One page of the book “The Hunt”, published under the name of Carla del Ponte, former Prosecutor of the International Tribunal on War Crimes, speaks of the “fact” that transplants of 300 Serbian war hostages may have been performed in a village house in Northern Albania in 1999.
The 300 page books tells of a lot of interesting stories, but people in the Balkan, and especially Serbia, have heavily lingered on this one page, which recent world-running news agency titles such as “Serbia calls on Europe for assistance with investigations in AlbaniaŢ, “Belgrade insists Albanians killed Serbs for organs”, “Serbia criticizes Albania over investigation of traffic of organsŢ have rendered current.
The book was published in June this year, but another important fact related to this “episode” is either ignored or tangently mentioned. On August 2nd 2004, a group of fifteen individuals from the “International Tribunal on War Crimes” came to the house where the trafficking of organs has allegedly taken place. They turned it upside down, probed around, and came to the conclusion that the allegations were baseless. The case never went to the Hague Tribunal, while the Court itself responded to the accusation of Ms. Del Ponte as follows: “The Tribunal is aware of very serious allegations of human organ trafficking raised by the former Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, in a book recently published in Italian under her name. No evidence in support of such allegations was ever brought before the Tribunal’s judges.”
But let’s come back to the “breaking news”. The last three days, I’ve stayed in Burrel for training with local journalists, who received the news of the arrival of a Serbian prosecutor with smiles in their face. In a little village where the movement of a cow makes news, the sole victim of the big headline, along with truth, is the owner of the house. The tradition of the area calls for hospitality towards any stranger that happens to knock on one’s door. Following the group from the Hague, he has been paid frequent and often cumbersome visits by Serbian journalists introduced as Slovenians, other foreign journalists and investigators. It is likely that after the escalating ado in Serbia, he will have new visitors.
This is the reaction “on the site”. In Tirane, the office of the Prime Minister denied for Reuters the comments attributed to the Serbian prosecutor Vukcevic, according to which “the secret services have been asked to destroy important documents under the influence of Ramush Haradinaj.” The declaration referred to the accusations as “fabrications of a sick and hallucinating imagination”.
The arrival of the Serbian prosecutors in Tirane could have yielded better results and would have been positively viewed by the public opinion here if the object of the visit had been cooperation to fight “organized crime”. “The additional information” for a case investigated by the Hague prosecutors constitutes pure propaganda which, while failing to impress anyone in Tirane, has a different effect in Belgrade and the wide international public opinion.
A different atmosphere is created in Belgrade. Such “news”, following Kosovo’s declaration of independence and the handing over of the much-wanted Karadzic to the Hague, comprise favorite consumption for the internal Serbian opinion to feed on.
It’s different with opinion in Tirane. Serbs have always tried to blow allegations against others out of proportions while shriveling any Kosovo burdens weighting on their shoulders. Massive graves of 8000 victims carry their signature. But, it is not the first time in this region that the aggressor tries to trade roles with the victim; there are still hundreds and thousands of Kosovo Albanians resulting lost.
In light of this propagandistic clatter, a reporter of the Council of Europe will maybe visit Albania. The case will be considered once more and this will be – the last hunt.
