<http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11239>
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11239
Kosovo’s dirty secret: the background to Germany’s Secret Service affair
Centre for Research on Globalization
by Peter Schwarz
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/> Global Research, December 1, 2008
The arrest of three German secret service agents in Kosovo exposes the sort
of society that has been developed with German and American support in this
former part of Yugoslavia—one mired in corruption, organised crime and
secret service plots.
The affair began on November 14, when a bomb exploded outside the office of
the European Union special representative, Pieter Feith, in Kosovo’s
capital, Pristina. The building was damaged but no one was hurt. Immediately
afterward in a neighbouring building, a German man, Andreas J., was observed
and questioned by the Kosovan security forces, and unmasked as an agent of
Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND, Secret Service). This is according
to the public prosecutor’s office. German sources, however, claim that
Andreas J. only came to the scene four hours after the explosion to take
photographs.
Normally, such secret service affairs between friendly governments are
settled quietly and discreetly, usually by the departure of the unmasked
agents. Not so in this case. Last week, the police arrested Andreas J. and
two additional BND agents, accusing them of having planted the bomb at the
EU’s International Civilian Office (ICO) building.
The case has received enormous attention and has led to a diplomatic crisis
between Berlin and Pristina. Pictures of those arrested were shown on
Kosovan TV and on the front pages of the press, complete with rumours whose
source was thought to be the office of Prime Minister Hashim Thaci. It was
claimed that the public prosecutor’s office possessed a video showing
Andreas J. throwing the explosive device at the ICO building. However,
various witnesses who claim to have seen the video say it is not possible to
clearly identify anyone on the tape. Thaci, for his part, completely denies
any involvement and says the whole affair is a matter for the allegedly
independent Kosovan justice system.
Speculation has since been rife about the background to the case, but it is
doubtful whether it will ever be clarified. Kosovo is a jungle of rival
secret services. In this regard, it resembles Berlin before the fall of the
Wall. The US, Germany, Britain, Italy and France all have considerable
intelligence operations in the country, which work both with and against one
another. Moreover, in this country of just 2.1 million inhabitants, some
15,000 NATO soldiers and 1,500 UN police officers are stationed, as well as
400 judges, police officers and security officers belonging to the UN’s
EULEX mission.
In addition, the country has a government and state apparatus that are
notoriously corrupt and are closely linked with organised crime. According
to a report by the Berlin Institute for European Policy, produced last year
on behalf of the German army, drugs, human trafficking and arms smuggling,
theft, robbery and car crime are the only increasing and profitable sectors
of the country’s economy. Conservative estimates put the annual monetary
turnover of the mafia at approximately €550 million. This represents a
quarter of the country’s gross domestic product, which is artificially
inflated by enormous international transfers. Kosovo has become a
“poly-criminal multifunctional region,” with Kosovo playing an important
role, particularly as a transit country for Afghan heroin.
The German government has denied any involvement by the three BND agents in
the attack on the ICO building and called such accusations “absurd.” And it
is indeed difficult to discern a motive for the BND to organise an attack on
an institution in which the German government is involved.
However, secret service expert Erich Schmidt Eenboom, a long-time observer
of the BND, thinks differently. In an interview with Junge Welt he was
convinced that the BND agents had committed the attack to increase pressure
for a faster transition to full sovereignty in Kosovo. However, he was
unable to provide any proof.
On the other hand, the question arises why the Thaci government would court
an open conflict with Germany, which after the US is the second largest
financial backer of Kosovo and ranks among the most important advocates of
its independence.
Most German commentators describe this as an act of revenge—an
interpretation that clearly originates in senior government circles. Over
many years, Kosovan politicians, and in particular Prime Minister Thaci,
have been angered by the BND’s criticisms linking high-ranking politicians
with organised crime, contrary to the position taken by the CIA.
One bone of contention was a 67-page BND analysis about organized crime in
Kosovo, produced in February 2005, and reported by Frankfurt journalist
Jürgen Roth the same year in Weltwoche. The report accuses Ramush Haradinaj
(head of government from December 2004 to March 2005), Hashim Thaci (prime
minister since January 2008) and Xhavit Haliti, who sits in the parliament
presidium, of being deeply implicated in the drugs trade.
According to the BND report, “Regarding the key players (e.g., Haliti,
Thaci, Haradinaj), there exists the closest ties between politics, business
and internationally operating OC [organized crime] structures in Kosovo. The
criminal networks behind this are encouraging political instability. They
have no interest in building a functioning state, which could impair their
flourishing trade.”
Thaci is one of the founders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and in 1999
led the Albanian delegation to the Rambouillet conference, which established
the pretext for the NATO war against Yugoslavia. At this time, according to
the BND report, Thaci controlled a criminal network “active throughout
Kosovo.” In 2001, the report claims, “there were direct contacts with the
Czech and Albanian mafia.” In October 2003, Thaci was “closely linked to
extensive drugs and arms trafficking” with a clan that was also accused of
money laundering and extortion.
