Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: ISSS: Chronology of Conflict in Kosovo

Questa e' un'autocritica, molto interessante: chi parla e'  infatti un
Luogotenente Colonnello della USAF.
Magari ci fossero piu' persone oneste a questo mondo, disposte a rivedere i
propri errori e soprattutto ad ammetterli....
_____________________________
Chronology of the Conflict in Kosovo
by Most Rev. Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt Col, USAF, ret
INTRODUCTION:
It is June 1999 and we are bombarded with images of joyful
Albanian refugees worshipping their heroes — Defense Secretary
William Cohen and President Bill Clinton. We are the good guys
once again. But are we really? Are we sure there’s not
something we’ve not been told? Or something we’ve been told
that’s not exactly so? In the mid-80s, I visited Yugoslavia, and
drove through all the republics. What had really happened to the
peaceful Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia I had
seen then? With a suspicion of the US government based on a
few decades of personal experience, I set out to find out for
sure. These nagging questions are best answered by a careful
review of the events which brought us to this point. This is what I
found:
The fact is, we started the war against Yugoslavia with the
1990 law cutting off funding unless the individual
republics seceded from Yugoslavia and adopted capitalism.
We used the CIA to stir up old hatreds, and supported
reactionary forces in Croatia and Bosnia. We sabotaged
peace deals which would have restored ethnic peace, and we used
military force to support our chosen factions against their own people.
We used military force to aid the Croatian fascists in the
ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Serbs from Krajina,
dumping them as refugees upon less-affluent Serbia. We
simultaneously built up a KLA force of Contras to keep the
pot boiling in Kosovo. We forced Yugoslavia to reject the
Rambouillet "accords" and unleashed a massive bombing
campaign which we justified by a refugee exodus which didn’t start
until after we started bombing.
With the above advance peek at my conclusions, let’s go back
to the beginning and wade through the details. (If you are not
interested in the history of Kosovo and its ethnic rivalries, and
just want to see how the United States got involved, skip
forward to November 1990. The most important event in this
whole chronology took place then — not in Belgrade or Pristina
or Sarajevo, but in Washington, DC.)
CHRONOLOGY:
1172: First Serbian state created when Byzantine rule is overthrown.
1371 (Sep 26): Battle of Marica. Turkish victory in Bulgaria opens way for
Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. A large
Serbian army is entirely wiped out by a surprise night attack. Serbians lose
control of territory in Macedonia.
1381 and 1386: unsuccessful Turkish invasions of the Balkans.
1389 (Jun 28): Battle of Kosovo Polje. Waged on the "Field of Blackbirds,"
an army of 15-20,000 European Christians
is defeated by 27-30,000 Turks. Most important single battle in Serbian
history. Serb Prince Lazar, though he loses the battle,
becomes Serbia’s greatest hero. Site of the battle in Kosovo becomes
Serbia’s national shrine. (Asking Serbia to give up
Kosovo because the majority are ethnic Albanians is similar to asking Israel
to give up Jerusalem because the majority are
Palestinians.) Serbia becomes a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire.
1500: Turkey completes conquest of Albania; Christianity largely eradicated.
1689 - 1690: An Austrian army drives the Turks from Kosovo during the
Ottoman-Habsburg War, but then quickly
withdraws. An Ottoman-Tartar army invades, killing and plundering on a large
scale, leading to massive Serb migration.
100,000 Serbs flee Kosovo for Bosnia and other sanctuaries.
1737 (August): An Austrian force penetrates as far as Kosovo’s capital,
Pristina, but retreats in the face of advancing
Turks. 3,000 Christian Albanians killed or captured in an Ottoman ambush
while fleeing through Serbia. Second migration of
Christians begins.
1804 - 1813: Serbs rise up against Turks, gaining independence for six
years, but are again subjugated.
1815 - 1817: Serbs revolt against Turks successfully, gaining a degree of
autonomy.
1877 - 1878: With Russia’s help, Serbia becomes independent from Turkey.
Serbian army invades Kosovo. Moslem
Albanian guerrillas drive many Serbs from Kosovo; Serbs displace 30,000
Albanians. (First major Serb-Albanian conflict.)
Congress of Berlin in 1878 divides the Balkans among the Imperial powers.
