From jeton at hotmail.com Sun Aug 17 04:30:39 2003 From: jeton at hotmail.com (Jeton Ademaj) Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 04:30:39 -0400 Subject: [NYC-L] Blackout info Message-ID: hey all this is slightly long but very credible account of how the power grid got the way it is, it may be literally off-topic but i'm sure its of interest to all Published on Friday, August 15, 2003 by Greg Palast Power Outage Traced To Dim Bulb In White House The Tale of The Brits Who Swiped 800 Jobs From New York, Carted Off $90 Million, Then Tonight, Turned Off Our Lights by Greg Palast I can tell you all about the ne'er-do-wells that put out our lights tonight. I came up against these characters -- the Niagara Mohawk Power Company -- some years back. You see, before I was a journalist, I worked for a living, as an investigator of corporate racketeers. In the 1980s, "NiMo" built a nuclear plant, Nine Mile Point, a brutally costly piece of hot junk for which NiMo and its partner companies charged billions to New York State's electricity ratepayers. To pull off this grand theft by kilowatt, the NiMo-led consortium fabricated cost and schedule reports, then performed a Harry Potter job on the account books. In 1988, I showed a jury a memo from an executive from one partner, Long Island Lighting, giving a lesson to a NiMo honcho on how to lie to government regulators. The jury ordered LILCO to pay $4.3 billion and, ultimately, put them out of business. And that's why, if you're in the Northeast, you're reading this by candlelight tonight. Here's what happened. After LILCO was hammered by the law, after government regulators slammed Niagara Mohawk and dozens of other book-cooking, document-doctoring utility companies all over America with fines and penalties totaling in the tens of billions of dollars, the industry leaders got together to swear never to break the regulations again. Their plan was not to follow the rules, but to ELIMINATE the rules. They called it "deregulation." It was like a committee of bank robbers figuring out how to make safecracking legal. But they dare not launch the scheme in the USA. Rather, in 1990, one devious little bunch of operators out of Texas, Houston Natural Gas, operating under the alias "Enron," talked an over-the-edge free-market fanatic, Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, into licensing the first completely deregulated power plant in the hemisphere. And so began an economic disease called "regulatory reform" that spread faster than SARS. Notably, Enron rewarded Thatcher's Energy Minister, one Lord Wakeham, with a bushel of dollar bills for 'consulting' services and a seat on Enron's board of directors. The English experiment proved the viability of Enron's new industrial formula: that the enthusiasm of politicians for deregulation was in direct proportion to the payola provided by power companies. The power elite first moved on England because they knew Americans wouldn't swallow the deregulation snake oil easily. The USA had gotten used to cheap power available at the flick of switch. This was the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt who, in 1933, caged the man he thought to be the last of the power pirates, Samuel Insull. Wall Street wheeler-dealer Insull creator of the Power Trust, and six decades before Ken Lay, faked account books and ripped off consumers. To frustrate Insull and his ilk, FDR gave us the Federal Power Commission and the Public Utilities Holding Company Act which told electricity companies where to stand and salute. Detailed regulations limited charges to real expenditures plus a government-set profit. The laws banned "power markets" and required companies to keep the lights on under threat of arrest -- no blackout blackmail to hike rates. Of particular significance as I write here in the dark, regulators told utilities exactly how much they had to spend to insure the system stayed in repair and the lights stayed on. Bureaucrats crawled along the wire and, like me, crawled through the account books, to make sure the power execs spent customers' money on parts and labor. If they didn't, we'd whack'm over the head with our thick rule books. Did we get in the way of these businessmen's entrepreneurial spirit? Damn right we did. Most important, FDR banned political contributions from utility companies -- no 'soft' money, no 'hard' money, no money PERIOD. But then came George the First. In 1992, just prior to his departure from the White House, President Bush Senior gave the power industry one long deep-through-the-teeth kiss good-bye: federal deregulation of electricity. It was a legacy he wanted to leave for his son, the gratitude of power companies which ponied up $16 million for the Republican campaign of 2000, seven times the sum they gave Democrats. But Poppy Bush's gift of deregulating of wholesale prices set by the feds only got the power pirates halfway to the plunder of Joe Ratepayer. For the big payday they needed deregulation at the state level. There were only