• Drugs "pouring out of Kosovo" under the nose of KFOR
• KFOR engaged in smuggling
• 30 American Peacekeepers detained in FYROM for drunken behavior
• Soldiers held after brawls
• British peacekeepers accused of theft in Kosovo
• UK Commandos in Kosovo Sent Home for Drug Use
• 'Cowardly' phone pest soldier is spared jail
• Norwegian troops took money and gold
• US OFFICERS DISCIPLINED IN THE KOSOVO RAPE-MURDER CASE
• UN claims that American officials withheld evidence linking a leading politician to a gunfight, drugs and war crimes
• US servicemen 'beat Kosovo civilians'
• Report finds incidents of misconduct toward Kosovars

International agencies fighting the drug trade are
warning that Kosovo has become a "smugglers' paradise"
supplying up to 40 per cent of the heroin sold in
Europe and North America.

NATO-led forces, struggling to keep peace in the
province a year after the war, have no mandate to
fight drug traffickers, and - with the expulsion from
Kosovo of the Serb police, including the "4th unit"
narcotics squad - the smugglers are running the
"Balkan route" with complete freedom.

The peacekeepers of K-For "may as well be coming from
another planet when it comes to tackling these guys",
said Mr Marko Nicovic, a lawyer and vice-president of
the International Narcotics Enforcement Officers
Association, based in New York.

"It's the hardest narcotics ring to crack because it
is all run by families and they even have their own
language. Kosovo is set to become the cancer centre of
Europe, as western Europe will soon discover," he
said.

He estimates that the province's traffickers are now
handling between 4.5 and five tonnes of heroin a month
and growing fast.

This compares to the two tonnes they were shifting
before the Kosovo war of March-June last year, when
NATO bombing forced Serbia's regime to pull out of the
largely ethnic-Albanian province.

"It's coming through easier and cheaper, and there's
much more of it," Mr Nicovic said. "The price is going
down and if this goes on we are predicting a heroin
boom in western Europe as there was in the early 80s."

A trafficker in Belgrade confirmed that since the war
the Kosovo heroin dealers, most of them from four main
families, were concentrating on the western Europe and
United States markets.

A kilogram of heroin that was worth $US16,000
($26,000) in Kosovo or double that in Belgrade could
make $US64,000 on the British, Italian or Swiss
markets, said the 24-year-old heroin middleman. He
expected the Kosovo route to grow: "There's nobody to
stop them."

Only half the promised 5,000 policemen have arrived to
join the peace operation in the province, which is now
the main route for heroin flowing through some of the
world's most troubled areas - Afghanistan, northern
Iran, the southern states of the Russian Federation,
Azerbaijan, Turkey, Kosovo - into western Europe and
the US.

"It is the Colombia of Europe," said Mr Nicovic, who
was chief of the Yugoslav narcotics force until 1996.
"When Serb police were burning houses in Kosovo, they
were finding it [heroin] stuffed in the roof. As far
as I know there has not been a single report in the
last year of K-For seizing heroin. They are soldiers,
not criminal investigators."

Echoing this, an official at NATO in Brussels said:
"Generals do not want to turn their troops into cops
... They don't want their troops to get shot pursuing
black-marketeers."

There is no evidence that the ethnic Albanians' Kosovo
Liberation Army is involved directly in drug
smuggling. But according to the British-based
International Police Review, they may be dependent on
the drug families who, it says, partly funded the
KLA's operations in Kosovo last year.

When drug-squad chiefs from northern and eastern
Europe met in Sweden 10 days ago the Balkan route was
the main issue, according to the head of the Czech
narcotics agency, Mr Jiri Komorous.

"There are four paths of drug trafficking through the
Balkans to western Europe. We have to improve our
attempts to control the Kosovo Albanians."

The Kosovo mafia has been smuggling heroin since the
mid-80s, but since the Kosovo war they have come into
their own, according to Mr Nicovic. "You have an
entire country without a police force that knows what
is going on."

