in an era when the armies of established governments routinely inflict collateral casualties in battle, the distinction of intent seems legalistic and artificial.

In any case, the K.L.A. initially restricted its targets to the uniformed agents of the repressive Yugoslav state. The first attack on the Dukagjin plateau was carried out by one of Haradinaj’s brothers, a granite-jawed man named Luan. In 1996 he sneaked up on a police post, broke a window with a rock, and tossed in two grenades. Four Serb policemen were killed, and three were wounded. Luan heard their cries as he withdrew. The police responded that night by raiding the household of an important family—a grave violation of the Kanun. Right from the start, the escalation was under way. K.L.A. attacks continued sporadically, sometimes against individual policemen known to be abusive. But progress was slow and dangerous for the K.L.A. fighters. Above all they lacked adequate weaponry. Haradinaj concentrated on establishing Albanian lines of supply, and in this Luan helped him greatly. They brought in explosives that were used to destroy an ammunition depot. Haradinaj continued to return to Switzerland, where he worked as a roofer. Such is the world in which we live. The Serb authorities fought back, killing some K.L.A. fighters and arresting others. In 1997 they clamped down on the border, sending army patrols high into the mountain passes to stem the flow of weapons coming in from Albania. In practice that meant stopping Haradinaj.

In early May, he and Luan led a supply column of 10 volunteers up a mountain trail toward the border from the Albanian side. Their ordeal has become a nationalist legend, and subject to the distortions of propaganda, but a reasonably dispassionate account of it is contained within a book-length interview of Haradinaj, conducted by an admiring reporter named Bardh Hamzaj, and published in Albanian in 2000. The supply column was heavily burdened with weapons, including the first rocket grenades acquired by the K.L.A., and because some of the men were not physically fit, they had to rest for a day just short of the border crossing. The pause was dangerous because of the risk of being spotted. Haradinaj thought they should turn back, but allowed himself to be swayed by Luan.

At dusk the following day, the column moved out. The trail led through a pass at the border line. Concerned about a possible ambush, Haradinaj insisted that they cross above the pass, on a stony mountainside. He advanced in a flank position, about 50 yards below the group. Luan took the lead. Carrying their heavy loads, the fighters crossed the border spaced 20 yards apart. The last of them had moved about 200 yards inside of Kosovo, and Luan had signaled an all clear, when a concealed army patrol opened fire. It was just as Haradinaj had feared. The soldiers, of course, were Serbs. Because they had expected the K.L.A. to stick to the trail, their two-sided ambush became a one-sided affair, with Serb rounds spraying upslope from positions closest to Haradinaj. He shouted to his men to lie flat, then zigzagged through the fire to check their positions. Lying flat himself now and returning fire, he staged his fighters’ retreats. Luan, who had been farthest in front, was the first to arrive back at the border, where he, too, returned fire. The other fighters followed except for one man, who had been shot in the leg and disabled. As Haradinaj ran to him, the man took a second round through the leg. Haradinaj eased the heavy pack from his back, then lay nearby, squeezing off single shots to preserve ammunition, and waiting for the fast-approaching night.

Seeing that Haradinaj was immobilized, Luan ran forward from the border and assumed a new position on the mountainside. The position offered clear fields of fire, but itself was badly exposed. Haradinaj tried to turn his brother back, but his shouts were drowned in battle. He swiveled to rejoin the fight. The Serbs had the disadvantage of being downslope and forced to shoot in an unexpected direction from positions without adequate cover. Haradinaj apparently killed two in succession, and saw others go down. During a lull, someone cried out that Luan had been hit. Haradinaj scrambled back to Luan, who was sprawled on his chest among stones. Assuming that he was merely wounded, Haradinaj shouted, “Get up, man. Don’t let the family down—we’re not finished yet!” Luan did not respond. He had been shot through the mouth and was dead. Haradinaj tried to carry him as if he were alive, hoisting him by his belt and clothes, but he lacked an adequate grip. He laid the body down, grabbed a leg and an arm, and dragged Luan away through the brambles. Later, Haradinaj said that he had felt “a bit lost” emotionally. That’s the thing about war. The firing increased, and he ignored it. He deposited Luan near the border, then ran back to retrieve the weapons. By the time he returned, other fighters had gathered nearby and were obviously demoralized. Luan had seemed invulnerable, but had been killed by a single bullet.

The night fell, and the firing decreased. Haradinaj asked for others to retrieve the wounded man, who was somewhere out there in the darkness. But the man then arrived on his own, using his rifle as a crutch, and utterly exhausted. Luan had a combat knife on his body. Haradinaj used it to cut two oak branches, with which he fashioned a stretcher for the wounded man. He lifted Luan’s body onto his back, and shouldered Luan’s weapons along with his own. Would history show that this was the only real purpose of all his fitness training? The dispirited fighters retreated down the trail toward the nearest Albanian village, four hours away. They arrived in the middle of the night. The villagers cared for the wounded man and helped Haradinaj bury his brother. Badly shaken, Haradinaj flew to Switzerland and resumed his work as a laborer. He took time out to assess his life. Within months, though, he returned to the war. Today, Luan has a street named after him in central Priština.

In November 1997 the K.L.A. displayed itself overtly for the first time when three gunmen made an appearance at the public funeral of a schoolteacher slain by Serb forces. The gunmen were masked, until one of them showed his face: it was Haradinaj’s 19-year-old brother, a tough kid named Daut, who with this display served public notice of the family’s defiance. Not far from the funeral another prominent Albanian family, named Jashari, had also declared its defiance. The head of the family was a heavily bearded man named Adem Jashari, who wore long hair in the fashion of 19th-century Albanian highlanders, and for several years had been attacking Serb police patrols foolish enough to wander into the vicinity of his village. To Albanians today Adem Jashari is known as “the Legendary Commander.” In the summer of 1997 he was convicted in absentia of terrorist acts by a Priština court that, according to Human Rights Watch, failed to comply with international standards. Had the court complied with international standards, he probably would have been convicted anyway. The Serb police tried to arrest him in January 1998, but were repelled with the help of gunmen later described as “friends from the woods.” On March 5, 1998, the government went after him again, this time with artillery and hundreds of soldiers and police who surrounded the Jashari compound. Adem Jashari knew of the attack days in advance, and he decided that the whole family should go down fighting. This is surely what they did, during a shoot-out that killed two Serbs and left more than 40 Jasharis dead, including 28 women and children. Only an 11-year-old girl survived. Seven unrelated Albanians also died. For independent Kosovo, Adem Jashari became the founding martyr. Now his image adorns calendars for sale by the family graveyard.