two states, California and Texas, big enough and Republican enough to put the electricity market con into operation. California fell first. The power companies spent $39 million to defeat a 1998 referendum pushed by Ralph Nader which would have blocked the de-reg scam. Another $37 million was spent on lobbying and lubricating the campaign coffers of legislators to write a lie into law: in the deregulation act's preamble, the Legislature promised that deregulation would reduce electricity bills by 20%. In fact, when San Diegans in the first California city to go "lawless" looked at their bills, the 20% savings became a 300% jump in surcharges. Enron circled California and licked its lips. As the number one life-time contributor to the George W. Bush campaign, it was confident about the future. With just a half dozen other companies it controlled at times 100% of the available power capacity needed to keep the Golden State lit. Their motto, "your money or your lights." Enron and its comrades played the system like a broken ATM machine, yanking out the bills. For example, in the shamelessly fixed "auctions" for electricity held by the state, Enron bid, in one instance, to supply 500 megawatts of electricity over a 15 megawatt line. That's like pouring a gallon of gasoline into a thimble -- the lines would burn up if they attempted it. Faced with blackout because of Enron's destructive bid, the state was willing to pay anything to keep the lights on. And the state did. According to Dr. Anjali Sheffrin, economist with the California state Independent System Operator which directed power movements, between May and November 2000, three power giants physically or "economically" withheld power from the state and concocted enough false bids to cost the California customers over $6.2 billion in excess charges. It took until December 20, 2000, with the lights going out on the Golden Gate, for President Bill Clinton, once a deregulation booster, to find his lost Democratic soul and impose price caps in California and ban Enron from the market. But the light-bulb buccaneers didn't have to wait long to put their hooks back into the treasure chest. Within seventy-two hours of moving into the White House, while he was still sweeping out the inaugural champagne bottles, George Bush the Second reversed Clinton's executive order and put the power pirates back in business in California. Enron, Reliant (aka Houston Industries), TXU (aka Texas Utilities) and the others who had economically snipped California's wires knew they could count on Dubya, who as governor of the Lone Star state cut them the richest deregulation deal in America. Meanwhile, the deregulation bug made it to New York where Republican Governor George Pataki and his industry-picked utility commissioners ripped the lid off electric bills and relieved my old friends at Niagara Mohawk of the expensive obligation to properly fund the maintenance of the grid system. And the Pataki-Bush Axis of Weasels permitted something that must have former New York governor Roosevelt spinning in his wheelchair in Heaven: They allowed a foreign company, the notoriously incompetent National Grid of England, to buy up NiMo, get rid of 800 workers and pocket most of their wages - producing a bonus for NiMo stockholders approaching $90 million. Is tonight's black-out a surprise? Heck, no, not to us in the field who've watched Bush's buddies flick the switches across the globe. In Brazil, Houston Industries seized ownership of Rio de Janeiro's electric company. The Texans (aided by their French partners) fired workers, raised prices, cut maintenance expenditures and, CLICK! the juice went out so often the locals now call it, "Rio Dark." So too the free-market cowboys of Niagara Mohawk raised prices, slashed staff, cut maintenance and CLICK! -- New York joins Brazil in the Dark Ages. Californians have found the solution to the deregulation disaster: re-call the only governor in the nation with the cojones to stand up to the electricity price fixers. And unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gov. Gray Davis stood alone against the bad guys without using a body double. Davis called Reliant Corp of Houston a pack of "pirates" --and now he'll walk the plank for daring to stand up to the Texas marauders. So where's the President? Just before he landed on the deck of the Abe Lincoln, the White House was so concerned about our brave troops facing the foe that they used the cover of war for a new push in Congress for yet more electricity deregulation. This has a certain logic: there's no sense defeating Iraq if a hostile regime remains in California. Sitting in the dark, as my laptop battery runs low, I don't know if the truth about deregulation will ever see the light --until we change the dim bulb in the White House. See Greg Palast's award-winning reports for BBC Television and the Guardian papers. Contact Palast at his New York office: media at gregpalast.com. Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" (Penguin USA) and the worstseller, "Democracy and Regulation," a guide to electricity deregulation published by the United Nations (written with T. MacGregor and J. Oppenheim). _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail From mentor at alb-net.com Sun Aug 17 17:58:55 2003 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 17:58:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [NYC-L] =?iso-8859-1?q?Konferenc=EB_kulturore_dhe_shkencore_n=EB?= =?iso-8859-1?q?_kujtim_t=EB_Dr=2E_Profesor_Mirash_Ivanaj?= Message-ID: FONDACIONET MARTIN DHE MIRASH IVANAJ * DEKLARAT? P?R SHTYP Konferenc? kulturore dhe shkencore n? kujtim t? Dr. Profesor Mirash Ivanaj -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tiran?, 22 Shtator 2003 Vendi: Muzeu Komb?tar i Artit P?r Shtyp: Kontakt: Drita Ivanaj at: info at ivanaj.org 14 Gusht 2003 URL: http://www.ivanaj.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Me dat?n 22 Shtator 2003, n? or?n 18:00, Fondacionet Ivanaj, me selit? respektive n? New York dhe Tiran?, do t? organizojn? nj? konferenc? n? ambjentet e Muzeut Komb?tar me titull ? Martiri Mirash Ivanaj, figur? madhore e kombit dhe e kultur?s Shqiptare?. Ky eveniment ?sht? nj? konferenc? kulturore dhe shkencore q? organizohet n? kujtim t? vepr?s dhe figur?s shumedimensionale t? Dr. Profesor Mirash Ivanaj n? 50 vjetorin e vdekjes s? tij. Mbajtja e k?saj konference ?sht? nj? bashk?punim i Fondacioneve Ivanaj, Ministris? s? Arsimit dhe Shkenc?s, Akademis? s? Shkencave, Arkivit t? Shtetit si dhe Bibliotek? Komb?tar. Pjes?marresit e k?saj konference p?rfshijn? Z. Gudar Beqirai, Drejtor Ekzekutiv i Fondacionit Ivanaj, Pertefe Leka Zv/presidente e k?tij fondacioni si dhe t? ftuar t? tjer? nderi, si? jan? Ministri i Arsimit, Profesor Luan Memushi, dhe kryetari i Akademis? s? Shkencave, Profesor Ylli Popa. Referatet kryesore do te mbahen ne lidhje me jet?n, pun?n dhe kontributin e Dr. Prof. Ivanaj n? kultur?n shqiptare dhe reform?n arsimore. Referuesit jan? Prof. Uran Butka, Prof. Iliaz Gogaj, Prof Jorgo Bulo, Dr. Shaban Sinani dhe Dr. Kaliopi Naska. Presidentja e Fondacionit Ivanaj, Z. Drita Ivanaj do t? mbaj? fjal?n mbyll?se n? k?t? konferenc?. Kjo konferenc? do t? vazhdoj? me hapjen e nje ekspozite nga arkivi i shtetit me dokumente, fotografi, shkrime dhe relike nga jeta e vellezerve Ivanaj. M? pas do t? ket? nj? koktej. P?r informacion t? m?tejshem kontaktoni n? k?t? adres? emaili: info at ivanaj.org * Fondacioni Martin dhe Mirash Ivanaj me seli n? New York si dhe Institut Fondacionit M&M Ivanaj me seli n? Tiran? jan? dy organizata jo-fitimprur?se q? zbatojn? programe edukimi p?r rinin? Shqiptare ### From mentor at alb-net.com Sun Aug 17 18:02:33 2003 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 18:02:33 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [NYC-L] Cultural and Scientific Conference in memory of Professor Mirash Ivanaj Message-ID: The Martin and Mirash Ivanaj Foundations * PRESS RELEASE Cultural and Scientific Conference in memory of Professor Mirash Ivanaj ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When: Tirana - September 22, 2003 Where: National Museum of Art in Skanderbeg Square For Immediate Release Contact: Drita Ivanaj at: info at ivanaj.org August 14, 2003 URL: http://www.ivanaj.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Ivanaj Foundations , headquartered in both New York and Tirana, are co-sponsoring a conference in Tirana on Monday, September 22nd ,2003 at 6 pm. The event is a Cultural and Scientific Conference in memory of Professor Mirash Ivanaj on the 50th anniversary of his death. The evening is a collaboration of the Ivanaj Foundations with Albania?s Ministry of Higher Education, the Academy of Science, the Archives of State and the National Library. The conference in Tirana will be held at the National Museum of Art in Skanderbeg Square. Participants are: Dr. Gudar Beqiraj, executive director of the Ivanaj Foundation in Albania and Pertefe Leka, an Ivanaj Foundation vice president, while the guests include Professor Luan Memushi, Albanian Minister of Education, and Professor Ylli Popa, Chairman of the Academy of Science. Program speakers will address perspectives on Professor Ivanaj?s contributions. Speakers include: Professor Uran Butka, Professor Iljaz Gogaj, Professor Jorgo Bulo, Dr. Shaban Sinani and Dr. Kaliopi Naska. Closing remarks will be made by Drita Ivanaj, of New York City, President and Treasurer of the Ivanaj Foundations. The evening will conclude with cocktails and the official opening of the Archives of State exhibit of Ivanaj artifacts. For further information email the Ivanaj Foundations at info at ivanaj.org * The Martin and Mirash Ivanaj Foundation of New York and the M.& M. Ivanaj Foundation Institute of Tirana are not-for-profit and charitable organizations dedicated to educational programs for Albanian youth. From mentor at alb-net.com Tue Aug 5 19:31:34 2003 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2003 19:31:34 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [NYC-L] [Kcc-News] 1) Kosovo: KLA Trial Backlash; 2) Comment: Kosovars Must Confront Their Demons Message-ID: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Kosova Crisis Center (KCC) News: http://www.alb-net.com/index.