The Kosovo Albanian mafia is almost untouchable.
"Everything is worked out on the basis of the family
or clan structure - the Fic [brotherhood] - so it is
impossible to plant informers," said Mr Nicovic.

The Guardian

Skopje, March 11 - Instead of providing peace in Kosovo, as
they are bound by the UN Security Council Resolution
1244, KFOR members are engaged in cigarette and hard
liquor smuggling, reports Skopje TV station "A1".

Citing reliable sources and
backing up their information by facts, TV station "A1" says that 15
KFOR tows are currently placed on Bogorodica crossing near
Djevdjelija in the southeast of the country, loaded with cigarettes
and liquor, waiting to enter Macedonia from Greece.

Macedonian customs officers are not allowing their entrance, for
they are suspicious of such quantity of goods, whose import is not
subjected to duty according to the agreement between KFOR and
Skopje authorities. Namely, customs officers have long noticed that
large quantities of goods, mostly expensive cigarettes and whiskey
not subjected to duty, were coming for KFOR needs.

Wednesday April 12 12:45 PM ET
SKOPJE, Macedonia (Reuters) - Police in the former Yugoslav republic of
Macedonia said Wednesday they had taken 30 U.S. peacekeeping soldiers
into custody for drunken behavior.
``Thirty American KFOR soldiers in Macedonia were taken in by the police
Wednesday morning because of their indecent behavior and maltreatment of
citizens,´´ the Macedonian Interior Ministry said in a statement.
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Officials from the KFOR peacekeeping force for Kosovo, which has a
back-up base in Macedonia, were not immediately available for comment.
The statement said the soldiers had been acting in a drunk and
disorderly way in a cafe in the Macedonian capital Skopje. One
Macedonian policeman was injured as he attempted to prevent a fight
between the American soldiers and passers-by.
The statement said the Macedonian police took in the men jointly with
KFOR military police, but made clear they were being held in a
Macedonian police station, not a KFOR detention center.

The Guardian, UK
www.guardian.co.uk

Konstantin Testorides in Skopje, Macedonia
Thursday April 13, 2000

As many as 30 US soldiers on leave from Kosovo were
taken into custody in the Macedonian capital Skopje
yesterday after drunken clashes with local police, the
country's interior ministry claimed.
Both Nato and the US military confirmed there had been
three separate incidents involving American troops in
Skopje but insisted that only five servicemen had been
temporarily detained by Macedonian police. They were
later turned over to US military authorities.
One US military source suggested that in at least two
of the clashes the US soldiers had not initiated
violence but had reacted after being provoked. In one
incident, according to an official, "an American
soldier was spat on by a Macedonian; the soldier
reacted to that and was detained by Macedonian
police".
In another incident, two American soldiers tried to
prevent a Macedonian from stealing the belongings of
one of the them. In the third incident, "four soldiers
at a restaurant were in some type of verbal
altercation with the staff at the restaurant and
possibly police". All four soldiers were detained, the
official confirmed.
"The Macedonians elected to not exercise legal
jurisdiction on the soldiers and return them to US
military authorities," he said, dismissing the report
of 30 soldiers being detained as a "fabrication".
But a Macedonian interior ministry statement said the
soldiers, members of Nato-led peacekeeping troops, had
been detained in connection with "indecent behaviour,
violation of public order, harassment of citizens and
a fight involving a policeman". Some were drunk, the
statement said.
Speaking in Skopje for K-For, the peacekeeping force
in Kosovo, Captain Andreas Reinecke said the force
"deeply regretted" the incidents. A US sergeant who
was involved said the trouble had started because the
Americans were drunk and loud. "Everyone went out, and
the fight started," the sergeant said.
Macedonia serves as the main staging post for
international peacekeepers travelling into and out of
Kosovo.

LONDON, June 26 (Reuters) - Four British peacekeepers have been accused of
stealing money and valuables from ethnic Albanian civilians at a checkpoint
in Kosovo, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Monday.

The four soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, a
contingent in the international peacekeeping force in the southern Yugoslav
province, have been separated and assigned to other duties.

