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October
30, 2003
The
Untouchables
Terrorists
Under Imperial Protection
by Nebojsa Malic
Last
Wednesday, former KLA commander Agim Ceku was arrested
in Slovenia on an Interpol warrant forwarded by Serbia. The
following morning, after the intervention of Kosovo's UN viceroy
Harri Holkeri, fierce protests in Pristina, and even (reportedly)
threats of terrorism against Slovenia, he was released.
According
to agency reports cited by Reality Macedonia,
Holkeri told the Slovenians, and then the Albanian-run Kosovo
TV, that "Serbia-Montenegro no longer had jurisdiction over
the citizens [sic] of Kosovo." The Albanian-dominated "Kosovo
Parliament" proclaimed on the same day that "all arrest warrants
and court rulings issued by Serbian institutions" were null
and void. Though this far exceeded their authority, they faced
no censure from the UN.
The
beaming Ceku was greeted by a jubilant crowd at the Pristina
airport, where he declared that the "whole world should see
that Serbia has no authority in Kosovo."
Not
only have Holkeri and Ceku thus declared their utter contempt
for international law, but this affair exposed as hypocritical
and licentious the renewed baying of the Hague Inquisition
for more Serb heads, and proved that despite recent propaganda,
Imperial policies in the Balkans have not changed one bit.
Yanking
DOS's Leash
Ceku's
arrest and triumphant release were all the more aggravating
coming at the heels of a shocking announcement on the 21st
that the Hague Inquisition has indicted
four top Serbian military and police officials – two former,
two current – for partaking in the fictitious "joint criminal
enterprise" in Kosovo. The indictments of General
Pavkovic and former police chief Vlastimir Djordjevic did
not irritate the Dossie camarilla that much, since both were
close to the deposed president Milosevic; Pavkovic was arrested
this spring on spurious charges, and Djordjevic has disappeared.
What really stuck in their craw was the inclusion of current
top cop Sreten Lukic and General Lazarevic, who had successfully
resisted NATO and KLA attacks and enjoys great respect in
the military.
While
the Dossies have no problem delivering as many heads as the
Inquisitors may require, they did object to the announcement's
timing, even before the Ceku affair. The Dossie government
is currently in the midst of a messy collapse, with parliamentary
filibusters, rampant electoral fraud and even calls for a coup d'etat;
the last thing they needed was the ICTY yanking their leash.
Also
Prime Minister Zivkovic thought he had made
a deal with the Inquisition to deliver Bosnian Serb general
Ratko Mladic, in exchange for no further indictments. This
was vehemently denied by Hague mouthpieces. Meanwhile, futile
Mladic hunt was merely seized upon as "proof" he had been
in Serbia all along.
Dossie
incompetence, stupidity and servility are a topic for some
other time. Suffice to say that the recent joke finally explained
the quisling coalition's name. Originally the "Democratic
Opposition of Serbia," it remained unchanged for the past
three years of their rule. Critics point out that they need
not change the acronym, or even the name, only the preposition:
they ought to be known as the Democratic Opposition to
Serbia.
Protecting
the KLA
The
real issue here is that the Inquisition continues to insist
on collective guilt of the entire Serbian government
for an alleged conspiracy they have consistently and spectacularly
failed to prove – yet the KLA leaders like Ceku are bailed
out by Imperial authorities in violation of perfectly valid
international warrants.
This
is not the first time something like this happened. In July,
KLA
leader Hashim Taqi was arrested by the Hungarian authorities,
also on a Serbian arrest warrant dating back from 1999. Kosovo's
viceroy at the time, Michael Steiner, secured Taqi's release
then by calling up not only Budapest, but also Belgrade. And
the very same Dossies who fume at "catch-and-release"
in Ceku's case had agreed to trample their arrest warrant
for Taqi just four months ago, as a way of cozying up to UNMIK
and NATO (and the real edifice behind both, the Empire).
This
time Steiner's successor didn't even bother calling Belgrade,
either knowing the pathetic excuse for a government there
will submit if threatened, or trying to show their opinion
was irrelevant; given his TV statement, probably the latter.
Sign
in a Pristina store window, occupied Kosovo
Carla
DelPonte can thus tell
Serbia it should "abandon hopes" it would be "allowed"
to try high-ranking government officials; only her Inquisition
is properly equipped to handle the exquisite pressures of
putting on show trials. Or perhaps also the UNMIK "judiciary"
in Kosovo, which can on rare occasions dare to brave Albanian
rage and indict
some KLA for crimes against
other Albanians, and try to reach a verdict before all
the witnesses
are brutally murdered or intimidated into silence.