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Kosovo: KLA Trial Backlash, By Arben Qirezi 2. Comment: Kosovars Must Confront Their Demons, By Natasa Kandic ### 1 ### http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr3/bcr3_200307_449_1_eng.txt Kosovo: KLA Trial Backlash International officials in Kosovo are feeling the heat following the jailing of former KLA rebels. By Arben Qirezi in Pristina (BCR No 449, 31-Jul-03) The first war crimes trial of former Kosovo Liberation Army members threatens to inflict a serious blow to international efforts to establish the rule of law in Kosovo. Following the sentencing of the Llap/Lap group of ex-KLA fighters on July 16, the international police and judiciary stationed in the region have been subjected to a wave of violence. There were two synchronized bomb attacks in Pristina on July 20. A rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the district court building, causing significant damage. One minute later, an explosion outside a police station damaged a UN police vehicle. There were no casualties. Earlier, on July 17, a hand grenade exploded outside the police station in Podujeva/Podujevo, northeast of Pristina, the birthplace of the four convicted persons. Two days later, KFOR disposed of a grenade found on the street just behind the capital's district court. On the same day, 15 UN police vehicles were vandalized overnight in Pristina and Peja/Pec, in western Kosovo - those in the latter daubed with the word "occupier" in Albanian. Local political leaders in Kosovo condemned the incidents, saying they jeopardised the rule of law. Although no organisation has admitted responsibility for the incidents, they are widely believed to be connected to the outcome of the Llap/Lap group trial. The five-month judicial process under the British judge Timothy Clayson resulted in four ex-KLA men being jailed for 45 years. Rrustem Mustafa-Remi, former commander of the KLA in northeastern Kosovo, was sentenced to 17 years, Nazim Mehmeti to 13, Latif Gashi to 10 and Naim Kadriu to seven, for torture, kidnapping and inhuman treatment of civilians during the Kosovo conflict in 1998 and 1999. They were found guilty of illegally detaining and torturing 11 ethnic Albanians and one Serb, and of executing six Albanians suspected of collaborating with the Serb regime. UNMIK police chief Stephan Feller said at the press conference that the wave of attacks was clearly connected to the trial verdict, adding that the aim was to disrupt police work and justice in Kosovo. He said UNMIK was lucky there had been no casualties. Another UNMIK official told IWPR they were probably warning attacks, suggesting that there may be more if further trials were staged. After Serb forces withdrew from Kosovo, UNMIK filled the security and administrative vacuum, bringing in international police, foreign judges and prosecutors to deal with issues such as organised crime, ethnic violence and war crimes. There are now 4,472 international police officers there, working with 6,000 local police officers trained in an OSCE-run police training facility in Vushtri/Vucitrn. The justice system is served by 14 international judges and 12 international prosecutors who deal exclusively with tough cases from which local judicial personnel have been excluded on grounds of potential bias. Despite widespread public criticism for allegedly holding politically-motivated trials that have "criminalised" the struggle against Serb rule, UNMIK insists it will continue to prosecute perpetrators of atrocities and other crimes involving former KLA members. Just before he finished his mission in early July, UNMIK chief Michael Steiner promulgated a new criminal code for the region, giving more powers to international prosecutors to investigate atrocities and other serious crimes. The code also provides for more effective witness-protection, which is one of the biggest obstacles currently hampering prosecutions. This, however, might bring more trouble for the international authorities in Kosovo. Reflecting the general mood amongst Albanians, Kreshnik Gashi, a student from Pristina, told IWPR, "No one disputes UNMIK's authority to stage war crimes trials. However, the length of the sentence given to Remi and his group shows its bias, because no Serb has ever been sentenced for such a long term by international judges, even though they have been tried for crimes which have exceeded the allegations against Remi and his group, both in the number of people killed, and the means used to do those killings." There are suggestions that the motives for the attacks on the internationals are not only connected to the outcome of the trial, but also reflect deeper dissatisfaction with the overall policy of the international community in Kosovo. Sahit Berisha, a history teacher in a