News reports today have announced that Ramush Haradinaj, the 36-year-old former prime minister of Kosovo, has been flown to The Hague to face charges of war crimes. Who is Ramush Haradinaj?
Described in some news reports as "flamboyant" and "colourful", Ramush Haradinaj was a commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army. He was then the head of the KLA's political successor, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo and he was elected prime minister last December.
His name frequently crops up in reports of murder, shootings and 'disappearances' in Kosovo. The Scotsman reported in 2000 that he was injured in a firefight in western Kosovo, the "savagely violent post-war province". Interestingly, he ended up in a US military hospital at Landstuhl in Germany.
"Haradinaj looked to be the sort of guy that we might see our way to backing," said one senior international official who spoke on condition of anonymity [of course!]. "After the launch of his party, he was due to go to Washington to meet up with the right people," said another western official. (Christian Jennings, 'Western-backed Kosovar Albanian politician shot', 11 July, 2000, The Scotsman)
The Observer described him in the same year as "the key US military and intelligence asset in Kosovo during the civil war and the Nato bombing campaign that followed." He is "implicated in murder, drug-trafficking and war crimes."
British officials described him as "one of the few former commanders of the KLA who can deliver." (Nick Wood, US 'covered up' for Kosovo ally, 10 September, 2000, Observer )
One former British soldier, who served with the Kosovo Verification Mission described him as "a psychopath":
"He would beat his own men to maintain a kind of military discipline....Someone would pass him some information and he would disappear for two hours. The end result would be several bodies in a ditch." (Wood, ibid.)
While these 'disappearances' were taking place, Haradinaj maintained daily contact with American military personnel in the US. These links were then taken over by Nato at the beginning of the bombing campaign in Kosovo.
Tom Walker reported in the Sunday Times that Robin Cook, then foreign secretary, met with Haradinaj on a trip to Kosovo in April, 2001. Walker added:
"Diplomats in Pristina said Haradinaj entered politics last year at the behest of Britain and America, which wanted to see the KLA's support base split. 'He said it was too early for independence,' said a European official introduced to Haradinaj. 'He was coached to say what was needed.' Last April Haradinaj made a fundraising trip to Washington." (Walker, 'Cook held talks with war crime suspect', Sunday Times', 29 April, 2001)
The Foreign Office, ever 'pragmatic', saw no difficulty with any of this. It "insisted that Haradinaj had been reminded of his democratic responsibilities." Very reassuring. "There are periods in the cycle when you're moving to a democratic future from a violent past," said a spokesman. "There are no hard and fast rules on who you should talk to. Until indicted, they are straightforward politicians." Need we comment on this?
Jared Israel, in an eye-opening online article, explains more of the background to this US/UK-backed war crimes suspect. As Israel notes, The Times "prettifies the ugly fact that the U.S. and British governments coached Haradinaj and funded him, thereby thrusting him into politics, instead of jail, where he belonged." ( 'Which Terrorists Are Worse? Al-Qaeda? Or the KLA?', 12 December, 2001)
Today, the BBC news website neglects to mention any link between Haradinaj and western politicians (BBC news online, 'Kosovo ex-PM flies in for trial' , 9 March, 2005 )
And the BBC News at One politely described Ramush Haradinaj's appearance at The Hague on war crimes charges as
"embarrassing" to western politicians who had supported him in the past.
It is examples like this, multiplied countless of times every year, that bury uncomfortable truths out of sight.
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