The Battle of Gllogjan

Next up for the treatment was Haradinaj. He had returned to stay in Gllogjan, and was strengthening the K.L.A. network, building bases, and importing weapons and supplies. He moved by night, and during the day worked from home with radios and couriers. There was fighting all around, with daily attacks by the K.L.A. across the Dukagjin plateau. The Serbs knew very well where the center lay, but they had lost control of the backcountry and could not move against Haradinaj without mounting a large operation. Large operations take time to plan, especially for forces that are afraid. Sensing nonetheless that action was imminent, Haradinaj hired workers to begin surrounding his house with heavy compound walls. He knew, however, that the walls would at best allow for delay. Unlike Jashari, he believed in maneuver, and intended for his family to survive. In late March he walked through the village in daylight for the first time in eight years, familiarizing himself with the changes that had occurred, and planning escape routes and defensive positions. He had allies there. Some weapons and ammunition were already cached.

In the pre-dawn of March 24, 1998, and unbeknownst to Haradinaj, an armed Serb force probably several hundred strong began rolling through villages to the northwest. The Serbs formed concentric rings around the village of Gllogjan at the closest distance of about two miles, and well beyond view. Daut recently told me that they fell behind schedule because one of their armored cars broke down. That sounds about right. Other details are subject to the confusions of memory and mythmaking, but by plausible account the morning came peacefully to Gllogjan, with no sign yet of the aggressors. Haradinaj and his extended family were in the house. The group included his mother and father, his brothers, a sister, a sister-in-law and her children, and a few closely allied fighters. They had automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and a 7.9-mm. machine gun up on the second floor. Workmen arrived to keep building the walls. Daut walked across a meadow and into the village to run an errand never specified. Hours later the attack began. Daut was returning across the meadow when a police sedan nosed out of the village and came at him from behind. Daut started to run. Two policemen jumped out of the car and from 20 yards away opened fire. Daut turned, crouched, and fired back with a pistol that Haradinaj had given him. It is said that he killed one policeman (“the notorious Otovic”) and wounded the other. This may be, because apparently he emptied the pistol on them, and at fairly close range. Daut is a relaxed fellow, but dangerous to provoke. Haradinaj heard the shots, shouldered past his father’s “What’s happened?,” and rushed outside with a Kalashnikov. Daut had fallen to the ground, and Haradinaj thought that he had been hit, though Daut was actually just taking cover and swapping clips. Other Serb forces came swelling into view driving Nivas, Pinzgauers, and armored vehicles. Haradinaj fired on them, joined by a friend and two brothers. Their shooting was probably ineffectual, but it gave Daut time to run to the house. I presume that the Serbs continued to advance—though their performance that day was hesitant and confused. At some point here the workmen disappeared. Haradinaj went upstairs, grabbed the machine gun, and fired off more than a hundred rounds. He pissed on the bastards. The battle paused. The timing is unclear. The Serbs remained in view, but must not have been shooting much. At some point Haradinaj went out to the road and found his father, Hilmi, lugging a sack of a thousand bullets that he had hoarded. His sons had teased him about it before, and Hilmi had not forgotten. He said, “I don’t know how this will turn out. I hope it will be for the best, but in any case I think you’ll need these!” This passed for lightheartedness in the family.

Haradinaj decided to take advantage of the lull to send the family out. Daut would remain with him in the house to help mask the evacuation. The other brothers and their friends would accompany the women and children by a roundabout way to safe houses in the village, then pass word to the fighters there to wait for further developments. Old Hilmi’s job was to lie in an irrigation ditch and harass the Serbs with steady shots, then find his own way out. This indeed is what seems to have occurred, and under a barrage of gunfire from the house, during which Haradinaj and Daut kept shifting positions to give the impression of being many. Eventually a special Serb unit reached the courtyard. Daut tossed a grenade to Haradinaj, who lobbed it over a wall. When the grenade went off, it blinded the family dog. The Serbs shouted and pulled back. Helicopters clattered overhead, but did not yet attack. Haradinaj and Daut put down their rifles and picked up rocket launchers. They fired at a house where the Serbs had concentrated, and according to Haradinaj they hit it twice. Other shots missed but suppressed the incoming fire. In the confusion Haradinaj and Daut fled directly across the meadow and somehow got to the village unscathed. They entered an abandoned stone house, where they met up with their father, brothers, and other fighters, and with the sister, who had not hidden with the women, and who now joined the battle. It was afternoon. For an hour they fought from that single house, scattered between the floors and shooting from the windows. They held the Serbs off. But it was obviously a mistake to present such a consolidated target. Haradinaj scattered his fighters, sending Daut and others to a nearby kula, and dividing the remainder among three neighboring houses. They carried radios for communication. There was a lull while the Serbs readied themselves for another try. The K.L.A. fighters rested and ate whatever they could forage. When the Serbs advanced again, Haradinaj hit them with grenades and sustained rifle fire.

Some of the Serbs took villagers hostage. Using them as human shields—and forcing them to walk with their hands on their heads—they moved up behind them along a road. From the kula Daut radioed for instructions. Haradinaj told him to hold his fire unless the Serbs managed to push the hostages through the kula’s door, in which case, if he couldn’t withdraw, he was to shoot through even his neighbors. Later he explained that a fighter cannot die without firing his gun—whether as a matter of honor or a necessity against overwhelming odds. Either way the attitude is related to a kind of fighting that subsequently triggered prosecutions in The Hague. The prosecutions reflected a global divide. Compared with the antiseptic killing done by the best modern armies—often by machines and from a distance—killing is dreadfully dirty when done by peasants like those of the K.L.A.