secondary school in Pristina, expressed the view held in some circles that the trials of the former KLA men are just an indication of the UNMIK policy to return Kosovo to Serbia. "These bombs are an initial reaction for something bigger which might erupt if the international community doesn't stop pushing Kosovo towards Serbia," he said. UNMIK says the spate of recent attacks will not deflect the force from its stated policy of zero tolerance against crime. The police "will not be intimidated by such criminal acts", Feller said. However, UNMIK may be more vulnerable than its top officials care to admit. The justice system relies on international personnel leant by various governments for its work. They may prove reluctant to contribute more staff in the future, if attacks against them persist. Arben Qirezi is an IWPR contributor in Pristina. ### 2 ### Comment: Kosovars Must Confront Their Demons Facing up to the past cannot be confined to demanding justice for crimes committed by others. By Natasa Kandic in Belgrade (BCR No 449, 31-Jul-03) Albanian public opinion overwhelmingly sees the recent sentencing of the "Lap group" of former Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, members for war crimes against Albanian civilians as unjust. They believe it is politically motivated and will harm the prospects of reconciliation between Serbs and Albanians. A panel of international judges jailed the former KLA commander Rrustem Mustafa to 17 years for ordering the murder of five Kosovo Albanians he believed had collaborated with the Serbs, and for "failing to prevent illegal detention" in the Lap region of northern Kosovo during the 1998-99 conflict. Naziv Mehmeti was sentenced to 13 years, Latif Gashi to 10 and Naim Kadriu to five. The oldest Albanian human rights NGO, the Council for Human Rights and Freedom, damned the sentences as an " UNMIK attempt to criminalise the KLA's fight for freedom and equalise the liberalisation war and the struggle for self-defence of Kosovo Albanians with Serbia's genocidal, destructive war of occupation". Several actions by extremists in Pristina and Podujevo since the judgment have contributed to an impression that the international courts in Kosovo are not accepted as guarantees of justice and rule of law. The question is why no one in Kosovo supports the international judges' actions and why the majority rallies behind critics of trials of former KLA members guilty of war crimes. Before engaging with this issue, it is important to restate that Serb forces committed massive, brutal war crimes in the Kosovo conflict as a result of which the Hague tribunal has indicted several top Serbian officials. The former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, was the first, followed by the Yugoslav army ex-chief of staff, General Dragoljub Ojdanic, the former federal deputy prime minister, Nikola Sainovic, and the former Serbian president, Milan Milutinovic. All were indicted for individual and command responsibility. Serb crimes committed in Kosovo have also been raised during the Milosevic trial, though it would take years to document all such atrocities. Albanians do not object when the tribunal stages trials for war crimes committed against Albanians. They are also right to think that justice will not be served only through the court. When the members of the special police and army units who perpetrated war crimes in Kosovo are tried in Serbia, it will show the rule of law exists here, and that Belgrade accepts responsibility for the atrocities committed under Milosevic. The truth is that no such trials have taken place in Serbia, although those who are said to have ordered and perpetrated these crimes rank lower than the Hague indictees and are accessible to the local courts. In Kosovo, on the other hand, although there are trials of Serbs alleged to have committed war crimes in the places previously mentioned, Albanian public opinion remains dissatisfied with the way international judges are dispensing justice. At the root of Albanian dissatisfaction lies a widespread belief that Albanians were victims and that no such status belongs to Serbian civilians, or to Albanian and Roma civilians whom the KLA suspected of collaboration with the Serbs. No one in Kosovo talks about the murder and disappearances of Serb and Roma civilians and of alleged Albanian traitors in 1998 and after the international forces arrived. Everybody knows that on the very day the Serbian police and the army pulled out of Kosovo and international forces, KFOR, entered, the hunt began for those Serbs who remained behind. But nobody is prepared to talk about it. The remaining Serbs were seen as war criminals. It was easy to arrest and accuse them of genocide, or of war crimes. Every Serb murder was justified by the explanation that the victim was a paramilitary, guilty of genocide. Serbs under arrest were convicted before their trials started. When UNMIK nominated its international judges, many Albanians naturally expected them to sentence every