The civilians claim the soldiers took mobile phones, cameras and up to 10,000
pounds ($15,000) worth of Deutschemarks at a checkpoint in the provincial
capital Pristina.

``Because it was a four-man patrol and an allegation was made that money and
effects were stolen, they are all under investigation,'' an MoD spokesman
said. ``But we don't know yet whether it's one or more that actually are
being accused.''

The Military Police special investigation branch was looking into the case.

``It is a serious allegation. Beyond what they have done individually, it's
the good name of the regiment and the British army,'' the spokesman said.

The soldiers ``would be dealt with quite severely'' if the allegations proved
true, he added.

10:26 06-26-00

Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited.

http://www.newsmax.com/uk/archives/articles/?a=2000/7/26/73824

AFP
July 26, 2000

              PRISTINA, Yugoslavia - Seven marines serving with the KFOR
              peacekeeping force in Kosovo have been sent home after testing
              positive for drugs, KFOR spokesman Major Roger Cooper-Simpson
              said Wednesday.

              Six of the troops, serving with the Commando Logistic Regiment, tested
              positive for "Class A drugs," a British legal term which refers to hard
              drugs such as heroin, and the seventh for a less dangerous substance,
              Cooper-Simpson said.

              The random tests were carried out in Britain before the men were
              deployed to Kosovo, the Yugoslav province under international
              administration since the end of its 1998-1999 civil war in June last
              year, but the results were not known until after their arrival.

              An eighth member of the unit who was not sent to Kosovo also tested
              positive at the same time, Cooper-Simpson added.

              "They will be dealt with administratively by their units in Britain. They
              will almost certainly be kicked out of the forces," he said.

              The drug test failures are the latest in a series of scandals to tarnish the
              image of British troops serving in Kosovo.

              Earlier this month an officer serving as part of KFOR's central
              command was sent home after being caught "out of bounds" late at night
              in a notorious Pristina bar by military police.

              In June four British soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers
              manning a checkpoint near Pristina were accused by local civilians of
              stealing cash and a video camera. An investigation into the allegations is
              ongoing, KFOR spokesman Major Angus Forbes said Wednesday.

  A HOUSEHOLD Cavalryman was branded a "disgusting
coward" by a judge yesterday after admitting making
obscene phone calls.
L/Cpl Thomas Tiffoney, 33, breathed heavily and made a
string of depraved threats, telling one victim he
would tie her to the bed, rape her and kill her.

Tiffoney, a soldier for 10 years with an "exemplary"
career, made the calls to two women, starting in April
last year, London Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court was
told. By the time his mobile phone was traced he was
on duty in Kosovo. When interviewed by police he
refused to answer questions.

Sparing him a jail sentence so he could remain in the
Army, but imposing a 180-hour community service order,
Judge William Rose said: "You are a member of a
regiment with a proud and honourable tradition. But
your behaviour was squalid, cowardly, dishonourable
and disgusting." The judge ordered Tiffoney to pay his
victims £500 compensation each, as well as £700
prosecution costs, and banned him from contacting them
for 10 years.

Kosovo Polje, August 10 (Tanjug) - During a three-hour search of a Serb
house, Norwegian KFOR troops based in Kosovo Polje took 7,500 DM and
gold, while the house owner Mirka Maksimovic ended in a health center,
spokesman of the Serbian National Assembly in Kosovo Polje Zivomir Vucic
stated.
Norwegian KFOR troops in full battle dress previously surrounded with
several jeeps a vehicle of the Serbian National Assembly chairman
Ratomir Maksimovic, Serbian National Assembly Executive Board vice
chairman Zvonko Mitic and Vucic, on the pretext of exercising a routine
check.
That "routine check has lasted for three hours with arms prepared to
fire. They took our personal data, demanded that we give them our home
phone numbers and took photos of us", Vucic said.
The harassment continued in front of Mirka Maksimovic's house, Ratomir
Maksimovic's mother. Norwegian troops then searched her house.
"Ratomir Maksimovic was in front of the house, Mitic and I were not
allowed to leave the car. They took 7,500 DM and gold from Mirka
Maksimovic's house. Being a serious diabetic, Mirka got sick and
received treatment in the health center", Vucic said.
This Norwegian KFOR troops' behaviour caused spontaneous gathering of
some 200 Serb residents in front of Mirka Maksimovic's house, Vucic
said, adding that the troops have sent off a Serb translator and brought
a uniformed ethnic Albanian one.

