Last week, I listened to PBS’s Charlie Rose get a rundown on the “top hits” in current world news — from Al Qaeda roots and terrorism to North Korea to Condi Rice’s Middle East initiatives to the Bush administration’s “schizophrenic” message on China — from Richard Holbrooke, Clinton’s ambassador to the United Nations and the architect of the historic Dayton Accords in 1998.
Holbrooke’s greatest frustration with Colin Powell’s performance as Secretary of State in W’s first term was his “do nothing” attitude about Kosovo. (The U.N. also failed in Kosovo, said Holbrooke.)
Holbrooke said that, through 2004, he spent hours and hours, pressing Powell to implement U.N. Resolution 1244. Since Charlie Rose charges $10 for his transcripts, I’ll quote from Nicholas Burns, U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs, whose Nov. 8, 2005 speech is up at New Zealand’s Scoop:
2006 will be a crucial year of decision for Kosovo and the Balkans. The UN-sponsored Final Status Talks will begin in a few weeks time, and after more than six years of UN rule, it is time for the people of Kosovo — Albanian and Serb alike — to be given a chance to define their future. … (Emphases mine.)
In contrast to his nuanced, but clear, expressions of frustration with Powell’s inaction (and not just on Kosovo), Holbrooke held out promise for the efforts of Condi Rice and Nick Burns. “Finally,” he said, Rice has gotten the State Dept., White House, and U.N. moving on Kosovo.
Now comes this sickening news, via Al-Muhajabah’s Islamic Blogs (whose RSS feed I subscribe to via My Yahoo):
US ran Guantanamo-style prison in Kosovo – Council of Europe envoy
Date: November 26, 2005 | 23 Shawwal 1426 Hijriah
Blog: The Clipboard
Subjects: kosovo, military, detention, prisons
From an article1:
The US military ran a Guantanamo Bay-type detention centre in Kosovo, a top Council of Europe official said.
The Council of Europe’s Human rights commissioner Alvaro Gil-Robles said he had been ‘shocked’ by conditions at the barbed wire-rimmed centre inside a US military base, which he witnessed in 2002.
The camp resembled ‘a smaller version of Guantanamo’, he told France’s Le Monde newspaper, referring to the US centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where hundreds of terrorism suspects remain detained without trial. (link)
Via this Daily Kos diary [by Jerome A Paris of the EuroTrib.com blog, the sister site of BoomanTribune.com] and its comments, we find that Camp Bondsteel was a concern to European human rights groups as early as January 2002 because of existing beyond the law (which initially led it to be compared to Guantanamo) and because of allegations of torture there in December 2001. And the German newspaper Der Spiegel earlier this month speculated (in light of the Washington Post story) that Camp Bondsteel was a likely site for one of the CIA black sites (how could they resist a place that was already under control of the U.S. military, set up with a prison, and beyond the law?)
The original Le Monde article (in French) is here. [NOTE: Jerome A Paris provides an English translation in his diary.]
The deep hatreds of the Albanians and the Serbs — along with the lingering controversies over the NATO occupation, and the rest — are so grave that peace is incredibly difficult at any time. But Holbrooke said that a “golden” opportunity was lost during the ensuing years following Dayton when Powell did nothing. Holbrooke said it is very late in the game for Rice and Burns, and the U.N., to achieve success.
But this news that the Bush administration is using Kosovo as a torture chamber cannot bode well.
Frankly, it boggles the mind that an administration would allow such activity in a highly sensitive region of Europe.
Hell. This administration probably doesn’t even know that Kosovo was used. Besides reporters “run amuck,” we’ve got lawless, vicious rogue CIA agents and private contractors and god-knows-who-else running amuck around the globe — and apparently with little or no oversight, and certainly with no sensitivity to other political implications of the location for their unconscionable actions.
Bush’s evident cruel nature — along with his utter inattention to anything — has unleashed and unmuzzled all the mad dogs. And he knows not, nor cares not, where they are or what they do.
P.S. Nicholas Burns’ speech is still worth reading in its entirety … his conclusion is below …
The people of the former Yugoslavia suffered through a decade of conflicts brought on by corrupt and cynical leaders who put their own power, greed and ethnic hatreds ahead of the interests of the people. From the ashes of the wars of the 1990s there is now new hope emerging. In my October visit to Sarajevo, Pristina and Belgrade, I made a point of meeting with students in each city who will soon be the leaders of their countries and I found these meetings to be extraordinarily encouraging. In Sarajevo, we met with young Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks who are working together to break down remaining ethnic differences. In Kosovo, I met with extraordinarily courageous high school students from Mitrovica. These Serbs and Albanians, separated by the physical bridge dividing their communities, are trying to create a virtual bridge of computer networks to unite them. I met with young Serbs at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade who did not hesitate to express their commitment to justice, peace and democracy for Serbia and the region. I was struck by the fact that in each of these three meetings, in three different places, these students, of all the people we met, were the most courageous in putting forward the proposition that people of different faiths and nationalities should be able to live together in the Balkans of the 21st century. I didn’t hear this message from the political leaders, but I heard it loud and clear from the younger people. I hope that their voice and their vision of a more just and peaceful region will come to represent the future for Kosovo, for Bosnia-Herzegovina and for Serbia and Montenegro.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I look forward to taking your questions.
Released on November 8, 2005
(Emphasis mine.)