accused Serb on behalf of the murders committed by the Serb forces. Trouble began when the international prosecutors started changing the indictments of the local Albanian prosecutors, as they did with Milos Jokic. Charged with genocide by local prosecutors, he was released by international judges. When Sava Matic, another Kosovo Serb, was acquitted, Albanians protested outside the court in Prizren. They saw the freeing of a Serb as a denial of the fact that crimes had even taken place, not as a judicial decision relating solely to whether this man was guilty or not. Similarly, they perceive other acquittals of Serbs by international judges as failed justice, as another sign that the international community is not on their side. At heart, there is a deeply-rooted belief that all Serbs are guilty of war crimes. This is why they feel an injustice every time one is freed by the courts, regardless of whether there is any evidence that he committed a crime. Albanian antipathy towards the international judges presiding over the Lap group trial mirrors their belief that war crimes were committed only by Serbs, not by Albanians. This is why no one in Kosovo recognised the trial as an important legal and moral lecture to Albanian society. Their sentencing, in fact, showed no one has the right to take the law into his own hands, not even former KLA men, such as Mustafa, Gashi, Mehmeti and Kadriu. Their trial saw the first public mention of the crimes that everyone in Kosovo knows about but prefers not to talk about, either from fear of revenge or because they believe the KLA men were right to kill former Serb collaborators. The guilty verdict of the international court under Judge Timothy Clayson has opened a window of opportunity for Kosovo Albanians to reconcile themselves to their recent past. Facing up to the past cannot be limited to seeking justice for crimes committed by Serbs. Just as Serbian society must face up to the crimes committed by the Serbian police, army, paramilitary units and armed civilians, Albanian society must confront its own history. Their past was also marked by crimes, committed against Serbian and Roma civilians, as well as by murders and disappearances of Albanians accused of cooperation with the Serbs. Reconciliation between nations only starts when they acknowledge their own responsibility, thus reinstating the human dignity of the victims of political and ethnic murders. That is the reason why the sentencing of the Lap group should be seen as a contribution to Kosovo Albanian society as it faces up to its own past, not as an obstacle to ethnic reconciliation. Natasa Kandic is executive director of the Humanitarian Law Centre in Belgrade. This is the second article in a series of pieces on the war crimes debate in Kosovo. ______________________________________________________________ If you wish to unsubscribe, send a blank message to: kcc-news-unsubscribe at alb-net.com , or visit KCC-NEWS's page at: http://www.alb-net.com/mailman/listinfo/kcc-news From ditaaa at yahoo.com Mon Aug 18 00:30:15 2003 From: ditaaa at yahoo.com (Aferdita Hakaj) Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 21:30:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [NYC-L] [Kcc-News] 1) Kosovo: KLA Trial Backlash; 2) Comment: Kosovars Must Confront Their Demons Message-ID: <20030818043015.7089.qmail@web9902.mail.yahoo.com> Dear members, Thank you for sending me that informative article from the Institute for War & Peace Reporting. The article highlights many of the challenges regarding the issues of accountability and reconciliation in the aftermath of mass atrocities, something which has increasingly dominated the field of international human rights. More importantly, the article points to the role of hybrid courts (something which has received comparatively little attention in the human rights field) in developing transitional justice in Kosova. These hybrid courts where the former KLA members were tried - should be a new transitional justice mechanism that must be recognized and considered more. Hopefully a further study of their strengths and weaknesses (both in theory and in practice) will be encouraged by those in the international human rights field. Although no mechanism of transitional justice is perfect, and none is appropriate in all contexts, these courts in Kosova will develop so that norms can be applied in Albanian jurisprudence. It is the starting point to strenthening the rule and application of law in Kosova so that Albanians can one day govern our own people, independently of Serbia and independently of the international community. -Aferdita Hakaj --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From murzakui at shu.edu Mon Aug 18 01:01:01 2003 From: murzakui at shu.edu (Ines A Murzaku) Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 01:01:01 -0400 Subject: [NYC-L] Ines A Murzaku/FAC/SHU is out of the office. Message-ID: I will be out of the office starting 08/11/2003 and will not return until 08/31/2003. I will respond to your