Kosovo privatisation enriches NATO warmongers

Remember how berserk neo-conservative or “liberal hawkish” supporters of George W Bush’s and Tony Blair’s Iraq war became, whenever someone mentioned the word “oil” in an Iraq context?

This video says about itself:

Stop the theft of Iraqi oil! Hassan Jumaa, Greg Muttitt and Nadia Idle talk about the Iraqi oil law.

When George W. Bush and Tony Blair started the bloody Iraq war, government propaganda, slavishly echoed by the corporate media, said the war was because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction … oops, it did not have those arms … the war was because secularist Saddam Hussein had links to ultra-religious Al Qaeda … oops, that was a lie as well … the war was because Saddam was a dictator and it would bring human rights … oops, Saddam was one of many dictators, most of them supported by Bush’s USA and by Blair’s UK (like used to be the case for Saddam); and torture, killings, and other human rights violations got worse, not better, after Bush and Blair had invaded Iraq.

When someone dared to say “No blood for oil“, the Bushite and Blairite apologists for the Iraq war went hysterical. Their lovely baby, their lovely Iraq war, could never ever be about something as prosaic as oil corporations’ profits (or arms dealers’ profits … oil was and is a major factor in a complex of causes, not the sole 100% cause).

Well, the Australian Conservative government, Bush and Blair allies in the Iraq war, admitted that oil did play a role in the Iraq war. Alan Greenspan, George W. Bush’s economic “czar”, admitted the major role of oil.

Both George W. Bush and Tony Blair profited personally from oil from Iraq which they invaded. And US ex-Iraq occupation bigwig Peter Galbraith grabbed hundreds of millions in Iraqi oil money. So much for that “humanitarian” war.

Oh yeah, that other “humanitarian” war, in Afghanistan, supposedly did not have anything to with pipelines or minerals. Yeah right. And pigs fly.

Back in time to another “humanitarian” war. The 1999 NATO war against Yugoslavia. How “humanitarian” was that?

By John Glaser in the USA:

Empire Pays For Corporatist US Diplomats in Kosovo

December 12, 2012

The New York Times published an article yesterday detailing how top former US officials who helped spearhead the Clinton administration’s bombing of Serbia in 1999 are now deeply embedded in lucrative rent-seeking activities with Kosovo’s corrupt semi-government.

Beneficiaries include: former Secretary of State Madeline Albright; General Wesley Clark, who led the NATO bombing campaign; James W. Pardew, the Clinton-era special envoy to the Balkans; Mark Tavlarides, legislative director at the Clinton White House’s National Security Council; and countless others not specifically named in the article.

These crafters of US foreign policy now benefit off the unscrupulous state structure their discretionary war helped establish. US aid since the war has been cultivating a “thugocracy.”

Clark “is chairman of Envidity, a Canadian energy company seeking to explore Kosovo’s lignite coal deposits and produce synthetic fuel,” the Times reports.

Albright founded Albright Capital Management, which “has been shortlisted in the bidding for a 75 percent share in the state telecommunications company, PTK,” a venture that “is expected to bring in between $400 million and $800 million.”

Albright is chair of the NATO committee planning more “humanitarian” wars. The committee includes a Shell oil fat cat. It used to include Tony Blair’s ex-Secretary of War … oops-a-daisy … “Defence” Geoff Hoon. It does not include Hoon any more. Hoon disappeared because of his corruption.

Pardew has had his eyes on PTK too, though, and has “lobbied top Kosovo officials on behalf of a competing consortium, Twelve Hornbeams S.a.r.l /Avicenna Capital LLC.”

So many former American officials have returned to Kosovo for business — in coal and telecommunications, or for lobbying and other lucrative government contracts — that it is hard to keep them from colliding.

Foreign policy experts say the practice of former officials’ returning for business is more common than acknowledged publicly. Privately, former officials concede the possibility of conflicts of interest and even the potential to influence American foreign policy as diplomats who traditionally made careers in public service now rotate more frequently to lucrative jobs in the private sector.

Indeed, it goes beyond the telecom company:

The biggest infrastructure project in Kosovo’s post-Yugoslav history, a 63-mile stretch of highway connecting Pristina to the Albanian border, was awarded in 2010 to Bechtel of San Francisco in a joint venture with a Turkish company, Enka.