Luckily, however, that afternoon the hostages were never pushed through the kula’s door. A helicopter fired two explosive rounds that detonated in the dirt. In the village there was smoke and confusion. It was hard to know what was happening. Serb police broke into the ground floor of a house without realizing that Haradinaj’s father and sister were fighting from upstairs. The house stood across an alley from Haradinaj’s position. He did not know that the Serbs were there. He saw a figure in a window, and assumed it was his father, who was foolishly exposed. He gestured to the figure, and shouted for him to take cover. But the figure was a Serb. He fired at Haradinaj with a soft-nosed bullet that shattered Haradinaj’s right hand. Haradinaj shouted, “Don’t shoot, it’s me!” The Serb fired again. The second bullet struck Haradinaj low in the stomach and fragmented into his right leg, leaving shrapnel that remains today. Haradinaj finally got the message. He fell to the floor, picked up a grenade launcher, raised himself to stand openly again in the window, and fired back at close range, hitting the Serb who had shot him, and causing carnage in the room beyond. The Serb survivors wanted to withdraw, but didn’t dare. They called out for reinforcements, which never came. Whenever they shouted, the K.L.A. visited them with rocket grenades. They visited other Serbs with heavy gunfire, and the Serbs visited them plenty hard in return. This was the nature of the battle for the remainder of the day. Haradinaj slapped cheese against his wounds to stem the bleeding, and kept fighting with his one good hand. It is said that his sister killed a man. In another part of the village three fighters who were cut off from communication escaped in the late afternoon, but were shot by outlying forces. Two of the escapees died on the spot, and the third—a Haradinaj cousin—dragged himself down a road until he bled out and expired. Despite the ferociousness of the fight, they were the only Kosovar Albanians who died.

The Serbs apparently lost more men, though probably not the 40 that Haradinaj has claimed. Given the emotions at play in the Balkans, the real numbers cannot be known. But there is no question about who won the battle at Gllogjan that day. The Serbs fell so completely apart that after nightfall, with the village in flames and K.L.A. ammunition running low, Haradinaj was able to evacuate his family and fighters into a forest and move through wide-open holes in the Serb lines. The Serbs then withdrew entirely, and Gllogjan became an important K.L.A. base, overrun twice in later times, but never subdued. Haradinaj was evacuated across the border to recover from his wounds, but he soon returned, and as a symbol of Albanian resistance. Ra-moosh! Jashari was the Legendary Commander, but he was dead from the start. Haradinaj was Rambo, a survivor, and soon a K.L.A. general giving the Serbs hell from kula to kula across the Dukagjin plateau.

A Different Kind of Justice

The Hague stands for the other extreme. It is an emasculated place, the most lawyerly on earth, and the Silicon Valley of social correctives. They call it the international city of peace and justice. It is the seat of agencies such as the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and the U.N. tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the I.C.T.Y. The I.C.T.Y. was founded in 1993 by a vote in New York before the war in Kosovo erupted, and it now has a staff of more than 1,100, and an ample annual budget. It occupies the former headquarters of an insurance company, about 15 minutes by carbon-neutral walk from the ultra-safe center of town, just past the Peace Palace and next door to a placid hotel.

Last April, on the afternoon of the verdict in Haradinaj’s trial, a crowd of former K.L.A. fighters negotiated the metal detector and identity checks, and milled around in the tribunal’s lobby. They tended toward middle age and leather jackets with death’s-head T-shirts half-hidden underneath. They had buzz-cut hair and slip-on shoes stained with Balkan dirt. Many were stiff with the strain of behaving. A few were less self-conscious. One man wanted to display a K.L.A. flag, but was forbidden by security guards insisting on judicial decorum. The man was unembarrassed. He raised his shirt and exposed his fat naked belly to prove that he contained no further surprises. Daut was there, too, now just shy of 30, and urbane in a well-fitted suit. He stood with Anita, Haradinaj’s young wife, who looked anxious and haggard. A display case offered emblazoned souvenirs for sale. They included an I.C.T.Y. baseball cap, a fleece cap, a polo shirt, three different coffee mugs (U.N., I.C.T.Y., and Office of the Prosecutor), a desktop flag holder with two small flags, a shoulder patch, a glass paperweight, an I.C.T.Y. penknife with corkscrew, a wall plaque, a lapel pin, a tie clip, two teddy bears (medium and small) in miniature U.N. T-shirts, a pen-and-pencil set, and a U.N. shot glass, a near necessity for toasts to international justice.

Slowly the crowd filed through another metal detector and into a gallery fronted by soundproof glass that gave directly onto the courtroom, where the defense and prosecution teams had taken their places in opposing ranks overlooked by an elevated bench. I was struck by the trim appearance of three young women who sat in the front row on the prosecution side. They had immaculate suits, perfect hair, and taut, unblemished skin. Across the chamber, Haradinaj was escorted in, followed by two lesser defendants. He wore a suit and red tie, and shook hands with his lawyers, who clustered around him in friendship. They sat. Three judges in red robes entered and assumed their positions on the bench. There is no jury in I.C.T.Y. proceedings. The chief judge was a rotund, silver-haired Netherlander named Alphons Orie, who had served on the Dutch Supreme Court. In English he began to read a summary of the decision. This took about an hour. Sometimes I watched the faces of the K.L.A. men in the gallery. They wore headphones for translation, and seemed completely absorbed.

