Newsgroup: it.politica.polo
Titolo: War In The Balkans: 'Once you kill people because you don't like what they say, you change the rules of war'

War In The Balkans: 'Once you kill people because you don't like what
they say, you change the rules of war'
Robert Fisk in Belgrade
24 April 1999
HANGING upside-down from the wreckage was a dead man, in his fifties
perhaps, although a benevolent grey dust had covered his face. Not far
away, also upside-down - his legs trapped between tons of concrete and
steel - was a younger man in a pullover, face grey, blood dribbling from
his head on to the rubble beneath.
Deep inside the tangle of cement and plastic and iron, in what had once
been the make-up room next to the broadcasting studio of Serb
Television, was all that was left of a young woman, burnt alive when
Nato's missile exploded in the radio control room. Within six hours, the
Secretary of State for International Development, Clare Short declared
the place a "legitimate target".
It wasn't an argument worth debating with the wounded - one of them a
young technician who could only be extracted from the hundreds of tons
ofconcrete in which he was encased by amputating both his legs. Nor with
the silent hundreds who gathered in front of the still- smoking ruin at
dawn yesterday, lost for words as they stood in the little glade of
trees beside St Marko's Cathedral, where Belgrade's red and cream trams
turn round. A Belgrade fireman pulled at one of the bodies for all of 30
seconds before he realised that the man, swinging back and forth amid
the wreckage, was dead.
By dusk last night, 10 crushed bodies - two of them women - had been
tugged from beneath the concrete, another man had died in hospital and
15 other technicians and secretaries still lay buried. A fireman
reported hearing a voice from the depths as the heavens opened, turning
into mud themuck and dust of a building that Ms Short had declared to be
a "propaganda machine".
We had all wondered how long it would be before Nato decided that Radio
Televizja Srbije should join the list of "military" targets. Spokesmen
had long objected to its crude propaganda - it included a Nato symbol
turning into a swastika and a montage of Madeleine Albright growing
Dracula teeth in front of a burning building.
It never reported on the tens of thousands of Albanian refugees who
spoke of executions and "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo. It endlessly
repeated films that depicted Yugoslav soldiers as idealised heroes
defending their country. It carried soporific tapes of President
Slobodan Milosevic meeting patriarchs, cossacks, Russian envoys and the
Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova. The channel was showing an
American interview with Mr Milosevic when the first cruise missile
smashed into the station's control room just after two o'clock yesterday
morning.
But did this justify killing the night staff in their studios and taping
rooms? Two weeks ago, Nato's spokesmen had been suggesting that RTS
would have to carry six hours of Western television a day if it was to
survive - CNN's bland, safe coverage of events presumably offering some
balance to the rubbish churned out on the RTS news. But once Nato
decided this was as preposterous as it was impracticable, its spokesman
announced that the station was not on the list of Nato targets. Then, on
Monday, CNN's bosses called up from Atlanta to inform the satellite boys
in Belgrade that they should pull out of the RTS offices. Against the
wishes of other Nato nations, so the word went, General Wesley Clark had
decided to bomb Serb television. CNN withdrew from the building in
Takovska Street. And that night, we were all invited to have coffee and
orange juice in the studios.
The building was likely to be a target of the "Nato aggressor",
according to Goran Matic, a Yugoslav federal minister, as he walked us
through the ground floor of the doomed building. Yet, oddly, we did not
take him seriously. Even when the air raid siren sounded, I stayed for
another coffee.
Surely Nato wouldn't waste its bombs on this tiresome station with its
third-rate propaganda and old movies, let alone kill its staff.
Yesterday morning, the moment I heard the cruise missile scream over my
hotel roof, I knew I was wrong. There was a thunderous explosion and a
mile-high cloud of dust as four storeys collapsed to the ground,
sandwiching offices, machines, transmitters and people into a pile of
rubble only 15 feet high.
Yet, within six hours, Serb television was back on the air, beaming its
programmes from secret transmitters, the female anchorwoman reading the
news from pieces of pink paper between pre-recorded films of Serbian
folk-songs and ancient Orthodox churches. All along, the Serbs had been
ready for just such an attack. We had not believed Nato capable of such
ferocity. The Serbs had.
The crowds still stood in the park as darkness fell, watching the men
with drills punching their way through the concrete for more survivors.
By that time, explanations were flowing from Nato's birthday
celebrations in Washington. Serbia's "propaganda machine" had been
prolonging the war. I wonder. I seem to recall Croatian television
spreading hatred a- plenty when it was ethnically cleansing 170,000
Serbs from Croatia in 1995. But we didn't bomb Zagreb. And when
President Franjo Tudjman's lads were massacring Serbs and Muslims alike
in Bosnia, we didn't bomb his residence. Was Serbian television's real
sin its broadcast of film of the Nato massacre of Kosovo Albanian
refugees last week, killings that Nato was forced to admit had been a
mistake?
Yes, Serbian television could be hateful, biased, bad. It was owned by
the government. But once you kill people because you don't like what
they say, you have changed the rules of war. And that's what Nato did in
Belgrade in the early hours of yesterday morning.

his head on to the rubble beneath.
AND IN GORNJE OBRINJE, KOSOVA, THERE WAS THE TINY BODY OF A ONE YEAR OLD
ALBANIAN CHILD WITH HER THROAT SLASHED FROM EAR TO EAR, BY A SERBIAN SAVAGE!

 reported hearing a voice from the depths as the heavens opened,
turning
     Mr. Fisk forgot a little fact that the relatives of these bombing
victims knew.  Normally, the RTS night crew goes home at 2:00 a.m.
That night, for some reason, the management of RTS ordered its
employees to stay all night, on pain of losing their jobs.  The
bereaved relatives hold RTS responsible for the deaths of their
relatives along with NATO.
     In short, Milosevic's goons used their employees as human shields,
for the purpose of creating extra civilian casualties.
     Warren Eckels
Sent via Deja.com 
http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

AnoTher brainwashed one.Was Milosevich on the bridge with the people when
the NATO NAZIs bombed them.People were protecting the bridge they need the
bridge to walk to they jobs.

I agree with you . 
Mr. Milosevic placed them in harms way. However, I am sure the
propoganda stated they died giving their live for their country.


 bridge to walk to they jobs.
It is sillish to speak of brainwashing when all we heard was NATO
propaganda
and they destoyed contrary media...
-- 
Sono Juza delle nuvole.
Sono un uomo libero.
Le nuvole sono la mia casa.
Sono nato libero e moriro' libero.
Lorenzo Vocaturo
juz...@tin.it
da inizio marzo:
ju...@libero.it

Warren
Did you see the Milosevich to be on the bridge with the people.Did you see
the Milosevich to be in the maternity hospital when the NATO bastards bomb
the hospital.Did you see Milosevich in the schools or on the streets, you
are really brainwashed by the CNN propagnada.I hope you will admitt the US
government use the Oklahoma children for they human shield.No we know why
not one from the governmnet officials die.