The BND report says of Haradinaj: “The structures around Ramush Haradinaj,
based on family clans in the area of Decani, are engaged in the entire
spectrum of criminal, political and military activities, which substantially
influence security conditions throughout Kosovo. The group consists of
approximately 100 members and is active in smuggling arms and drugs and in
the illegal trade of goods liable to customs duty. In addition, it controls
local government organs.”
In December 2004, Haradinaj, who was considered a protégé of the US, became
prime minister of Kosovo. However, he had to resign in March 2005 because
the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted him
for crimes against humanity. Among other things, he was accused of the
forceful abduction of civilians, kidnapping, unlawful detention, torture,
murder and rape. He was acquitted in April 2008 for lack of evidence, after
nine out of ten prosecution witnesses died violently and the tenth withdrew
his statement after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt.
The Berlin Institute for European Policy report cited above also repeats the
accusations against Thaci. Real power in Kosovo lays with 15 to 20 family
clans who control “almost all substantial key social positions” and are
“closely linked to prominent political decision makers,” the report states.
Weltwoche summarises the results of the study, saying, “The current Prime
Minister Hashim Thaci is specifically incriminated.” It goes on,
“‘Keyplayers’ like Thaci are responsible for ‘the close links between
politics, business and internationally operating mafia structures.’ The
political recognition accorded Thaci and other representatives of the Kosovo
Liberation Army has given former terrorists a previously unsurpassed
authority. Former criminals have won a reputation as politicians abroad, and
enjoy parliamentary immunity at home, and the protection of international
law abroad. This enables them to operate largely unchallenged in Kosovo and
to put pressure on political opponents with the help of—officially
forbidden—party secret service operations.”
In the meantime, the influence of the mafia gangs extends to the staff of
NATO’s KFOR peacekeeping force and UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo).
According to Weltwoche, UNMIK is also jointly responsible “for Kosovo
becoming a ‘centre of the international trafficking of women,’ particularly
young and under-age prostitutes. In some estimated 104 brothels, which are
mostly situated on the outskirts of town by a gas station, the
‘international’ customers are among the best. High demand has made a
‘significant contribution to the growing local trafficking structures.’ In
the past, several secret internment camps for women were established.”
It is interesting that the report by the Berlin Institute for European
Policy also refers to substantial tensions between German and American
bodies. “The German report is particular critical of the role of the US,
which had obstructed European investigations and which had been opened up to
political extortion by the existence of secret CIA detention centres in the
grounds of Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo,” writes Weltwoche. “Doubts are growing
about the American methods and also as a result of the ‘serious’ description
of a high-ranking German UN police officer that the main task of UNMIK’s
second in command, American Steve Schook, is ‘to get drunk with Ramush
Haradinaj once a week’.”
These tensions have obviously grown considerably, with several articles
suggesting that the CIA could have played a role in the arrest of the three
BND agents.
There are also still further hypotheses as to why Pristina became involved
in an open conflict with Berlin. One concerns the European Union’s EULEX
mission, to be expanded by the end of the year from 400 to 1,900 legal and
police officers to replace UNMIK and develop Kosovo’s legal structures.
On the one hand, this disrupts the affairs of the criminal clans, which have
largely been able to function undisturbed since the completely overworked
judicial system faces a backlog of approximately 40,000 legal cases. On the
other hand, in order for the European Union to obtain a UN mandate for
EULEX, the EU has agreed with Belgrade that the authorities in Pristina will
have no control over the police and courts in the Serbian inhabited Kosovo
north. Pristina sees this as a first step towards the secession of these
areas and therefore rejects the agreement.
Another theory reasons that Pristina is really only interested in BND agent
Robert Z., one of the three arrested, whom it claims was implicated in the
murder of KLA commander Ekrem Rexha in 2000.
Whatever the case, one thing the affair of the arrested BND agents has
already made clear is that the German government’s first foreign combat
mission in the postwar period—and the enormous sums of money it has pumped
into Pristina—have helped to establish a regime that Germany’s own secret
service regards as a centre for the trafficking of drugs and women
throughout Europe. As Jürgen Roth writes in Weltwoche, the Kosovan-Albanian
clans are today “a leading criminal force, in particular in Switzerland,
Germany and Italy.”
In turn, this organized criminality serves German Interior Minister Wolfgang
Schäuble as a pretext to curtail fundamental democratic rights and to demand
new powers for the police and secret service.
Germany’s Green Party bears a special responsibility for this development,
justifying the return of German imperialism to the Balkans with clichés
about human rights and self-determination. In reality, it is a case of
economic interests and geopolitical power. The result is a completely ruined
society, in which criminal and corrupt elements set the tone.
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er&authorName=Schwarz> Global Research Articles by Peter Schwarz