The context for the decision was the indisputable fact that K.L.A. fighters committed crimes against Kosovar civilians during the war—and specifically in this case for six months after the showdown at Gllogjan, during a period of K.L.A. consolidation in the surrounding villages and elsewhere on the Dukagjin plateau. The victims were innocent Serbs and Roma, and Albanians suspected of collaboration with government forces. They were variously driven from their homes, beaten, robbed, imprisoned, starved, raped, tortured, and murdered. Cumulatively the abuses never crossed the threshold of definable genocide (in contrast to the Serb government’s policy of ethnic cleansing), but they were war crimes nonetheless. It is illegal to harm noncombatants, unless as the unintended consequence of fights between combatants. The prosecutors in The Hague were sensitive to legal distinctions. When they went after Haradinaj, in 2005, they did not accuse him of committing the crimes directly, but of being responsible for them by leading a “joint criminal enterprise” whose purpose was to rule the region by whatever brutal means. Emphasizing that the perpetrators were K.L.A. members under his “command and control,” they indicted Haradinaj on 37 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war. They asked for a sentence of 25 years.

It is now known that attorneys within the Office of the Prosecutor, after years of investigation, strongly advised against proceeding, arguing that the case as constructed was flimsy, that it was based largely on hearsay, that the witnesses at hand were unreliable, and that in the context of Kosovo’s war the alleged intent would be difficult to prove. They were overruled by the chief prosecutor, a Swiss woman named Carla Del Ponte, but what her staff had feared is what indeed occurred at the trial. Haradinaj’s defense team was led by a renowned London lawyer named Ben Emmerson, who called no witnesses of his own, and relied entirely on shredding the evidence presented by the other side. The prosecutors called 81 witnesses. Because many of them feared for their safety, presenting their testimony was a huge effort carried out at enormous expense. The defense in turn was not exactly a romp. It cost about $12 million—a sum which had to be raised from sympathetic contributors, and included infusions from the lawyers themselves. Nonetheless, as Judge Orie proceeded now with the summation, and even as he regretted an atmosphere of witness intimidation in Kosovo, it began to seem that Emmerson’s strategy had succeeded.

In the end Orie said, “Mr. Haradinaj, will you please stand?” Haradinaj stood straight, with his fingertips resting lightly on the table in front of him. His expression was serious and concentrated. In shortened form Orie said, “For the reasons summarized above, this chamber finds you not guilty, and therefore acquits you of all counts against you in the indictment.” The gallery rose as one and erupted in cheers and whistles. Anita Haradinaj leapt into Daut’s arms, and for hours afterward could not stop from beaming. Haradinaj remained serious. Orie called the gallery to order. Not guilty does not mean innocent, after all. Who knew what Haradinaj really did—perhaps not Haradinaj himself. Privately, Orie may have had doubts. But he was an instrument of the law, a disciplined judge, and the prosecution had failed to meet the standards for a conviction.

Actually, the prosecution’s performance was abysmal. The root of the failure was a misreading of the Dukagjin plateau—a place where “command” has never led to “control,” where the K.L.A. was never actually an army, and, most fundamentally, where the Kanun’s traditions of blood for blood and collective honor meant that fighting in the villages would inevitably spread beyond the bounds of international law. Not every crime could be assigned to the Kanun. The rapes that occurred, for instance, belong to more universal behavior in war. But essentially the prosecution proposed that Kosovo could have been, and should have been, as immaculate as The Hague. As the prosecution’s own witnesses made clear under cross-examination, the reality was something else. In the courtroom the case inevitably collapsed. Carla Del Ponte escaped the wreckage before the end to become an ambassador to Argentina and write a book of self-praise, but Orie endured the entire wasteful event. Now his expression was neutral. Addressing Haradinaj he said, “The chamber orders that you be immediately released from the United Nations Detention Unit, after the necessary practical arrangements are made.”

The Head of the Household

Those arrangements rushed Haradinaj onto the morning’s flight to Vienna, into an economy seat beside an Austrian engineer, and then on to Priština, the greetings on Mount Olympus, and the next day’s pilgrimage to the West. I went along for the pilgrimage among Haradinaj’s guards and staff. The trip started modestly. For hours the convoy wandered through the rolling farmland of central Kosovo, stopping at rural graveyards of the K.L.A. dead, where villagers stood in line to greet Haradinaj. At each cemetery he spoke briefly about the sacrifices that had been made. Systematically he called the dead “heroes.” One of the graveyards he visited was that of the Jasharis. Afterward he walked up the road past the shattered Jashari compound and into an adjoining house, where he sat over a ceremonial coffee with the senior surviving family member—a bald man in a business suit. We moved on. By the time we came to western Kosovo the crowds had grown large. In the city of Peć, at the top end of the Dukagjin plateau, thousands of people filled the center and chanted “Ra-moosh!” Speaking of the trial in The Hague a man said to me, “People here would never have accepted a conviction.” He said they would have turned to violence. I asked him how they could be so sure of Haradinaj’s actions during the war. My question was irrelevant. He said, “These people have ferocious loyalty.” Welcome to the West. A banner read, welcome to the head of the household. Haradinaj mounted a stage and spoke briefly into a microphone. People cheered. A band played. We drove south along the base of the high Albanian mountains, down the main road of the plateau. An Albanian rap song came over the radio, dedicated to Haradinaj. “You still are,” the refrain went. “And who you are, we know. It’s obvious what you have done.” R-A-M-U-S-H. You earthshaker, you state-maker, you speaker of the truth.

Or, you criminal, say the Serbs. They would kill him if they could. They would shoot him in the head and throw his body into a ditch. They would wrap him in barbed wire and drag him to death behind a car. This is what they say he did to their people. Carla Del Ponte added to the vitriol by suggesting in her book that the K.L.A. killed prisoners in order to harvest their organs. No doubt some Serbs believe it. So what if none of the allegations could be proved in court—it just shows that the proceedings were biased. Such is the nature of Balkan politics. I asked Haradinaj why he had run for office. He said, “It was an environmental decision, something spontaneous, I guess. The fighting was over. I was living in a country with no institutions or laws. There was a confusion of authority. People were looking to me for answers. Somehow I was already like a mayor.”