message when I return. From mentor at alb-net.com Wed Aug 20 01:14:00 2003 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 01:14:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [NYC-L] [AMCC-News] News: MACEDONIA: OHRID TWO YEARS ON (IWPR) Message-ID: --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMCC http://www.alb-net.com/amcc/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr3/bcr3_200308_454_2_eng.txt MACEDONIA: OHRID TWO YEARS ON Progress has been made but doubts remain over the future of the republic's two ethnic groups. By Ana Petruseva in Skopje (BCR No 454, 19-Aug-03) Macedonia is still facing numerous challenges to its fragile peace two years after the Ohrid peace agreement brought an end to ethnic conflict. Splinter guerrilla groups, an impoverished economy, weak state institutions, crime, corruption and a wide social gap between ethnic communities are still threatening to destablise the region. In 2001, ethnic Albanian guerrillas launched an insurgency in the name of greater civil rights. The fighting ended with the signing of the western-brokered peace accord, the Ohrid agreement, on August 13, 2001. In the following year's elections, voters ousted the ruling nationalists and brought a new coalition to power, featuring Social Democrats and the Democratic Party of Albanians, formed by many former National Liberation Army fighters. Ex-NLA leader Ali Ahmeti laid down his weapons to become a parliamentary deputy, and his party now has four ministers and a vice-premier in government. Since then, the Ohrid accord, designed to lay a foundation for a unitary, multiethnic state, has been seen as a basis for future stability and its implementation a pre-requisite for integration into the European Union and NATO. The deal has been implemented gradually, with most of its elements - apart from decentralisation - being adopted. Decentralisation is the only component of the agreement that has real benefits for Macedonians as well as Albanians, but the process of drawing up new municipal boundaries and the financing of local authorities has not even begun yet due to lack of compromise on both sides, and further talks have been delayed until next month. However, progress has been made in other areas. Albanian deputies can now use their language in parliament. Personal documents are issued in Albanian, and a controversial illegal Albanian university in Tetovo is being legalised and will soon be state-funded. The process of equal representation of Albanians in state institutions is also underway. Two years ago, most ethnic Macedonians viewed the agreement as a defeat, claiming that the majority had been "taken hostage" by the Albanian minority, but today the peace deal is viewed as being necessary, if unloved. Marking the second anniversary of the deal, Macedonian president Boris Trajkovski said, "There is no need for any party to view the framework agreement as a defeat. "Time has given proof to our expectations [of] a truly European agreement - one that would end possibilities for territorial solutions to ethnic questions. The agreement guarantees Macedonia's authentic multi-cultural identity and offers no potential for federalisation or division along ethnic lines." However, Macedonian and Albanian opposition parties do not share his view and take every opportunity to undermine the deal, claiming that it has produced no results. Many have even suggested partition of the country into separate ethnic entities. The biggest Macedonian opposition party VMRO-DPMNE and their former coalition partner the Democratic Party of Albanians have heavily criticised the deal, saying it has done nothing to improve security as numerous violent incidents still happen on daily basis. But this view was refuted by Macedonia premier Branko Crvenkovski, who said, "Many criticise it from different positions, but nobody has offered any other serious alternative. As of itself, it does not impose limits, but the opportunities it offers depends upon our abilities to make use of it. "The return to complete peace, security and restoration of multi-ethnic trust is a difficult process with many obstacles and obstructions. But it is worth investing in the fulfilment of the framework agreement's goals.'' But on the ground, both communities are still living in parallel societies, nurturing damaging prejudices, and few attempts to bridge this gap have been successful. However, there has been an improvement in the general security situation over the past two years, and the EU military mission, Concordia, is expected to leave the country by the end of the year. Nonetheless, the persistence of ethnic violence shows that Macedonia is not out of the woods yet. A shadowy guerrilla group called the Albanian National Army, ANA - which has taken responsibility for most incidents in Macedonia, southern Serbia and Kosovo - repeatedly threatens to start a war to unite all Albanian territories. Diplomats in Skopje say the group is made up of criminals and does not pose a serious threat to