At the time, the prime minister estimated the deal at $1 billion.

Bechtel had help getting the contract from Mr. Tavlarides, the legislative director at the National Security Council during the 1999 Kosovo intervention. According to a lobbying report filed with the United States government, Mr. Tavlarides lobbied on behalf of Bechtel in Kosovo on “highway-related issues” while working for Van Scoyoc Associates, a Washington-based lobbying firm.

Mr. Tavlarides now works at the Podesta Group, which signed a $50,000 monthly contract with the Kosovo government on Jan. 1, advising it on communications and strengthening Kosovo’s ties to the United States government. The Podesta Group was co-founded by John Podesta, White House chief of staff in Mr. Clinton’s second term. Mr. Podesta left the firm in 1993. It is still owned by his brother, Anthony.

In an interview with the Times, Clark said it was “insulting” to suggest there’s any conflict of interest. “My business is aboveboard, transparent and helps the Kosovar people,” he said. His business ventures are benefiting from the thuggish administrators in Kosovo as they “privatize” state-corporate entities – and he thinks he’s still doing the humanitarian thing? The Kosovo government, according to the Times, also denies that any of these former US officials are getting special treatment.

But a leaked memo from a meeting between Pardew and Kosovo’s prime minister tells a different story:

The choice of Mr. Pardew as their emissary was “vitally important,” the memo noted, because Kosovo’s elite “know and love him for his role on the ground during the war.”

After the memo became public, Mr. Pardew withdrew from lobbying for the consortium, and he declined to comment.

It’s quite a set up these American statists have: launch a war to become heroes in a secessionist province of Serbia, and then reap endless financial benefits via crony corporatism going on 13 years hence.

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NATO pressure frees Croatian war criminals

This video says about itself:

Neo-Nazism In Croatia/ Obsession With Historical Paradox

Apr 4, 2008

Over 60,000 fans celebrating Croatia’s Nazi past with Hitler style hand salutes – “Sieg Heils”.

By Paul Mitchell:

Croatian war criminals released after appeal by Western military chiefs

11 December 2012

In April 2011, the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) found Croatian general Ante Gotovina and Assistant Interior Minister Mladen Markac guilty of war crimes committed during 1995’s Operation Storm military offensive and sentenced them to 24 years’ and 18 years’ imprisonment, respectively.

The two leaders were accused of involvement in a “Joint Criminal Exercise” (JCE), led by late Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, aimed at “the permanent removal of the Serb population from the Krajina region by force, fear or threat of force, persecution, forced displacement, transfer and deportation, appropriation and destruction of property or other means”. More than 150 Croatian Serbs died, hundreds disappeared and 200,000 fled in what was described as the biggest act of ethnic cleansing in the Balkan Wars. Half of the refugees have still not returned to their former homes.

In January 2012, 12 US, Canadian and British military experts, three of whom had served as judge advocate generals (senior military lawyers) and one as the top legal adviser to the US Army, launched an appeal to overturn the convictions. They argued that the court was wrong to use a “200-metre standard” by which artillery bomb craters located more than 200 metres from a legitimate military target were deemed evidence of unlawful indiscriminate attacks on civilians. If the standard became enshrined in international law, they declared, future Western military operations would be put in jeopardy and commanders would run the risk of being hauled in front of human rights courts accused of war crimes.

The appeal document concluded with a letter from General Ronald H. Griffith, vice chief of staff, the second highest officer in the US Army, from 1995 to 1997 and current executive vice president of the private military company Engility, formerly known as Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI). Griffith declared, “Should the standard of review adopted by the Trial Chamber gain traction as a controlling interpretation of international law it will ultimately expose commanders who have conducted military operations in compliance with accepted doctrinal principles and in a morally responsible manner to the threat of being brought before some international court and charged, as was General Gotovina, with war crimes.”

Last month, the ICTY Appeals Court overturned the convictions of Gotovina and Markac, declaring that the original court had “erred” by using the “200-metre standard”. The rest of the charges against the two war criminals fell like dominos. By a 3-to-2 majority, the court declared that the mass exodus of Serb civilians “cannot be qualified as deportation” and the existence of a JCE “cannot be sustained” and ordered Gotovina and Markac to be released.

