Another interesting snippet...
Sunday September 10, 2000
American officials in Kosovo are being accused of interfering with an investigation into a senior Kosovo Albanian politician implicated in murder, drug-trafficking and war crimes.
Ramush Haradinaj, a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), was the key US military and intelligence asset in Kosovo during the civil war and the Nato bombing campaign that followed.
In the latest twist in the saga of an increasingly flawed electoral process, United Nations police in the province complain that US personnel withheld evidence about a gunfight involving Haradinaj, who is now head of one of the province's leading political groups.
UN investigators leading the case say US officials based at their main base, Camp Bondsteel, removed forensic evidence from the scene of the gun battle, including bullets retrieved from walls. The incident, which took place in the village of Strellc in the west of Kosovo, is well out of the US Army's area of responsibility, which lies in the south-east of the province.
Following the shooting Haradinaj, known almost universally in the province as simply Ramush, was flown by helicopter to Camp Bondsteel and then onto Germany to be treated in an US Army hospital for shrapnel wounds. UN investigators were denied access to him during that time.
Evidence from the incident was eventually handed over after angry phone calls from Fred Pascoe, the American policeman heading the UN investigation.
The news of American reluctance to co-operate with the investigation comes amid a catalogue of accusations linking Haradinaj to murder, drugs trafficking and war crimes.
The shooting revolved around a dispute between Haradinaj and members of the Musaj family, who accuse him of ordering the murder of their brother and three other men shortly after the arrival of Nato troops in Kosovo in June 1999. The men were all part of FARK (Armed Force of the Republic of Kosovo ), a rival group to the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Three Musaj brothers had visited Haradinaj's father to demand the bones of their brother, a right they had according to Albanian custom. Haradinaj admits he went to the Musaj family home at around one in the morning to stop the brothers from visiting his father again.
This is the second time this year Haradinaj has been caught up in violence. He was injured in a fight with Russian soldiers at a K-For checkpoint in the spring. Western diplomats say he has damaged his party's prospects in UN-organised local elections due this October.
This latest incident does not appear to have damaged his contacts with US military or political figures.
His party officials were invited to a discussion on the future of Kosovo at a meeting organised by the US state department. He himself is currently in Washington on a fund-raising trip and as the guest of a US Congressman, Benjamin Gillman.
His standing with the international community is summed up by British officials who describe him as 'one of the few former commanders of the KLA who can deliver'. They say he was crucial in smoothing over the transition of the KLA from a guerrilla army to a civilian-based national guard.
But British military personnel who liaised with Haradinaj before and during the Nato bombing campaign paint a different picture. One former soldier, who served with the Kosovo Verification Mission, described him as 'a psychopath' and accused him of terrorising his own men and the local population into loyalty to him. 'He would beat his own men to maintain a kind of military discipline,' he said.
'Someone would pass him some information and he would disappear for two hours. The end result would be several bodies in a ditch,' he added
The man said he was also present when Ramush 'went to deal with' an Albanian family who had let Serb police into their house. The incident matches a human rights report issued by the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) last year in which seven masked men entered a house in the village of Gornja Lucka. Two men were beaten and a third was taken to a nearby canal and never seen again.
During this time the same former soldier says Haradinaj was maintaining daily contact with American military personnel in the US and that these links were then taken over by Nato at the beginning of the bombing campaign in Kosovo.
Another alleged victim of Ramush's men was Suad Qorraj, who had operated a satellite telephone for a rival KLA commander during the war. His family say he went missing from the town of Decani on 23 June 1999, two weeks after the end of the war. On 1 August Suad's charred remains were found in a nearby forest. The burial notice said he had been 'killed by Serbs'.
A year on from Suad's death, Haradinaj still wields considerable power in western Kosovo. 'He can very easily bring the area to a halt,' says Robert Charmbury, UN administrator of the biggest town in the region, Pec, citing as evidence the fight against Russian peace keepers in which the town was 'blockaded in minutes'.
The Alliance party has strong representation on local municipal boards and is discussing the possibility of a pact with the Kosovan Democratic Party (PDK), led by Hashim Thaci, former political leader of the KLA. Such a deal might squeeze out the favourites to win in the region, the Democratic League of Kosovo, in October's elections.
Whatever the outcome of the polls, senior UN officials are concerned about Haradinaj's long-term impact on the province. One aide claims Haradinaj is now financed by two men, Naser Kelmendi and Ekrem Lluka, both of whom are suspected to be involved in smuggling. UN police reports, seen by The Observer, go further and describe Lluka as trafficking drugs and cigarettes in Greece, Kosovo, Albania and Italy.
Meanwhile the Musaj brothers are worried about what Haradinaj will do in the next few weeks. 'If he doesn't attack us before the elections he'll attack us afterwards,' said Sadic Musaj. He and his brother have already built up the walls around their compound in case of another attack. He doubts however whether anybody will take action against Ramush. 'Nothing will happen, he has strong people behind him.'
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Just to remind people that things just aren't so black & white as they perhaps wish they were...