peace, while the same group has been described as "terrorists" in Kosovo. Edward Joseph, a former director of the International Crisis Group in the region, told IWPR that the jury was still out on whether the days of conflict were over, "We don't know whether the calm that we see now in Macedonia is a momentary lull or in fact the first steps of establishing true stability. "There are still too many open questions about the capacity of the state, police, courts, government and political leaders to say for sure that Macedonia is on a road of peace and can never turn to conflict." Anna Petruseva is IWPR project manager in Skopje. ______________________________________________________________ If you wish to unsubscribe, send a blank message to: amcc-news-unsubscribe at alb-net.com , or visit AMCC-NEWS's page at: http://www.alb-net.com/mailman/listinfo/amcc-news From mentor at alb-net.com Fri Aug 22 11:09:06 2003 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Albanians in Macedonia Crisis Center News & Information) Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 11:09:06 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [NYC-L] [AMCC-News] Torture of two Kosovars in Macedonian Prison (fwd) Message-ID: --------------------------------------------------------------------- AMCC http://www.alb-net.com/amcc/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- URGENT ACTION - ALERT (please distribute further) KOSOVA ACTION NETWORK (KAN) Alice Mead- intl. coordinator amead(at)maine.rr.com AUGUST 22, 2003 BRUTAL TORTURE OF TWO KOSOVAR ALBANIAN PRISONERS IN SUTKA PRISON, SKOPJE, MACEDONIA, ONE ATTEMPTS SUICIDE KOSOVA ACTION NETWORK (KAN) has received information from a human rights activist and lawyer, Ms. Bella Murati, that two Kosova prisoners have been severely and systematically tortured in a Macedonian prison. Ms. Murati was contacted by one of their brothers, Xhevdet Ramaj. The two men, Nexhat and Bedri Ramaj, are accused of terrorism for allegedly failing to stop at a police checkpoint and then allegedly firing at the police in Tetovo, 2002. UNMIK human rights officials should appoint a lawyer to investigate these charges and should demand access to the two prisoners to determine the extent of the torture they have suffered. Human Rights organizations should supervise the conditions of the detention, the nature of the charges, whether there have been forced confessions, and what rights have been violated in this case. The perpetrators of the torture should be arrested and tried. These men are innocent until proven guilty and their human and civil rights must be protected by Macedonia, UNMIK, and the EU. Macedonia is now an EU country and, as such, there should be immediate and direct consequences for this kind of abusive treatment. Nexhet and Bedri Ramaj are now in the Sutka prison near Skopje. They were arrested on September 19, 2003 in Tetove. During the arrest, Nexhat Ramaj was severely injured. He has been denied medical treatment, although he has been visited by the ICRC. The prisoners say they were on their way back to Kosova after doing farm work in Macedonia. Another man was killed at the time of their arrest. They have been accused of planning terrorist attacks, but deny these allegations. They have received no sentence. Because of the severe torture, Bedri Ramaj tried to commit suicide on July 25, 2003. We urge Kosova Action members, government officials, and human rights monitors to press for an immediate investigation of this situation. ______________________________________________________________ If you wish to unsubscribe, send a blank message to: amcc-news-unsubscribe at alb-net.com , or visit AMCC-NEWS's page at: http://www.alb-net.com/mailman/listinfo/amcc-news From eb246 at columbia.edu Fri Aug 22 16:01:35 2003 From: eb246 at columbia.edu (Erkanda Bujari) Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 22:01:35 +0200 Subject: [NYC-L] [Fwd: FW: NATO Parliamentary Assembly Research Assistant Program] Message-ID: <3F46769F.E43E3907@columbia.edu> It sounds good and some might be interested... -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Kevin Hallinan" Subject: FW: NATO Parliamentary Assembly Research Assistant Program Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 13:41:51 -0400 Size: 5737 Url: http://www.alb-net.com/pipermail/nyc-l/attachments/20030822/b80821fd/attachment.mht From shqip_events at hotmail.com Sun Aug 31 03:14:51 2003 From: shqip_events at hotmail.com (shqip_events) Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 03:14:51 -0400 Subject: [NYC-L] Simaku live in New York City Message-ID: Melodi Ilirjane Night of Ancient Dreams... Simaku performing live original music @ Galapagos Art Space Sunday Sept 7th at 8pm in Williamsburg/Brooklyn. Click www.simaku.com for more details or go to www.galapagosartspace.com/events.html -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 5162 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.alb-net.com/pipermail/nyc-l/attachments/20030831/729a881d/attachment.gif