Byzantine Blog

Bill Clinton Kosovo Boulevard Blasted to Smithereens

An explosion killed two people and injured 12 when it tore through shops early on Monday in Pristina, officials say. The blast ripped through southern Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija at 2:10 a.m., scattering glass and debris from a dozen shops on Pristina’s Bill Clinton Boulevard. According to Reuters, one of the buildings collapsed.

The Albanian policeman told AFP that “The blast occurred in the business area in which some coffee shops and restaurants were still working.”

One person was immediately killed, while another died of injuries in a hospital. The other 12 people injured in a blast, three of them in critical condition, are being treated in hospital.

As is the most common case with the all-to-often violent outbursts in Kosovo-Metohija since UN/NATO took over the Serbian province’s administration and security, everything is kept in strict confidence, hidden behind the heavy wall of silence — no one knows what happened or why, who are the perpetrators (who are never found or arrested anyway), Albanians and UN police are apparently even dumbfounded as to “what has caused the explosion”.

Was it a meteor from the outer space? A faulty, self-incinerating plaster on the buildings? Could it have been a bomb? Dare we say that?

We do, since Belgrade news agencies reported that an Irish bomb disposal experts from KFOR were on the scene and police closed the street.

As to the motive, terrorism is not being ruled out, but officials in Kosovo-Metohija have suggested the deadly attack is probably “related to crime.” Organized crime, or Albanian mafia, since according to the (German) DPA report, Enver Sekiraqa, one of Kosovo Albanian mafia bosses, owned a café and several other businesses in the shopping center that suffered most damage in the blast. Over the past month Sekiraqa has been unavailable to the police who named him as an accomplice in the murder of police officer Triumf Riza that had taken place on August 30 in Pristina.

According to BIRN, after Riza’s murder police arrested at least four persons in Sekiraqa’s café, which was closed down and put under surveillance. But they stopped watching the place two days ago.

Kosovo Province — Hotbed of Injustice, Anarchy and Crime, Run by Corrupt UNMIK Officials

UNMIK officers are linked to the local Albanian mafia in Kosovo-Metohija, and the international mission, which is supposed to protect the security, property and rights of Kosovo inhabitants and set democratic foundation, has achieved exactly the opposite, claims investigative reporter of influential Sweden daily Dagens Nyheter, Maciej Zaremba.

Kosovo has become the hotbed of injustice, anarchy, crime, a European center of women and drugs trafficking, according to Tanjug which is citing the allegations of the author of the article, who spent six months in southern Serbian province.

Zaremba claims that in the eight years since it first set up its mission in Kosovo, the United Nations has spent 22 billion euros, and pointed out that the black market is still thriving in the area and that the province is on the verge of legal collapse.

During his several month long investigation of the UNMIK/Albanian-established system in Serbian province, Zaremba concluded that the overly paid UNMIK officials are not there to fight organized crime which is the worst evil in the province, but that they rather feel obliged only towards their own careers, in which Kosovo province is but an episode.

This is why the only thing which all of the seven Kosovo province governors — heads of UNMIK, of which French Bernard Kouchner was the first and German Joachim Ruecker is the seventh, current UNMIK Chief — have ever mentioned in their reports are “stability and progress.” “That is the only way they could advance their careers,” the Swedish journalist specified.

Piles of Crime Reports No One Ever Reads

The British source revealed to Zaremba that the seat of the UN Police in Kosovo-Metohija is buried under the crime reports no one has ever looked at. Most crimes are never investigated, but it is also questionable who would be capable of investigating them if they wanted, given the quality of the UNMIK staff.

As an example of the incompetence and irresponsible approach to the UN Mission in Kosovo, Zaremba writes that Kosovo population is being taught how to run a railway by an “expert” paid some 8,000 euros a month, from Sierra Leone, where the last train ended its journey in 1975.

The parking security is allocated to a man from Bangladesh who doesn’t have a drivers license and speaks only Bengali, so he must have paid good money to have been hired by the UN, said the Swedish reporter.

A Rubbish Heap for Lethargic Politicians and El Dorado for Thieves

“Those who do not leave Kosovo with their pockets full of money are either dumb or saints,” said one of Zaremba’s sources. Another one describes southern Serbian province as “a rubbish heap for lethargic politicians and an El Dorado for thieves,” while the third admits he took part in many UN missions across the world, “but none as rotten as this one” in Kosovo.

Each of the three came from a different state and holds “central positions” within UNMIK.

Marie Fucci who ran Kosovo Trust Agency, the umbrella organization responsible for public and socially owned enterprises in 2003-2004 said that the bulk of aid that was sent to southern Serbian province ended up in the pockets of local mafia figures and that the immense amounts were spent for the things that have nothing to do with recovery of the province’s economy. Instead, they served for the enrichment of Kosovo-Metohija’s prominent Albanian leaders and politicians, and of the UNMIK Chiefs.

According to Fucci, ordinary Albanians in southern Serbian province are “worse off today than when the UN or the Western diplomats arrived.”

“The beneficiaries of donor support, who should have been the population, were instead the local mafias, some in local government, and cowardly and incompetent international administrators, who never ran anything in their lives but scared,” Marie told the Swedish reporter.

Kosovo Robbery by the Irish Company and NATO (KFOR) Incompetence

In the Part 2 of his exceptional analysis “The UN state and the seven robbers” Zaremba reveals how some of the major robberies by the locals and internationals in Kosovo province are accomplished, and how it could happen that “the Irish [who allegedly came to improve the miserable energy supply of Kosovo-Metohija failed electricity company KEK] stay for three years, collect some 10 million euros in consultancy fees and leave KEK in about the same shape as when they arrived.”

In the Part 4, titled “Prowess, courage and plastic socks,” apart from more insight into the rampant corruption, anarchy and incompetence Serbian Kosovo province has been subjected to since the UN/NATO took over the administration, Zaremba also explains how it could have happened that armed NATO troops [KFOR], assigned with keeping peace in the region, simply move aside in front of the raging Albanian mob in March 2004, allowing a three-day pogrom of the remaining province’s Serbs.