WASHINGTON, US, August 16, 2000 (Agence France Presse)

     Four US army officers have been disciplined following an
investigation stemming from the rape and murder of an 11-year-old
girl by a US sergeant in Kosovo, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

     The investigation found that soldiers in the sergeant's
peacekeeping unit in Kosovo had beat, threatened, and illegally
detained local nationals, and some had grabbed the breasts and
buttocks of local women, army spokeswoman Elaine Kannelis confirmed.
The four 82nd Airborne Division officers were not identified and the
army provided little information about the charges against them or
the punishment meted out.

     One officer received non-judicial punishment under Article 15 of
the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, and the other three received
"memoranda of reprimand" from the commanding general of the 82nd
Airborne Division.

American officials in Kosovo are being accused of interfering with an
investigation into a senior Kosovo Albanian politician implicated in
murder, drug-trafficking and war crimes.
Ramush Haradinaj, a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA), was the key US military and intelligence asset in Kosovo during
the civil war and the Nato bombing campaign that followed.
In the latest twist in the saga of an increasingly flawed electoral
process, United Nations police in the province complain that US
personnel withheld evidence about a gunfight involving Haradinaj, who is
now head of one of the province's leading political groups.
UN investigators leading the case say US officials based at their main
base, Camp Bondsteel, removed forensic evidence from the scene of the
gun battle, including bullets retrieved from walls. The incident, which
took place in the village of Strellc in the west of Kosovo, is well out
of the US Army's area of responsibility, which lies in the south-east of
the province.
Following the shooting Haradinaj, known almost universally in the
province as simply Ramush, was flown by helicopter to Camp Bondsteel and
then onto Germany to be treated in an US Army hospital for shrapnel
wounds. UN investigators were denied access to him during that time.
Evidence from the incident was eventually handed over after angry phone
calls from Fred Pascoe, the American policeman heading the UN
investigation.
The news of American reluctance to co-operate with the investigation
comes amid a catalogue of accusations linking Haradinaj to murder, drugs
trafficking and war crimes.
The shooting revolved around a dispute between Haradinaj and members of
the Musaj family, who accuse him of ordering the murder of their brother
and three other men shortly after the arrival of Nato troops in Kosovo
in June 1999. The men were all part of FARK (Armed Force of the Republic
of Kosovo ), a rival group to the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Three Musaj brothers had visited Haradinaj's father to demand the bones
of their brother, a right they had according to Albanian custom.
Haradinaj admits he went to the Musaj family home at around one in the
morning to stop the brothers from visiting his father again.
This is the second time this year Haradinaj has been caught up in
violence. He was injured in a fight with Russian soldiers at a K-For
checkpoint in the spring. Western diplomats say he has damaged his
party's prospects in UN-organised local elections due this October.
This latest incident does not appear to have damaged his contacts with
US military or political figures.
His party officials were invited to a discussion on the future of Kosovo
at a meeting organised by the US state department. He himself is
currently in Washington on a fund-raising trip and as the guest of a US
Congressman, Benjamin Gillman.
His standing with the international community is summed up by British
officials who describe him as 'one of the few former commanders of the
KLA who can deliver'. They say he was crucial in smoothing over the
transition of the KLA from a guerrilla army to a civilian-based national
guard.
But British military personnel who liaised with Haradinaj before and
during the Nato bombing campaign paint a different picture. One former
soldier, who served with the Kosovo Verification Mission, described him
as 'a psychopath' and accused him of terrorising his own men and the
local population into loyalty to him. 'He would beat his own men to
maintain a kind of military discipline,' he said.
'Someone would pass him some information and he would disappear for two
hours. The end result would be several bodies in a ditch,' he added
The man said he was also present when Ramush 'went to deal with' an
Albanian family who had let Serb police into their house. The incident
matches a human rights report issued by the OSCE (Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe) last year in which seven masked men
entered a house in the village of Gornja Lucka. Two men were beaten and
a third was taken to a nearby canal and never seen again.
During this time the same former soldier says Haradinaj was maintaining
daily contact with American military personnel in the US and that these
links were then taken over by Nato at the beginning of the bombing
campaign in Kosovo.
Another alleged victim of Ramush's men was Suad Qorraj, who had operated
a satellite telephone for a rival KLA commander during the war. His
family say he went missing from the town of Decani on 23 June 1999, two
weeks after the end of the war. On 1 August Suad's charred remains were
found in a nearby forest. The burial notice said he had been 'killed by
Serbs'.
A year on from Suad's death, Haradinaj still wields considerable power
in western Kosovo. 'He can very easily bring the area to a halt,' says
Robert Charmbury, UN administrator of the biggest town in the region,
Pec, citing as evidence the fight against Russian peace keepers in which
the town was 'blockaded in minutes'.
The Alliance party has strong representation on local municipal boards
and is discussing the possibility of a pact with the Kosovan Democratic
Party (PDK), led by Hashim Thaci, former political leader of the KLA.
Such a deal might squeeze out the favourites to win in the region, the
Democratic League of Kosovo, in October's elections.
Whatever the outcome of the polls, senior UN officials are concerned
about Haradinaj's long-term impact on the province. One aide claims
Haradinaj is now financed by two men, Naser Kelmendi and Ekrem Lluka,
both of whom are suspected to be involved in smuggling. UN police
reports, seen by The Observer, go further and describe Lluka as
trafficking drugs and cigarettes in Greece, Kosovo, Albania and Italy.
Meanwhile the Musaj brothers are worried about what Haradinaj will do in
the next few weeks. 'If he doesn't attack us before the elections he'll
attack us afterwards,' said Sadic Musaj. He and his brother have already
built up the walls around their compound in case of another attack. He
doubts however whether anybody will take action against Ramush. 'Nothing
will happen, he has strong people behind him.'