Somehow? He was Rambo, and the head of the household for the entire Dukagjin plateau. We arrived in the town of Decan, which was the scene of fierce fighting in 1998 and is the hub for more than 30 villages, of which Gllogjan is one. Decan has a reputation for toughness. I had gone there the week before—having been warned in Priština (naturally) that a visit might be dangerous—and had found it to be a quiet if sullen town. Today, however, it was wild with cheering crowds who surged forward toward Haradinaj, overwhelming the police and guards. Haradinaj laid flowers at a statue of his dead brother Luan, and pushed through the crowds to the elevated veranda of a municipal building. I pushed with him, and looked out across a sea of his friends and relatives. He made a short speech about fallen heroes. The town erupted in celebratory gunfire. We headed for Gllogjan. I was struck that in a country whose progress depends on the re-integration of the embattled Serb minority, Haradinaj’s references had all been to the war. Later, when I mentioned this to him, he said, “You can’t ask people to deny their identity. I don’t give up my role in the war, because it is my life. I do look forward. But I have a right to my pride, to my dignity, to my honor.”

Few in Kosovo would disagree. But the elites in Priština often expressed concern to me about the effects of such attitudes. To them Haradinaj is the most admirable of a nonetheless troubling kind—the country boys who fought the war (or said they did), then rolled into town with their weapons and pride, and stood on their heroic record to seize political power even while some were engaging in organized crime. Albanian groups have long been involved in the European heroin and sex trades, and it has often been reported that the K.L.A. participated. Haradinaj himself is another question. His wealth requires explanations—which he politely refuses to provide. Suspicions abound, but they have to be judged in the context of Serb propaganda, and of a rumor mill in Priština that runs in overdrive. It may be that Haradinaj established wartime connections that later proved useful for profitable smuggling—particularly of guns and cigarettes. It may also be that members of his entourage wield his name to criminal advantage, and indulge in strong-arm tactics, with or without his knowledge. I myself do not know. One likely explanation for at least part of his wealth—and one that he briefly acknowledged to me—is that he has admirers who provide for his needs. The contributions are not kickbacks for public contracts, of the sort that enrich other politicians in Kosovo. Nor are they payoffs to a protection racket—a proto-taxation system that some say accompanies Haradinaj’s dominance in western Kosovo. Rather, they seem to be genuine gifts—of materials and labor as well as cash—offered by people who recognize his deeds, and also are sensitive to his power. The Priština elites are sensitive, too, and wish that he would now retire. Speaking of all the former K.L.A. fighters, an educated friend of mine whose uncle was killed by the Serbs said, “I don’t want them to rule our country based on injustices that happened 10 years ago. I’m really sorry my uncle was executed. But I don’t want it to overshadow my children’s lives. I cried when I heard the news of the acquittal, I was so glad. But war is for dogs, not for heroes. So thank you, Ramush. Now, go back to your village and do something nice.”

But Haradinaj is not so easy to categorize. He will continue to live in Priština with his elite Priština wife, and will party in the restaurants and bars with Daut by his side. Politically he will probably thrive, and may even someday become prime minister again. And will he go back to the village? Of course, yes, for visits with which to recognize that other full side of his life. On a rise overlooking Gllogjan he is building a monument to collective identity—two magnificent stone kulas in a stone-walled compound that will include a swimming pool and outbuildings for the staff. Construction was interrupted for lack of funds—which were sucked away for the defense in The Hague—but the project is nearly completed. When we arrived in Gllogjan he mentioned it briefly as we drove by. As if perhaps I didn’t know, he said, “We have survived like this for centuries. We have built our lives. Our traditions have survived. And there was a kind of government.” He did not say “the Kanun.” He said, “The kula is more than a house. It is a school, a court, the base for the army.”

We drove on to the old family compound, rebuilt since the damage it sustained in the war, but permanently violated in Haradinaj’s mind. His father, Hilmi, was there, and led us upstairs to a feast in a long room warmed by a hearth. The room was lined by cushions along the walls, and crowded with village men. The feast went on into the night, with raki and traditional song. I sat next to Hilmi, who said, “I don’t want to brag about my son.” He was a man of few words. He watched his son from afar. Later, for no apparent reason he said, “As for Serbia, to be honest, I never cared. But we had to do it this way. We don’t know of any other.” I supposed he was thinking out loud. At this late stage he seemed satisfied with life. At one point he drew a pistol from his pocket and fired a round into the cushion beside us. For an instant the cushion smoldered. The celebrants understood the comment. Eventually others pulled pistols out and shot through the open windows. Half of the windows were closed. As the feast continued, men began to shoot directly through those windows as well. Glass showered onto the food and drink, and the good times went on as before. Later, when I mentioned the indoor shooting to a friend in Priština, he said that the tradition had been discarded years ago, and he deplored it as primitive and archaic. But I thought, No, progress as the elites would define it is to some extent a charade, and indoor shooting, like Haradinaj himself, is equally a part of modern times.

William Langewiesche is Vanity Fair’s international correspondent.

 

http://www.vanityfair.com

 

Hotels der Haradinaj Mafia aus dem Kosovo in der Pista Ilyria, direkt am Militär Grundstück des Albanischen Staatspräsidenten, wo sich auch die CIA Ausbildungs Schule befindet.

Zweireihig zum Strand: Alles Mafiöse Clans (aus dem Kosovo und Mazedonien), welche dort illegale Gebäude und Hotels südlich Durres errichtet haben ab 1998! Unten Rechts, wäre dann das Haradinaj Hotel:

Hashim Thaci “Bar Drenica” südlich Durres! Eines von 6 illegal gebauten Gebäuden von Thaci in der Gegend der Pista Illyiria. Die Bar war bereits 1998 mit kleinen Britischen und US Flaggen versehen.

Und die Drogen Küchen brodeln ungehindert in der Nähe der Bond Steel Anlage, denn Geschäft ist nun mal Geschäft!

KLA is CIA Army, Kosovo is CIA Lab

Is Camp Bondsteel, American military base in Serbian province of Kosovo, the biggest and safest heroin-producing laboratory in the world?

