The Economist

A bad day

Jan 25th 2011, 19:45

WHAT a terrible day for Albanians. Dick Marty’s report, containing allegations of murders for organ trafficking after the Kosovo war, has been adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. At the same time Miroslav Lajcak, a former Slovak foreign minister who now heads up Balkan affairs at the EU’s new External Action Service, has been dispatched to Tirana in a bid to head off a fresh round of violence.

Yesterday there was a prelude to this misery. The Guardian claimed that it had seen intelligence documents produced "around 2004" from KFOR, the NATO force in Kosovo, alleging that Hashim Thaçi, Kosovo’s prime minister, was one of a triumvirate of the “biggest fish” in organised crime. According to the documents Xhavit Haliti, a major figure in Kosovo politics, was “the power behind Hashim Thaçi” and was involved in "prostitution, weapons and drugs smuggling”.

Mr Haliti was also said to be linked to the 1997 murder in Albania of Ali Uka, a journalist who had voiced criticism of the Kosovo Liberation Army, in which both Mr Thaçi and Mr Haliti were leading lights. "He was brutally disfigured with a bottle and a screwdriver," the report says. "His roommate at the time was Hashim Thaçi."

The Guardian leaks appear to corroborate Mr Marty’s report, which alleges that Mr Thaçi was the leader of a “mafia-like” network which had seized “violent control” of the heroin trade and was linked to the kidnappings of Serbs and others, “a handful” of whom were murdered for their organs. Mr Thaçi says this is slanderous Serbian propaganda. The report by Mr Marty, a Swiss politician and former prosecutor, has had a devastating impact on Kosovo’s international reputation since it was issued in December. It has also had an insidious effect within the country. Ylli Hoxha, the executive director of the Foreign Policy Club, a discussion forum, says that debate in the country has “degenerated”. Either you support the official stance “or you are classified as a traitor.” The best thing, Mr Hoxha says, would be for Mr Thaçi to step down. But the prime minister has rejected that idea. With Mr Marty's report now adopted by the Council of Europe, the baton passes to EULEX, the EU’s police mission in Kosovo. It has said that if Mr Marty has fresh evidence he should give it to them. The organ-trafficking allegations were originally made in 2008 in a book co-written by Chuck Sudetic, who had worked as an investigator at the UN’s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. Mr Sudetic says that EULEX cannot handle such a sensitive investigation, for several reasons: it does not have an adequate witness-protection programme, suffers from insecure IT systems, and uses local translators who “are susceptible to threats and pressures on their families.” more see: http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/01/kosovo_and_albania