               US peacekeepers were ill-prepared for duties, say Officials.
 Nine US servicemen have been disciplined for mistreating civilians in
 Kosovo, according to reports on the American television ABC.
 
               The men are said to have indecently [assaulted] women,
 punched and threatened civilians, and fired at a Red Cross vehicle.
 
               The nine servicemen, from the 82nd Airborne Division, have
 been reduced in rank and suffered financial penalties, according to ABC,
 which says it has obtained an official report on the incidents.
 
               A US army from the same has already been jailed for life for
 raping and  murdering 11-year-old  Merita Shabiu Kosovo.
 
               The incidents involving the nine men are said to include one
 case where two Kosovo Albanian brothers were taken to an abandoned
 warehouse and punched in the stomach.
 
               One then had a gun held to his head and was asked whether he
 wanted to die.
 
               Classified information
 
               All the incidents allegedly involving the nine men are
 believed to have taken place in the eastern town of Vitina in January.
 
               ABC says the Pentagon is preparing to publish the report on
 Monday after removing classified information.
 
               The men were serving with the international peacekeeping
 force sent to Kosovo after the withdrawal of Serbian forces.
 
               According to the ABC report, the nine servicemen include four
 officers. They are said  to based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
 
               'Dehumanising'
 
               There has been no comment from the  Pentagon.
 
               However, officials in Washington have told the Associated
 Press news agency that the report raises questions over the level of
 training which the men had received for a
 peacekeeping mission.
 
               The sergeant who was jailed for rape and murder used part of
 the classified report during his trial to try to demonstrate that US
 peacekeepers were operating in a
 "dehumanising" atmosphere.
 
               Sergeant Frank Ronghi was given a life sentence for the
 attack, with no possibility of parole.

        WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Sept. 22, 2000) -- An Army Regulation 15-6 report of investigation released by U.S. Army Europe Sept. 18 confirmed allegations of misconduct toward Kosovar Albanian citizens last winter by several soldiers assigned to 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment while they conducted peacekeeping duties in Kosovo.
        Five enlisted troops and one officer received administrative punishment under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and three officers received general officer memoranda of reprimand as a result of the report's findings and recommendations.
        At least four of the enlisted troops were members of Staff Sgt. Frank Ronghi's platoon and the officers were part of his battalion chain of command.
        Ronghi entered a plea of guilty earlier this summer to charges of indecent acts, sodomy and murder of Merita Shabiju, an 11-year-old Albanian girl, in the Kosovo village of Vitina last January. He received a life sentence without the possibility of parole from an Army judge in August. The investigation also found Ronghi involved in misconduct toward Albanians beyond the Shabiju case.
        While Ronghi's defense lawyer made public the allegations of misconduct by other members of his platoon during Ronghi's trial, the Army had already started investigating them just days prior to Shabiju's murder.
        An Army statement released with the 600-plus page report cited the involved soldiers as "behaving in a manner inconsistent with the command's rules of engagement, the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Army's core values."
        The investigation determined "unit members violated the limits and terms of their military assignments by intimidating, interrogating, abusing and beating Albanians and by traveling outside of their physically assigned sector to conduct some of these activities."
        Specific incidents included:
        o The purposeful groping of female Albanians' breasts and buttocks beyond that required of a standard body search during crowd control operations. One of the soldiers admitted in a sworn statement that he had done this as a way of getting "cheap thrills."
        o Beatings or other physical abuse of several detainees and of at least one teenager thought to know where criminal suspects were hiding. Abuse included squeezing a suspect's head, throwing him into a wall and tapping his knees with a hammer as a part of an interrogation. It also included head butting an Albanian deaf-mute who was blocking traffic.
        o Intimidation of detainees and other Albanians. This included thrusting rifles into detainees' heads and bodies, stabbing a knife into a wall two feet from a detainee's head and then repeatedly thrusting it into a table near beside the detainee. The soldiers also played a "game" of rushing through the Albanian marketplace to see who could be knocked off balance. The marketplace game was also used as occasions to grope Albanian women.
        However, the report found the actions of these few soldiers from a single platoon was an isolated incident and should not detract from the exceptional job another 6,000 soldiers are doing in difficult circumstances as part of Task Force Falcon in Kosovo.
        The report listed a number of factors that led to an unhealthy command climate allowing the misconduct to occur. They included:
        o The unit trained on high-intensity conflict operations, not peacekeeping, during the two months between when it was notified of the deployment and when it arrived in Kosovo. It did not go through the Joint Readiness Training Center and conducted only an internal evaluation of the tasks it expected to perform. Upon arrival, it was not ready to conduct peacekeeping duties.
        o The stressing by the battalion commander of a classified Task Force Falcon mission which had not been assigned to the unit. Though classified, the report stated the stressed mission was better suited to Military Police and Military Intelligence troops.
        o A chain of command that was uninformed. The company and battalion commander denied knowledge of any serious misconduct by subordinates when they should have known based upon reports from external resources.
        o A chain of command that was perceived to be pro-Serb in its dealings with the native Serb and Albanian populations within Vitina.
        In addition to the administrative punishment and memoranda of reprimand, report recommendations included:
        o Ensuring leaders and soldiers at all levels understand their assigned and implied tasks through the use of brief backs.
        o Better training in crowd control, search techniques and use of force and refresher training on the rules of engagement and basic tenets of Army Values.
        o The use of scanner wands to search women.
        o Developing an impartial environment that strikes a balance of fair treatment between both Albanian and Serb ethnic groups in Kosovo.
        As a result of the investigation's findings and recommendations, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki directed Gen. John W. Hendrix, U.S. Army Forces Command commanding general, on Sept. 8, to review the report's concerns, take corrective action and report any issues that cannot be resolved at his level. Hendrix is to complete the review and respond to Shinseki within 30 days.

 Link to original news item:
  http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Sep2000/a20000922kforabuse2.html