KLA is CIA Army

American intelligence agency CIA was involved in all activities of Kosovo Albanian separatists in their insurgency war against Serbia, both prior and during the NATO bombardment of FR Yugoslavia in 1999, and late Ibrahim Rugova was CIA’s political choice, the head of analytics department of the former National Security agency of Serbia (Drzavna bezbednost, DB), Zoran Stijovic wrote in his recently published book “Kosovo-Metohija — My Testimony”.

“Few years before NATO bombardment, CIA took control over the terrorist KLA/UCK,” Stijovic wrote, adding that “this was procured through hefty payments and housing of the KLA members in 1998 in Pristina, in a beautiful mansion of a Serbian businessman who, towards the end of the war, was given a green card to be able to open his business in the USA.”

According to Stijovic, State Department knew fully well what CIA and KLA were doing in Serbian Kosovo province. The author cites parts of the reports of American diplomatic mission which informed Washington in December 1998 that “KLA/UCK is terrorizing or abducting every Albanian who comes to the police station, threatening to kill them and burn their houses to the ground, unless they join them.”

Current Kosovo-Metohija provisional premier Hashim Thaci was used to further radicalize the situation, and to enable placing of the Serbian province under NATO administration, where U.S. has the decisive role, Stijovic revealed.

Kosovo is CIA Lab

Another article, carried from the Moscow daily Rosiyskaya Gazeta reveals that the biggest U.S. Army base abroad since Vietnam, Camp Bondsteel in southern Serbian province of Kosovo-Metohija, runs secret production operations.

Kosovo Albanians Turned into West’s Heroin Distributors

The KLA mafia-heroin rings and connections with Al Qaeda on the one side, and Western intelligence agencies such as American CIA and German BND, on the other, were explained in detail way back in 1999, by Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization.

“The supply route for arming KLA “freedom fighters” are the rugged mountainous borders of Albania with Kosovo and Macedonia. Albania is also a key point of transit of the Balkans drug route which supplies Western Europe with grade four heroin. Seventy-five percent of the heroin entering Western Europe is from Turkey. And a large part of drug shipments originating in Turkey transits through the Balkans. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), “it is estimated that 4-6 metric tons of heroin leave each month from Turkey having [through the Balkans] as destination Western Europe.” A recent intelligence report by Germany’s Federal Criminal Agency suggests that: “Ethnic Albanians are now the most prominent group in the distribution of heroin in Western consumer countries.”

http://www.byzantinesacredart.com/

Special Report 3

Heroin Production Facilities Flourish in Kosovo Area Under US Military Protection

source: Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily

Tuesday, 25 October 2005 Exclusive. From GIS Station Priština. Three major heroin production laboratories, run by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA/UCK: Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosove), are operating within the Urosevac [Lat. 42.38°N, Long. 21.17°E] area of the Serbian province of Kosovo which is under the control of US Army units operating from Camp Bondsteel. The US authorities operating in the area have specifically protected the laboratories from inspection by other NATO forces in the area, and there is evidence that, over a period of years, US military and possibly intelligence elements have actively engaged in commercial and/or support relations with the narco-traffickers involved with the heroin laboratories…………………

http://www.savekosovo.org/articleprint.asp?sp=42

Geschrieben in Balkan (Englisch) | Drucken | 2 Kommentare »

Auftrags Killer Sylejman Selimi und heute Kommandat der Kosovo Security Forces (KSF)?

5.12.2008 by CrniLabudovi.

Deutschland ist immer dabei:

Sylejman Selimi

Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) wird zur Kosovo Security Force (KPS)

von Dirk ~ 15. Januar 2009. Zu lesen unter: Auslandseinsätze, KFOR, NATO-Missionen. Die von der NATO ausgebildete und auch mit deutschen Finanzmitteln ausgestattete multi-ethnische Kosovo Security Force (KSF) wird am 20. Januar die bisherigen kosovarischen Einheiten der Kosovo Protection Corps ablösen, das teilte NATO-Sprecher James Appathurai gestern in Brüssel mit. Die KSF sei leicht bewaffnet und solle Aufgaben wie Zivilschutz, Krisenreaktion und Bombenentschärfung übernehmen.
Im Kosovo soll die neu benannte und neu strukturierte und von NATO-Truppen ausgebildete multi-ethnische Sicherheitstruppe nach Angaben der NATO am 21. Januar die bisherigen kosovarischen KPF-Einheiten ablösen.

Soldaten Glück

Und der angeblich wegen der BND versetzte KSP Sprecher Elshani taucht natürlich auch wieder als Sprecher der Kosovo Polizei auf, denn Alles ist Show.

200 Kosovo Banditen der KPC/TMK - UCK protestieren, weil man sie nicht in die neue KSF übernommen

Sylejman Selimi të hënën në krye të FSK-së?

(seinen privaten Auftrags Killer, will natürlich Agim Ceka, nun als Militär Chef des FSK installieren)

Nga Artan Behrami&Besnik Ramadanaj më 23.11.2008 12:33 CET

Të hënën do të emërohet Komandanti i Forcave të Sigurisë së Kosovës (FSK). Sipas të gjitha gjasave Komandanti i parë i FSK-së do të jetë Sylejman Selimi. Bordi për krijimin e FSK-së do të bëjë emërimin e komandantit, i cili pritet të jetë komandanti aktual i Trupave Mbrojtëse të Kosovës (TMK).

Më pas kryeministri i Kosovës, Hashim Thaçi i rekomandon presidentit të Kosovës emërimin e komandantit të FSK-së. Krejt në fund, presidenti i Kosovës, që sipas kushtetutës është edhe është Komandant Suprem i Forcave të Sigurisë të Kosovës emëron edhe zyrtarisht komandantin e FSK-së.