Two of the five judges dissented from the majority opinion. Maltese judge Carmel Agius said that he “strongly disagreed” with almost all of the conclusions reached by the majority and was “distancing himself” from their decision. Italian judge Fausto Pocar insisted that the judgement “contradicts any sense of justice”.

Former ICTY chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte declared, “I am shocked, very surprised and astonished because it is absolutely unbelievable what happened after ruling the sentence of 24 years in prison to general Ante Gotovina.” Current chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz said that “those affected by crime committed in connection with Operation Storm are not satisfied by the outcome and feel their suffering has not been acknowledged”. He hoped the Croatian authorities would use the evidence his office had gathered to prosecute those responsible.

Brammertz’s plea was quickly forgotten. After flying back to Croatia, Gotovina and Markac received a hero’s welcome from a crowd of 100,000 in the capital, Zagreb. President Ivo Josipovic welcomed the verdict, and other government figures and officials declared the men’s release was proof that no ethnic cleansing had occurred in Croatia. Gotovina declared that the “Homeland War is now clean, it belongs to our history, it is a basis on which we build our future.” Media reports suggest he will stand in the next presidential elections.

Serbian president Tomislav Nikolic denounced the Appeal Court’s decision as “scandalous,” declaring that it “will not contribute to stabilisation of the situation in the region but will reopen all wounds.” Russian United Nations ambassador Vitaly Churkin declared, “In its work, the ICTY demonstrates neither fairness nor effectiveness.”

The two have been released in the first instance because the Croatian army acted as Washington’s proxy against Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, with President Bill Clinton’s special envoy Richard Holbrooke describing them as his “junkyard dogs”. In November 1994, MPRI was contracted to train the Croatian army at the time of a UN-monitored ceasefire. Photographs show Gotovina with US military personnel in front of a computer screen showing “Battle Staff Training Program” and “Welcome to Training Center Fort Irwin”. Franjo Tudjman’s son Miro, head of Croatian intelligence at the time, claims the Croatian and US governments enjoyed a “de facto partnership”.

In 2002, Henry Hyde, chairman of the House Committee on International Relations, was already warning that the ICTY could investigate officials who were “formulating and carrying out US government policy” in connection with Operation Storm. The Washington Times repeated Hyde’s warning and attacked the concept of command responsibility as a threat “to US national interests” and “Washington’s ability to project its power around the world.”

Such concerns also lay behind the release, a few days after that, of Gotovina and Markac, of Kosovo Liberation Army commander and former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj and others accused of being members of a JCE involved in the torture and murder of Kosovo Serbs, Roma and Egyptians in a KLA compound in the village of Jabllanicë in 1998. A partial re-trial had been ordered because the original trial was surrounded by allegations that witnesses were subjected to systematic harassment and intimidation. Del Ponte was also forced to complain to the United Nations Security Council and UN secretary-general Kofi Annan about the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and its chief, Soren Jessen-Petersen, who, she said, protected Haradinaj. She asked, “How can the rule of law be implemented if UNMIK chiefs so openly support a person who is accused of some of the gravest crimes in international law?”

Both the Croatian and Kosovan Albanian leaders played a key role in ensuring US hegemony within the Balkan region. The US had been intent on preserving a unitary Yugoslav state as a bulwark against a Soviet thrust into the Mediterranean, but this changed with the collapse of the USSR and the reunification of Germany in 1991. When German imperialism, anxious to flex its political muscle, promoted secession in Slovenia and Croatia and rushed to extend recognition, both the US and the other western European powers reversed their previous opposition.

It was inevitable, given the history and politics of Yugoslavia, that the break-up of the federation would lead to civil war. The secession of provinces would suddenly deprive ethnic minorities of the constitutional protections they had enjoyed under the federation.

Related articles

• Russia slams Hague court for freeing Croatian generals (facebookreporter.org)
• The Relevance of the Gotovina Judgment (internationallawnotepad.wordpress.com)

Kosovo war crimes suspects arrested

This video is called Kosovo police bust organ trade ring.

From Reuters:

Two Kosovo Albanian security officers held over war crimes

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 17:34 GMT

PRISTINA, Nov 15 – The European Union police and justice mission in Kosovo (EULEX) arrested three ethnic Albanians, two of them officers in a NATO-trained security force, on Thursday on suspicion of war crimes.

