Zaric: Inconsistencies in the "Racak" case raise suspicions that everything was staged; history will provide answers

Journalist and author of the film The Kosovo Dossier on "Racak", Sladjana Zaric, states that even after a quarter of a century after this event, which was a direct cause for the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, there are still many inconsistencies, however, she believes that history will provide final answers to some questions.

Zaric thoroughly investigated this case, and, as she claims, after 25 years, there are still missing answers to many questions due to numerous unresolved circumstances and situations.

"I will start with a few of these inconsistencies, and the first one is why we have no judgment on Racak. The Hague Tribunal Prosecutor's Office made a lot of effort; the largest number of witnesses were brought in precisely for the 'Racak' case, and in the end, we have no judgment. They have a formal legal explanation for why they gave up on Racak, but we do not have a Racak judgment. Milosevic died, the case was not completed, and the indictment was withdrawn concerning the trials of six Serbian political and military generals. Then you have a lot of contradictions in The Hague courtroom. Namely, we have very different witnesses and statements from witnesses who talked about Racak – from the fact that the residents of Racak themselves denied that there was any army there at all to the statement of the commander of the operational zone Nerodimlje, Shukri Buja, who claimed that there were 47 KLA soldiers in Racak. You had statements from peasants who claimed that there were no weapons, maybe just hunting rifles, and we saw that Shukri Buja, in the trial in the Milosevic process, claimed that the Racak unit also had mortars, established trenches around and despite that, they had a machine gun", Zaric tells Kosovo Online about what she discovered while making a film about this event.

As she notes, another inconsistency that remains a significant question for her is how many people really perished in Racak.

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"In the indictment itself, 45 are mentioned, 40 bodies were found, and Shukri Buja mentions that eight to ten KLA soldiers were taken away. So even today, the exact number is unknown. In the Memorial Center in Racak, there are 44 names, of which 40 are the names of people whose bodies were found. I investigated who the other four are, and they are people from Racak who did not die at all on January 15. And that is striking! We do not know whether it is 40, 45, 52, or 53 people; we do not know how many people really perished in Racak. Then you have numerous manipulations concerning the inspection itself and the disturbance of the crime scene. Eight to ten bodies of KLA soldiers were taken away that night from January 15 to 16. Among other things, this is what is interesting and what brings the story about Racak into a huge question again. Currently, the first trial in absentia for the 'Racak' case has been initiated, where one man is suspected, who was not a police officer at all. He was in the reserve and, interestingly, the indictment states that he is suspected of killing civilians who did not directly participate in the war conflicts, where the name of Sadik Mujota and his daughter Hanumshah Mujota is precisely mentioned. They are the bodies that the KLA took away that night. Neither of them is listed in the names in the Memorial Center in Racak. They are buried in Mollopolc. And now, when you have a bunch of these questions, illogical things, common sense logic dictates that there were serious setups, scene preparations, and I would say that all of these are manipulations that led to the story of the massacre in Racak, a crime against humanity. History will bring its answers, and I think that every day we get some answers, but I say there are still many inconsistencies that lead me as a journalist to claim that we are talking about a massive manipulation", the author of the film about Racak says.

She adds that primarily when collecting material and investigating, she dealt with what was submitted to the prosecution.

"The prosecution, I must admit, did an enormous job in the sense that I knew exactly the positions where each body was, the names of each victim... What is very interesting, for example, studying all those files and the list of people living in Racak, you see that these are families and that people have the same surnames, which speaks to the fact that we had a KLA base there. Secondly, which village with civilians digs military trenches above the village? One of the claims that they were civilians, not soldiers, is that they did not have military uniforms. The logic of things tells you that if you live in a village two kilometers from Shtime, where you can simply see people moving from the local hill to Shtime, of course, you will not have a military uniform. Secondly, if someone delves deeper into it and looks at archive photos and videos of the KLA from that period, they will see that they mostly did not have classic military markings, did not have uniforms, and were mostly in civilian clothes", our interviewee says.

Zaric adds that it is particularly interesting what happened to the victims who were in the so-called ravine and where those videos that circulated the world were taken.

"The third thing that calls a lot into question is that a large number of those victims in the ravine, which is the most problematic, were barefoot, which is very strange. I assume, I cannot claim because I was not there at the time, that they took off their military boots because those who were in rubber boots remained in them. There was a serious shifting of bodies; civilians obviously arrived at the scene before the Verification Mission came, and I have just found some photos showing that civilians arrived at the bodies before the mission. Forensics cannot answer the question of what happened in Racak; Helena Ranta did have some statements, saying that it was a crime against humanity, but we must not forget that she said it in her own name, not on behalf of the Finnish investigative team", she says.

Zaric points out that there was a great debate within the Hague Tribunal itself about what forensics showed.

"The paraffin glove we use showed that the majority of them had gunshot residue on their hands. There was a question of whether that was a valid method or not. Unfortunately, so much has been destroyed, and so many bodies moved, even some clothing apparently removed from them, that forensics cannot determine the cause of death, it can determine that they died from firearms, but not whether it was direct or not, whether there was a mutual confrontation, as our side says it was a battle. Science cannot give us an answer because the crime scene was truly destroyed. The Kosovo Verification Mission should not have allowed that if it was not really their intention", Zaric believes.

She adds that some of those listed as victims from Racak were members of the KLA, and she found their pictures in uniforms.

"When they take photos in uniforms, they show their affiliation. Interestingly, four to five of those who perished in the gorge, and again I say the gorge is the most problematic because those horrifying photos of dead bodies piled next to each other, were members of the KLA. I found photos of five of them with weapons and in KLA uniforms, and they are listed as 'innocent victims' who died in Racak. What's even more interesting, they published a book about fallen KLA soldiers, and the names of those five are in that book. I don't understand how they claim on the one hand that they died for the freedom, as they say, of their country, and on the other hand, they still claim that they were innocent civilians. Many inconsistencies lead to the assertion that everything was planned and staged, that they were just waiting for a pretext, and that was the pretext for the bombing. Let's not forget the statements of politicians. Madeleine Albright spoke about slit throats, it really sounds horrifying that someone in the 20th century would slaughter people. There is not a single corpse that has been slaughtered, forensic science has shown. You heard witnesses in The Hague claiming that their hearts were removed, that their heads were cut off, and it is true that the corpses were disturbed because they were outside for almost 24 hours, and animals approached those corpses. What showed me to a large extent what happened that night is the testimony of Shukri Buja in The Hague where he publicly admitted for the first time that they had had soldiers, that they had had a base, and that they had been taking bodies at night", Zaric explains.