Ndërsa, Sylejman Selimi, komandant aktual i TMK-së, tha për Express se ende nuk e di se kush do të jetë komandantë i FSK-së. Megjithëkëtë, ai shtoi se të hënën do të jetë afati i fundit, kur emri i komandantit të FSK-ë duhet të bëhet publik.

“Të hënën është afati i fundit kur duhet të bëhet publik emri i komandantit të FSK-së”, tha për Express Sylejman Selmimi, duke mos treguar se ai do të jetë ai në krye të FSK-së.

Ndërkohë, zëdhënësi i Qeverisë së Kosovës, Memli Krasniqi tha për Express se Qeveria do t’i respektoj të gjitha afatet kohore, sipas ligjit.

“Kryeministri duhet të bëjë propozimin e komandantit, në mënyrë që të emërohet nga presidenti. Ma merr mendja që do të respektohen të gjitha datat dhe procedurat, ashtu siç parashihen me ligj. Kështu që unë nuk e di që a është e hëna kjo datë”, tha Krasniqi.

Ndërkaq, Agim Çeku, kryetar i partisë Social-Demokrate të Kosovës (PSDK) të dielën në një konferencë për media tha se Sylejman Selimi mund të jetë komandanti i ardhshëm i Forcave të Sigurisë së Kosovës.

“Unë besoj se komandanti i FSK-së do të jetë Sylejman Selimi dhe unë do ta mbështesë atë”, paralajmëroi Çeku.

………………….

http://www.gazetaexpress.com

Prishtinë, 23 shkurt — Pjesëtarët e ish TMK-së gjatë protestës së tyre para dyerve të Shtabit të Përgjithshëm të Forcës së Sigurisë së Kosovës (FSK), shkarkuan nga detyra Këshillin Orientues të Protestave të tyre. Pavarësisht se në dhjetë minutat e parë gjithçka filloi mirë, pak çaste më vonë rreth 200 protestues, hapen dyert e oborrit të këtij shtabi dhe u futën brenda rrethojës. Ata paralajmëruan protesta më të ashpra në ditët në vazhdim në rast se nuk plotësohen kërkesat e tyre e që njëra ka të bëjë edhe me dorëheqjen e ministrit të FSK-së Fehmi Mujota dhe komandantit të Përgjithshëm të FSK-së, Sylejman Selimi. (Foto: Petrit Rrahmani)

Sylejman Selimi war Zeuge vor dem ITCY in den Kriegs Verbrecher Prozessen u.a. gegen Limanaj. Sagt ja Alles, wie man zu solchen Posten kommt, wenn man sich an Nichts erinnern kann.

Geschrieben in Kosovo-Albanien (Albanian) | Drucken | 6 Kommentare »

Joseph Bidens Verschwörungsfantasie und der pakistanische Geheimdienst

5.12.2008 by ctstmaser.

Joseph Bidens Verschwörungsfantasie und der pakistanische Geheimdienst

In einem Video, bei Fox News seit 28. August 2008, ist Joseph Biden zu hören mit den Worten: 

Al Qaida und die Taliban, die Leute, die uns am 11. September angegriffen haben, die haben sich in den Bergen zwischen Afghanistan und Pakistan neu formiert. Und sie haben sich zu neuen Anschlägen verschworen. 

Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the people who actually attacked us on 9/11, they’ve regrouped in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And they are plotting new attacks. (1)

Daher, so Biden, werde Obama mehr US-Soldaten in der Region einsetzen.

Der Moment scheint bereits gekommen: Attentäter haben über hundert Menschen in Mumbai (Bombay), Indien, getötet.

Michel Chossudovky listet die verfügbaren Fakten zu Mumbai und Pakistan auf. Der pakistanische Geheimdienst, so der kanadische Professor, unterstehe nicht der pakistanischen Regierung. Der amtierende Chef sei auf Geheiß der US-Regierung eingesetzt worden. US-Medien und -Politiker würden nun den Keil zwischen Indien und Pakistan tiefer treiben. (2) 

T:I:S, 1. Dezemeber 2008. Dank an Brigitta     

Anmerkung

(1) Das Transkript neben dem Kasten, In the video (5), wurde automatisch erstellt und enthält grobe Fehler.

(2) Michel Chossudovsky: India’s 9/11. Who was Behind the Mumbai Attacks? Washington is Fostering Political Divisions between India and Pakistan. GlobalResearch, 30. November 2008

 

Jo Biden ist Mentor der Albaner Mafia über den AACL  und damit automatisch Mitglied im US Mafia Clan Nr. 1 dem Gambino Clan und diese Art von Politikern, wie auch Bob Dole, John McCain, Tom Lantos, usw. lassen sich von der Albaner seit 20 Jahren finanzieren.

Geschrieben in Welt News Spezial | Drucken | 1 Kommentar »

Georgischer Diplomat spricht über Kriegspläne seiner Regierung

5.12.2008 by Atahualpa.

Georgischer Diplomat spricht über Kriegspläne seiner Regierung

Von KNUT MELLENTHIN, 29.November 2008:

Die Aussagen des ehemaligen georgischen Botschafters in Moskaus, Erosi Kitsmarischwili, führten am 25. November zu tumultartigen Szenen im parlamentarischen Untersuchungsausschuss, der sich seit einem Monat mit der Vorgeschichte und dem Verlauf des Augustkrieges gegen Russland befasst.

Nachdem der Diplomat schon zuvor mehrmals durch Zwischenrufe unterbrochen worden war, wurde schließlich sein Mikrophon abgeschaltet. Der einflussreiche Abgeordnete der alleinregierenden Nationalpartei Givi Targamadse warf seinen Füllfederhalter nach Kitsmarischwili und wollte sich dann auf ihn stürzen, konnte aber von anderen Ausschussmitgliedern zurückgehalten werden.

Der Ex-Botschafter verließ nach diesem Zwischenfall den Saal und sagte zu den Journalisten: „Sie wollen die Wahrheit nicht hören“. – Die gesamte dreistündige Anhörung wurde, ebenso wie alle vorausgegangenen, live im georgischen Staatsfernsehen übertragen.