The
ICTY's occasional mumbling about indicting senior KLA figures
have been no more than a cover for its dedicated persecution
of Serbs. When it does accuse non-Serbs, it does so only for
the sake of feigning impartiality. For years, the ICTY denied
there was an investigation of Alija Izetbegovic, based on
mountains of evidence gullible Serb governments had sent to
The Hague, only to announce
– on the day of Izetbegovic's funeral – that there had
been an investigation, but it obviously had to be stopped
now. How very convenient.
There
is no point in arguing that the ICTY is "biased." It is an
illegal,
illegitimate, arbitrary and tyrannical pseudo-institution,
not a court at all.
But
while such a monstrosity besieges Serbia by demands
to trash its judiciary – admittedly, DOS has done it already
for its own purposes – and deliver more sacrifices at the
altar of Imperial Justice, it treats the KLA to the ultimate
"Get out of jail free" pass, with UNMIK's help.
Support
for Destruction
Needless
to say, this sort of support only emboldens the KLA-led efforts
to ethnically cleanse Kosovo and eradicate all non-Albanian
presence in the province. For example, a War Street Journal
editor recently upbraided the Serbian Orthodox Church for
objecting to the wholesale destruction of its heritage, urging
the Serbs to "arrive at a modern way of living with reality."
That such complete
drivel is printed in the leading neo-Jacobin paper
goes a long way to smash the argument that Bushites are in
some way different from their predecessors when it comes to
Balkans policies.
Some
Albanian Catholic clergy go even further, claiming that Serb Orthodox
shrines are really Albanian Catholic churches, converted
in the late 19th century at the start of "Serbian
occupation"! Such claims have no relationship to the truth
whatsoever, but did UNMIK condemn them? Or the Vatican? No.
Empire
Held Hostage?
Feeling
immune from criticism, the KLA act with impunity not only
against the Serbs – attacks on whom no one in the West regards
as a particular outrage any more – but against the KFOR troops
as well. Just this Saturday, a patrol was mobbed in a village near
Srbica, when they parked close to the home of the Jashari
clan, the reputed founders of the KLA.
The
Jasharis claimed the soldiers were
drunk and disorderly, so they had to attack them with axes.
KFOR disagreed. Since the house from which the attackers came
was the home of the regional "Kosovo Protection Corps" commander,
Bashkim Jashari, the KFOR brigade commander in the area requested
a meeting with the KPC's leader, the aforementioned Agim Ceku.
Yet Ceku never came to the meeting, showing the KFOR general
he thought as much of him as he did of international law.
Needless to say, Ceku was in no way censured by his nominal
employer, the UNMIK.
The
incident near Srbica shows an ominous undertone to the KLA's
relationship with the NATO occupiers, whom they had thanked
profusely over the past four years for enabling them to seize
and claim Kosovo as their own. Ever since UNMIK insisted they
meet Belgrade representatives in Vienna earlier this month,
the Albanians have not hidden their displeasure
with the "liberators" they no longer feel they need.
Do
KFOR and UNMIK live in fear the KLA would go all Fallujah
on them, and turn their "protectors" into mincemeat? That
question has been hanging in the air ever since some troops
got in the way of
KLA-sponsored mobs charging Serb-inhabited Kosovska Mitrovica
in 2000. It has never been answered directly, but given UNMIK
and KFOR's extreme sensitivity to any perceived Albanian discontent,
the conclusion is obvious: the "liberators" are in large measure
hostages of the terrorist cabal on whose behalf they "liberated"
a piece of someone else's territory in flagrant breach of
international law and the Nuremberg principles.
They are also hostages to their commitment to the inexcusable
and morally corrupt venture this occupation represents.
Force,
Law and Justice
Holkeri's
declaration about Serbian sovereignty – or lack thereof –
in occupied Kosovo was a flagrant violation of his mandate
and the UN Security Council Resolution 1244. But it is worth
recalling that UNSCR 1244 was but a fig leaf for NATO's undisputedly
illegal invasion and occupation. Serbia's right to Kosovo
is merely reaffirmed in 1244, it does not derive
from it. Under the 1913 Treaty of London,
the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, the post-1945 boundary agreements,
and even the outrageous 1991 ruling by the self-appointed
Badinter Commission declaring artificial Yugoslav republics
to be sovereign states, Kosovo is a part of Serbia. KLA's
terror, NATO's bombs and UN viceroys' pompous proclamations
cannot alter the letter of international law, only ignore
it. Force only solves the issue of power, not right.
And that only until one power is replaced by another.
That's
something the champions of force and destroyers of law ought
to keep in mind.
–
Nebojsa Malic
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