Translated material
Need corpses and witnesses
PACE is concerned about the trade in Serbian organs
Discussions on Kosovo took place yesterday at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg. Two items on this topic were included in the agenda of the spring session. The Swedish delegation proposed to discuss the situation that developed after the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo on February 17. Russia introduced a draft resolution “On the facts of inhumane treatment of people and illegal trade in human organs in Kosovo”, supported by the leaders of all five PACE parliamentary groups. Both issues have already divided Europe. The Hague Tribunal yesterday stated vaguely that it does not have “clear evidence” of crimes by Albanian militants against Kosovo Serbs.A special place in the discussions was occupied by the materials contained in the recently published book by the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte (pictured) . She accused the current Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, and the former head of the regional government, Ramush Haradinaj, who was acquitted on April 3 by the Hague Tribunal, of organizing the trade in the organs of several hundred murdered Serbs. However, the book does not provide concrete evidence.
The head of the Russian delegation, head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, Konstantin Kosachev, called on PACE to take control of the investigation into the information reported by Carla Del Ponte. According to him, attempts to hide the facts of crimes were aimed at “pushing through” the decision on Kosovo’s independence: “Let’s see how the international community will react if it now turns out that those who proclaim this independence are involved in these crimes.” Konstantin Kosachev promised to “demand an investigation at the level of official international authorities, at the level of the UN Security Council, perhaps up to the creation of some kind of additional international tribunal for crimes in Kosovo” - the current Hague tribunal should complete its work by 2010.
The head of the Russian delegation was supported by the head of the PACE subcommittee on combating terrorism, Swiss parliamentarian Dick Marty. He called for a thorough investigation of the facts described in Carla Del Ponte’s book: “I believe that such serious allegations must be investigated.” According to him, he himself has no idea yet “what this investigation should look like, but one thing is clear: it should be.”
Coming from a man who led a high-profile investigation into the existence of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe in 2005-2007, these words take on special weight. Moreover, the cases of secret American prisons and secret Albanian operating rooms may intersect - Kosovo was mentioned as one of the locations of CIA prisons in the investigation materials. Back in November 2005, the then Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Alvaro Gil-Robles, suggested the existence of a secret prison at the US Bondsteel military base in Kosovo. However, neither representatives of the Council of Europe nor the then UN Commissioner for Human Rights in Kosovo, Marek Nowicki, were ever granted access to the detention center, which was under US control.
The current difficulties in Serbia's relations with international organizations seriously hamper their full cooperation on Kosovo. The head of the Serbian delegation to PACE, Milos Aligrudić, said yesterday optimistically that the debate in Strasbourg allows his country to reiterate that Kosovo's independence "violated the basic principles of international law." Deputy head of the Russian delegation Leonid Slutsky described the situation in almost the same words: “The Kosovo precedent shook the very foundations of international law.”
However, PACE is not authorized to cancel Pristina's decisions, and the assembly is split. “About 20 PACE member countries have already recognized the independence of Kosovo. The European Union, whose opinion many in PACE listen to, still does not want to lift the demand for Belgrade to extradite the former commander-in-chief of the Bosnian Serb army, Ratko Mladic, to the Hague Tribunal. In Serbia, on the eve of early parliamentary elections on May 11, calls for curtailing relations with the European community are becoming louder. All this significantly complicates political dialogue, including on the Kosovo issue,” noted Alexander Karasev, head of the department of history of the Slavic peoples of South-Eastern Europe in modern times at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with Vremya Novostey. In his opinion, “the investigation into the allegations contained in Carla Del Ponte’s book is unlikely to be effective. The Hague Tribunal will refer to the lack of corpses and testimony. International representatives in Kosovo will state that the relevant materials are missing and cannot be recovered." In addition, “the investigation will be hindered by the United States and other countries that have already recognized the independence of Kosovo and the government of Hashim Thaci,” the VN expert believes.
Minsk is dissatisfied with the PACE resolution
Yesterday, Minsk reacted harshly to the resolution on the Belarusian issue adopted the day before by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). The practice of adopting documents “that do not contain constructive elements for establishing real cooperation and dialogue is counterproductive and has no prospects,” says Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Popov in a commentary.
The PACE resolution called on the Belarusian authorities to abolish criminal liability for activities on behalf of an unregistered organization. This rule was introduced shortly before the 2006 presidential elections and, according to human rights activists, is directed against the opposition. The Parliamentary Assembly called on human rights organizations to keep records of “not only the victims of politically motivated abuses, but also the perpetrators of such abuses.” In this regard, it is proposed to develop a mechanism for providing international assistance to victims of political repression and introduce sanctions against the officials who are responsible for them. PACE called on the Belarusian authorities to introduce a moratorium on the death penalty.
The PACE resolution was adopted against the backdrop of another deterioration in relations between Minsk and the West. In March, a diplomatic scandal broke out between Belarus and the United States due to sanctions imposed by Washington against the state concern Belneftekhim. European politicians harshly criticized the forceful actions of the Belarusian police during the opposition protest on March 25.
At the current session of the Assembly, Russia called for consideration of the issue of restoring the status of a special guest in PACE for Belarus. His country lost after the 1996 referendum, which significantly expanded the powers of the president. The return of special guest status would allow Minsk to improve its image in the international arena. But such a decision by PACE today seems unlikely. Olga TOMASHEVSKAYA, Minsk