Die Aussagen des Diplomaten, über die unter anderem die New York Times berichtete (1), haben die Glaubwürdigkeit von Michail Saakaschwili auch im Westen weiter erschüttert. Es wird erwartet, dass der Präsident am 28. November selbst vor dem Parlamentsausschuss auftreten wird.

Kitsmarischwili, der zeitweilig zum internen Kreis um Saakaschwili gehört hatte, war im April 2008 als Botschafter nach Moskau geschickt wurden. Am 10. Juli wurde er abberufen, nachdem zwei russische Kampfflugzeuge über Südossetien geflogen waren. Russland reagierte damit auf die Drohung des georgischen Präsidenten, eine „Polizeiaktion“ gegen die abtrünnige Republik durchzuführen. Am 12. September wurde der Botschafter von Saakaschwili entlassen, weil er sich kritisch über die georgische Russland-Politik geäußert hatte. Zur Anhörung vor dem Ausschuss hatte er sich praktisch selbst eingeladen, indem er öffentlich darauf gedrängt hatte, dort seine Aussagen machen zu können.

Kitsmarischwili begann seine Darstellung im Februar 2004, kurz nach dem Amtsantritt von Saakaschwili. Damals, so führte er aus, habe eine wirkliche Chance bestanden, nicht nur mit Russland, sondern auch mit dem südossetischen Präsidenten Eduard Kokoiti Verhandlungen über den Status der kleinen Republik, die sich 1991 von Russland losgesagt hatte, zu führen. Statt diese Politik fortzusetzen, habe Saakaschwili im Juni 2004 plötzlich militärische Provokationen gegen Südossetien gestartet. (2)

Letztlich hätten damals zwei Gründe den Ausschlag gegeben, den beabsichtigten Großangriff auf Südossetien abzublasen, berichtete Kitsmarischwili: Erstens die Einwände aus einer „ausländischen Hauptstadt“ – gemeint ist offenbar Washington – und zweitens die Tatsache, dass der damalige Premierminister Surab Schwania entschieden dagegen war. Schwania kam im Februar 2005 unter bis heute nicht überzeugend aufgeklärten Umständen ums Leben. Der Tod Schwanias, der als Politiker des Ausgleichs in Südossetien und Abchasien respektiert war, habe die Chancen auf eine Einigung mit den beiden Republiken ganz zunichte gemacht, sagte Kitsmarischwili.

……………………

http://www.hintergrund.de/content/view/302/63/

Geschrieben in Welt News Spezial | Drucken | Keine Kommentare »

Ina Rama über die Anklage in der Korruptions Affäre mit Bechtel

5.12.2008 by CrniLabudovi.

 “Durrës-Kukës”, Rama: Do të apelojmë vendimin e gjykatës

Ina Rama është shprehur se “ne i kemi pezulluar hetimet për këtë dosje, pas vendimit të Gjykatës së Shkallës së Parë”. Më tej ajo shtoi se “ne do të apelojmë vendimin për shtyrjen e hetimeve për rrugen Durres-Kukes, pasi kemi nje qendrim te ndryshem nga gjykata”

>Tiranë-Kryeprokurorja, Ina Rama ka folur sot për herë të parë për vendim e Gjykatës së Shkallës së Parë në Tiranë, që pezulloi çështjen e rrugës Durrës-Kukës, ku i pyetur ishte edhe ministri i Jashtëm, Lulzim Basha.

 

Në deklaratën e saj për median, Kryeprokurorja Ina Rama është shprehur se “ne i kemi pezulluar hetimet për këtë dosje, pas vendimit të Gjykatës së Shkallës së Parë”. Më tej ajo shtoi se “ne do të apelojmë vendimin për shtyrjen e hetimeve për rrugen Durres-Kukes, pasi kemi nje qendrim te ndryshem nga gjykata”.

 

Ina Rama foli për gazetarët pas ceremonisë së dhënies së paketës 800 mijë euro nga BE për mbështetjen e prokurorisë së përgjithshme për të ndërrmarrë inspektimin dhe vleresimet për punën e organit të akuzës.

 

Sipas saj aktualisht nuk po kryhen hetime lidhur me projektin dhe financimin e rrugës Durrës-Kukës në respektim të vendimit të gjykatës.

 

Ina Rama është shprehur se “ne i kemi pezulluar hetimet për këtë dosje, pas vendimit të Gjykatës së Shkallës së Parë”. Më tej ajo shtoi se “ne do të apelojmë vendimin për shtyrjen e hetimeve për rrugen Durres-Kukes, pasi kemi nje qendrim te ndryshem nga gjykata”

 

 

Shekulli Online

Premte, 21 Nentor 2008 12:02:00

Tiranë-Kryeprokurorja, Ina Rama ka folur sot për herë të parë për vendim e Gjykatës së Shkallës së Parë në Tiranë, që pezulloi çështjen e rrugës Durrës-Kukës, ku i pyetur ishte edhe ministri i Jashtëm, Lulzim Basha.

 

Në deklaratën e saj për median, Kryeprokurorja Ina Rama është shprehur se “ne i kemi pezulluar hetimet për këtë dosje, pas vendimit të Gjykatës së Shkallës së Parë”. Më tej ajo shtoi se “ne do të apelojmë vendimin për shtyrjen e hetimeve për rrugen Durres-Kukes, pasi kemi nje qendrim te ndryshem nga gjykata”.

 

Ina Rama foli për gazetarët pas ceremonisë së dhënies së paketës 800 mijë euro nga BE për mbështetjen e prokurorisë së përgjithshme për të ndërrmarrë inspektimin dhe vleresimet për punën e organit të akuzës.

 

 

 

Sipas saj aktualisht nuk po kryhen hetime lidhur me projektin dhe financimin e rrugës Durrës-Kukës në respektim të vendimit të gjykatës.

 

 

 

 

 

Geschrieben in Kosovo-Albanien (Albanian), Balkan | Drucken | 2 Kommentare »