Inner City Press


Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis


In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

,



Share |   

Follow on TWITTER

Home -

These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis

CONTRIBUTE

(FP Twitterati 100, 2013)

ICP on YouTube

BloggingHeads.tv
Sept 24, 2013

UN: Sri Lanka

VoA: NYCLU

FOIA Finds  

Google, Asked at UN About Censorship, Moved to Censor the Questioner, Sources Say, Blaming UN - Update - Editorial

Support this work by buying this book

Click on cover for secure site orders

also includes "Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City"
 

 

 


Community
Reinvestment

Bank Beat

Freedom of Information
 

How to Contact Us



On Kosovo, Still No Action on Human Organs Cases, Kumanovo Cited

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 26 -- The Kosovo representative of the UN Farid Zarif, when  he briefed the UN Security Council on May 26, had a long paragraph about delay in trying "cases arising from the finding of the EU Special Investigative Task Force" -- without mentioning the underlying organ trafficking.

 Meanwhile the UN Office of the High Commission for Human Rights, embroiled in a scandal of covering up alleged child rapes by French soldiers in the Central African Republic, including allow the (French) chief of UN Peacekeeping to try to get the OHCHR whistleblower fired, has closed its office in Kosovo.

 In a speech after Zarif's briefing, Russia's Ambassador Vitaly Churkin criticized the delay in the Special Court, and the failure to report the build-up to Kumanovo.

  Here's what the UN's Farid Zarif said on this, followed by Churkin:

  “A matter of pressing importance is the completion of the necessary steps toward establishment of the Specialist Court, in order to try cases arising from the findings of the EU Special Investigative Task Force in accordance with the highest standards of international justice. In my meetings across the Kosovo political establishment, I have underlined the clear expectations from the international community, as well as from those who may have been the victims of past crimes, that there be no undue delays in the steps required from Kosovo toward the establishment of the Court. I had hoped to be able to report today that the relevant constitutional and legislative steps had been completed, but the issue now has been tentatively scheduled for action this Friday.”

   Farif made a glancing reference to major regional events: "the deadly armed clashes in Kumanovo, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, on May 9 and 10. The violent clashes involved several individuals from Kosovo."

  Churkin, on Kumanovo, said

"The Kosovan problem is still pertinent and still has a destabilizing impact on the whole region. This is verified by the recent events in Macedonia, in particular the attack by bandits in uniform of the KLA on the Macedonian border guards on the 21st of April and the incident in Kumanovo on the 9 of May. This was caused by the arrival in that town of a large group of radical fighters from Kosovo who planned to carry out a series of terrorist attacks in the territory of Macedonia.

"We are astonished that the information in Skopje about the  plans of the terrorists were conveyed to international partners who played a key role in ensuring security in Kosovo at the beginning of this year. This warning was ignored. The Macedonian incidents show that in this region of the Balkans there are still inter-ethnic conflicts, and it proves the high conflict potential of the region. The situation is also impacted by a lack of the rule of law in Kosovo. This is a result of a lack of settlement of the Kosovo problem on the whole.

 On the organ trade, Churkin said:

"There have been delays in establishing the Special Court to investigating the crime carried out by the KLA including the trade in human organs. It's odd that the establishment of such a body has been dependent on legislative decisions in Prisitina when clearly Kosovo has not been ready to objectively evaluate such a delicate matter. There is a negative legacy of this from the recent past. There have been reports about western diplomats in Pristina trying to persuade  Kosovars to adopt a text written for them that would apparently give them better results than if this matter was brought to the Security Council. We don’t understand how such friendly recommendations can be married with the mantra of the rule of law. We  insist on the need to achieve real progress in this area as soon as possible. We note what was said today by Mr. Thaci. We confirm our position that the perpetrators of these crimes must be brought to justice irrespective of their status.”

  We'll see.


 

Share |

* * *

These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for Sept 26, 2011 New Yorker on Inner City Press at UN

Click for  BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN Corruption

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Google
  Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

            Copyright 2006-2015 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com