The three men were detained in their hometown area of Skenderaj, a former bastion of the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) which rose up against Serbian government forces in the majority ethnic Albanian province in 1998-99.

“The suspects are charged with war crimes against the civilian population,” said Blerim Krasniqi, a EULEX spokesman.

The EU mission did not detail the charges but Tahir Rrecaj, a lawyer for one of the arrested, said they were suspected of killing two Albanian civilians in June 1999, just days after the war ended and NATO troops took control of Kosovo.

During and after the war there were many political killings of Kosovo Albanians by their own kin, sometimes over allegations of collaboration with Serbian authorities.

The suspects were once KLA fighters, Krasniqi said. Two are now members of the Kosovo Security Force (KSF), trained by NATO. The 2,500-strong KSF is lightly armed and its main tasks are crisis response, civil protection and ordnance disposal.

Kosovo, which gained independence from Serbia in 2008,

independence not recognized by Serbia and many other countries

expects to transform KSF into its own army in the future but no dates have been set. Kosovo has no army but some 6,000 troops under NATO command patrol Kosovo.

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Stop one-sided NATO war propaganda in Belgium

From 18-27 October in Brussels, Belgium, there will be a so-called “Freedom Festival”, organized by the local government and NGOs.

At first sight, it looks promising:

Political and artistic, intercultural and creative, festive and subversive, Festival des Libertés returns each autumn to mobilise all forms of expression in order to offer an overview of the state of rights and freedoms around the world, to point out lurking dangers, to bring people together in a fun, relaxing atmosphere, to encourage resistance and to promote solidarity.

Resistance against what or against whom, one may ask?

This video from Britain is called Jamie Shea, NATO spin doctor.

As Belgian peace movement intal reports (translated from their Dutch):

The Freedom Festival on 22 October will give the floor to NATO spin doctor Jamie Shea. Title of the ‘debate’: «Should we intervene in Syria?». A strange ‘debate’, however, because in the panel there is no critical opponent of Shea. So Jamie Shea will get a platform without any speaker questioning NATO’s intervention policies.

We demand: there should be an opponent of Jamie Shea speaking, who should be able to criticize his views. The audience has a right to that.

For more information about Jamie Shea and how you can support this demand, please visit this link [in Dutch, but can be translated with Google Translate etc.]:

http://www.intal.be/nl/article/het-vrijheidsfestival+de-navo-verdient-een-echt-debat

You may of course publish this open letter on Facebook and other social media.

Part of the info on the intal site, translated from Dutch:

Who is Jamie Shea?

The world knows Jamie Shea as the public relations face of the Kosovo war of 1999, when NATO for 78 days and nights bombed Yugoslavia. That was an illegal war waged in violation of international law and without a UN mandate.

During its aggression NATO was guilty of numerous violations of the laws of war, including the deliberate bombing of civilian targets. Today no one can deny that this “humanitarian war” was based on lies, deception and manipulation – with anything but altruistic goals at stake.

Jamie Shea is still at NATO today, as Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges.

War makes soldiers mentally ill

This video from the USA is called Veterans of PTSD PBS NOW.

From the Deutsches Aerzteblatt International in Germany:

War causes mental illness in soldiers

19 September 2012

One in every two cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in soldiers remains undiagnosed. This is the conclusion reached by a working group led by Hans-Ulrich Wittchen et al. They report their study in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109(35–36): 559–568), which is a special issue focusing on the prevalence of psychological stress in German army soldiers. In a second original article, results reported by Jens T Kowalski and colleagues show that more female soldiers contact the psychosocial support services provided by Germany’s armed forces than their male colleagues (Dtsch Arztbl Int 2012; 109 (35–36): 559–568).

Wittchen et al. draw attention to the fact that thus far no information has been available on how commonly soldiers have traumatic experiences during deployments to Afghanistan and develop PSTD. In their study, 85% of all soldiers deployed overseas reported at least one distressing event, but usually several such events. Overseas deployment is associated with twice or four times the risk of PTSD for soldiers. In international comparison, the prevalence of PTSD is notably lower in German soldiers, at 2.9%, than in soldiers from other countries who are deployed in the same regions. However, the estimated proportion of undiagnosed and untreated cases of PTSD is 45%.

