Forensic dentist Helena Ranta says that officials of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs had tried to influence the content of her reports in 2000, when Ranta was commissioned by the European Union to investigate the events of Racak in Kosovo. Ranta put forward her allegations on Wednesday October 15th at the publication of her biography in Helsinki.
More than 40 Albanians were killed in the village of Racak in January 1999. The investigation by Ranta’s working group was very charged from the beginning. It was commonly assumed that Serb forces had perpetrated a massacre, which helped persuade NATO to launch bombings of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999.
According to Ranta, in the winter of 1999 William Walker, the head of the OSCE Kosovo monitoring mission, broke a pencil in two and threw the pieces at her when she was not willing to use language about the Serbs.sufficiently strong language about the Serbs. (Source HS 15/10/2008)
There is a widespread belief, that Walker's role in Racak was to assist the KLA in fabricating a Serb massacre that could be used as an excuse for military action. The theory was that the KLA had gathered their own dead after the battle, removed their uniforms, put them in civilian clothes, and then called in the observers.
Walker’s background
Walker was U.S. ambassador to El Salvador in November 1989 when six leading Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter were dragged from their beds and murdered by the Salvadoran Army. The killings were carried out by the Atlacatl Battalion, which was recruited, trained, and deployed by the U.S. military, supposedly in order to improve the Salvadoran Army's human rights performance. The Atlacatl was responsible for the worst atrocities of the entire war.
Walker first emerged in the Iran-Contra Scandal as the right-hand man of Oliver North and Elliott Abrams in illegal arms shipments to the Contras out of Ilopango airbase in El Salvador. Before that, he was deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Honduras when U.S. authorities were recruiting officers from Somoza's deposed National Guard to establish the Contras, and forming military death squads that murdered hundreds of Honduran workers, labor organizers and students. Information about Mr. Walker’s background one may find e.g. from article “Meet Mister Massacre” by Mark Ames and Matt Taibbi here.
Some remarks
Biography of Mrs. Ranta is one more example about political aspect in modern time's information wars. Similar examples from last year are interview of former Haague Tribunal spokeswoman Florence Hartmann (see my article "Opening Bosnian X-files" 12th Aug.2008 from my BlogArchive ) - as well the book of her former boss del Ponte describing e.g. organ trafficking of Serb civils by Albanian mafia - are giving quite disgusting picture about “realpolitik” behind noble statements of international community.
With this kind of now public exposures I would like to draw quite clear conclusion which is that latest mid-90s the western powers had decided heir position against the Serbs.
First there was case of Srebrenica July 1995, which launched publicly US support to Bosnian Muslims with claims of massacre of 8000 civilians (later few thousand was found, some of them were died years before, some of those 8000 returned alive few years later etc).
Second they were silent about massive ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Krajina (more in my article "Operation Storm" 5th Aug.2008 here) .
Third there was Racak case which launched Nato bombings 1999.
The story - manipulation public by mainstream media with fabricated reports for political aims - continued later this decade in Iraq operation and partly Georgia case (stories started with Russian invasion 8th Aug.2008 when in reality Georgia made attack to civil targets 7th Aug.2008, also fabricated pictures of Reuters came soon pubic).
After all this it is hard to believe on the other hand to official reports of states/international organizations and on the other hand the neutral or investigative journalism in sc. free press. Especially alarming it is now to read reports about nuclear program of Iran - what is true and are big players again starting new unnecessary war with false evidence.
More my articles from Balkans and Caucasus one may find from my Archives:BalkanBlog.
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