Kowalski et al. explain that it is not only Afghanistan from where soldiers return in a traumatized state but also Kosovo. The number of Kosovo returnees with mental problems in their study increased significantly compared to the number of traumatized soldiers returning from Afghanistan. The study is based on hospital data of all German army psychiatric wards; these data evaluated the psychiatric morbidities between January 2010 through June 2011. The most common diagnoses were adjustment disorders, PSTD, and mild and moderate depressive episodes.

http://www.aerzteblatt.de/pdf.asp?id=128488

Accompanying Editorial:

http://www.aerzteblatt.de/pdf.asp?id=128486

http://www.aerzteblatt.de/pdf.asp?id=128487

Full bibliographic informationTraumatic Experiences and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Soldiers Following Deployment Abroad. How Big Is the Hidden Problem?
Hans-Ulrich Wittchen*, Sabine Schönfeld*, Clemens Kirschbaum, Christin Thurau, Sebastian Trautmann, Susann Steudte, Jens Klotsche, Michael Höfler, Robin Hauffa, Peter Zimmermann
Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109(35–36): 559–568)

A US soldier who fled to Canada to avoid the war in Iraq has been arrested at the US border after being deported: here.

More illegal organ trade

This video is called Black market organ trade thrives in Iraq – 20 July 09.

By Sven Heymann:

Dramatic increase in worldwide illegal organ trade

14 July 2012

Since the global financial crash in 2008, the worldwide illegal organ trade has increased dramatically. Until recently, those looking to sell parts of their bodies generally came from the so-called developing countries; now, the phenomenon can be found in large parts of Europe.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), in 2010 there were approximately 107,000 donated organs worldwide— both legal and illegal. Kidneys made up about two thirds of all transplanted organs. According to a report in the Guardian, WHO doctor Luc Noel expects that about 10 percent of all transplants are performed illegally. On the other hand, the California human rights organisation Organ Watch talks of 15,000-20,000 illegal kidney transplants per year.

But the transplants carried out represent only a fraction of the actual need. Only one in ten requests are currently realised, according to the Guardian report. The profits that can be achieved are huge, says Noel.

Gangs of organ traffickers conduct a million-dollar business in the illegal trade. Media reports consistently speak of up to US$200,000 dollars (€160,000) being demanded for a single organ on the black market. The illegal traffickers exploit the social plight of the donors, who urgently need money but often receive only a fraction of the total. Many are cheated out of any money.

The economic crisis is the main cause of the surge in the illegal human organ trade. The European Union (EU) openly admits this. The website BioEdge quotes the EU special prosecutor Jonathan Ratel saying, “Thanks to the global financial crisis the organ trade is a growth industry”. He speaks about a mutual vulnerability to criminal organ dealers: on the one hand, chronic poverty prevails; on the other side, there are well-off patients who would do anything to ensure their survival.

Jim Feehally, a professor of renal medicine at the University Hospitals of Leicester in the UK, brings out the class nature of trafficking in organs more clearly. The main problem is exploitation, the Austrian newspaper Der Standard quotes him saying. While the rich can buy not only organs, but also afford medical treatment, the donors are often denied such care.

Kosovo: West Obstructs Trial Over Murder-For-Organs Crimes: here.

British cutbacks stimulate criminal organ trade

This video says about itself:

Cruel Harvest: Exposed organ trafficking cashed in on poor & prisoners

After years of ignored claims, organ trafficking in Kosovo has finally reached prosecutors. At least seven people have been charged on suspicion of luring poor people to sell their kidneys with false promises of cash. ­The group is said to have targeted poor people from Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania by offering them around $20,000 for coming to Kosovo to have operations performed.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Debt-laden public told to flog organs

Wednesday 03 August 2011

by Louise Nousratpour

Cash-strapped people in Britain were told today that they should be able to sell off their body parts in order to reduce their debts.

Desperate donors would be able to sell a kidney for £28,000 under the plans floated by University of Dundee Professor Sue Rabbit Roff.

It is currently illegal under the Human Tissue Act to buy or sell organs for transplantation in Britain.

But the professor said that legalising the trade could help people pay off student debts.

“It would be an incentive across most income levels for those who wanted to do a kind deed and make enough money to, for instance, pay off university loans,” she said.

Prof Roff suggested the “live donor” plan as a way to boost the supply of vital organs for transplant, though she admitted in passing that this “might exploit poor people.”

But Dr Calum MacKellar of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics said that the entire plan rested on there being enough people in society desperate for cash.

“To place a financial value on human beings or parts of human beings undermines the inherent dignity of the human person and the innate as well as unmeasurable worth of all individuals,” he said.

British Medical Association ethics expert Dr Tony Calland warned that a cash-for-organs scheme could push people weighed down with debts to ignore the “small but significant” dangers of the procedure.

It “could lead to donors feeling compelled to take these risks, contrary to their better judgement, because of their financial situation,” he said.

And Prof Roff’s proposal was branded “horrific” by National Union of Students president Liam Burns.

“She appears to be suggesting that the sale of body parts is an acceptable consequence of higher tuition fees, but that it would be particularly appropriate for those with less money,” he said.

“Work to increase donors is to be welcomed, but something is very wrong when students are encouraged to sell off body parts to fund their education.

“I hope the government are paying attention to the kinds of things that are being suggested as a consequence of them pushing students towards ever higher debt.”

Meanwhile, in the present economic recession in the USA, women students in desperation about their college education debts, are turning to prostitution to make ends meet.

US’s richest 400 could pay off all the nation’s student loans & still be billionaires: here.

Possible industrial action looms at the troubled London charity Centrepoint after boss Seyi Obakin was accused today of cosying up to a royal couple in Los Angeles while staff faced pay cuts: here.

Kosovo anti-privatisation protest

This video says about itself:

This movie was made to serve as a prime example of post Yugoslav Balkan mentality.

A destruction of a state that was once economically and socially prosperous nation with high inspirations in the world’s affairs. Today, the countries that have sprang from her are only the corrupt, inefficient, filled with post Yugoslavian Balkan uncivilized ignorant mentality in other words, only the light shade of a country that was once SFR Yugoslavia.

Long live Brotherhood and Unity, long live Yugoslavia.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Outrage over privatisation

KOSOVO: Thousands of ethnic Albanians demonstrated against government corruption and the embezzlement of public funds in the disputed region today.

Protesters chanted “Thieves” and carried banners denouncing the privatisation of the country’s post and telecommunications company PTK.

Opposition leader Albin Kurti said that Prime Minister Hashim Thaci’s administration was selling off public enterprises.

The EU has launched a string of investigations into the embezzlement of state funds by senior officials in the province.

Photos of the protest are here.

Roots of Egypt’s Revolution: Labor Unions and the Uprising in Tahrir Square: here.

Kosovo organ trade scandal

This video is about The Council of Europe and an explosive report by Swiss rapporteur for human rights Dick Marty about the alleged trafficking of organs in Kosovo.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic pressed the United Nations on Thursday to lead a probe into claims that Western-backed Kosovar insurgents trafficked in human organs during their 1998-1999 war for secession: here.

Serbian authorities announced today that President Boris Tadic will join leaders from Slovakia and Romania in skipping a regional conference with US President Barack Obama this week because officials from the disputed region of Kosovo have been invited: here.

Berlin has announced plans to bolster its military presence in the disputed region of Kosovo before upcoming elections in Serbia: here.

Nationalist war crimes suspects arrested in Kosovo

This video is called Kosovo — Hashim Thaci — Organ Traffic –Euronews–2010-12-18–Perspectives.

The Council of Europe report Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo is here.

From DPA news agency in Germany:

EU police in Kosovo arrest nine war crime suspects

Mar 16, 2011, 15:11 GMT

Pristina – The European Union police force in Kosovo said Wednesday that it has arrested ‘a number’ of people in connection with war crimes allegations.

The terse statement by the EU’s law enforcing mission in the former Serbian province provided no other details.

Local electronic media say nine suspects were arrested, including a police commander in the southern town of Prizren. All were members of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army, which fought Serbian security forces in 1998-99, reports said.

The Balkan Insight news portal said a two-hour stand-off between EU and Kosovo officers occurred during the arrest of the police commander.

The myth of the “humanitarian” war in Kosovo: here.

There is renewed political turmoil in Kosovo after the country’s top court ruled Monday that the recent election of the country’s new president was unconstitutional. New parliamentary elections may now also be necessary: here.