1901: Albanian bands pillage several cities and massacre Serbs.
1911: Young Turks Reign of Terror. Ottomans drive 150,000 people from
Kosovo, including 100,000 Serbs. 200,000
Serbs remain in Kosovo.
1912 (Oct 8) – 1913 (May 30): First Balkan War. Albanians allied with Turks
fight Balkan armies. Turks expelled.
Serbian Third Army liberates Kosovo, committing atrocities against
Albanians; 25,000 reportedly massacred. Serbia retains
Kosovo under the London Conference. 800,000 Albanians still live in Kosovo.
1913 (Jun 30 – Aug 10): Second Balkan War. Serbia acquires most of Slavic
Macedonia from Bulgaria. An Albanian
leader pledges to "manure the plains of Kosovo with the bones of Serbs."
Military deaths in the two Balkan wars total
143,000.
1914 – 1918: World War I. Serbs hold off Austrians for more than a year,
inflicting 302,000 casualties. But
Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian troops finally occupy Kosovo. In an epic
retreat through Kosovo and the Albanian Alps in
October 1915, 120,000 Serbian soldiers die. Albanians carry out reprisals.
In October 1918, Serb, Italian, and French armies
retake Kosovo. In the U.S., Serbians are hailed as heroes for their
horrendous wartime sacrifices (about 800,000 Serbs died).
1918 – 1921: Serb-Albanian Civil War. Mostly guerrilla fighting. Thousands
killed on both sides.
1918 – 1941: Between the world wars, 100,000 Albanians are driven out of
Kosovo.
1929: Yugoslavia created.
1941 – 1945: World War II. German, Italian, and Bulgarian armies occupy
Kosovo in April 1941. They encourage
Albanian reprisals against Serbs. The 21st SS Skanderberg Division
indiscriminately kills Christian Slavs. About 100,000
Slavs are expelled from Kosovo by Albanians. German army of occupation
numbers 700,000. Pro-Nazi Croatian Ustasha
massacres tens of thousands of Serbs. Many Serbs were slaughtered in a death
camp at Jasenovac in Nazi
Croatia. It has been called the "Yugoslav Auschwitz." The Albanian
Skanderberg Division and the Croats were
guilty of "unspeakable atrocities" against Serbs and Jews. The U.S. and
Britain recognized the reactionary forces of
Col. Draza Mihajlovic and refused recognition to the Anti-Fascist Council of
National Liberation of Yugoslavia, led by Josip
Broz Tito. Only when Tito’s Partisans defeated the German and Italian
fascist invaders and were on the verge of victory did
the Allies recognize Tito and give token support. Even then, they gave quiet
support to the pro-fascist elements, the same ones
being pushed by NATO to lead the remnants of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Total
of 1,014,000 Yugoslavians die in WWII,
487,000 of them Serbs.
1945 – 1946: Albanian-Partisan struggle. 30,000 Partisan (Communist) troops
occupy Kosovo. Albanian resistance
continues in remote parts of Kosovo until the 1950s.
1948: Tito breaks with Stalin.
1950s: Yugoslavian Udba (secret police) terrorizes Kosovo Albanians.
1952 – 1967: Tito pushes 175,000 Moslems from Yugoslavia to Turkey.
1974: Kosovo is granted autonomy.
1961 – 1989: Up to 100,000 Slavs emigrate from Kosovo to other parts of
Yugoslavia. Non-Albanian population of
Kosovo shrinks from 60% to 25%. Yugoslavia was multi-ethnic and socialist,
with vigorous growth rates, decent
standard of living, free medical care, free education, right to a job, 1
month paid vacation, literacy over 90%, life
expectancy 72 years, affordable transportation, housing, utilities. The
average annual income for a family of four varies
from about $38,000 in Slovenia and Croatia to about $14,000 in Serbia. Above
all, there was peace and ethnic harmony. The
whole world saw the "Spirit of Sarajevo" at the Winter Olympics. The Western
powers saw Yugoslavia as a buffer between
them and the Soviet Union, and cultivated favor with the Yugoslav
government, offering IMF and World Bank loans.
1980s: The goal of radical pre-KLA Albanian nationalists is an "ethnic
Albania that includes western Macedonia, southern
Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo, and Albania itself." Others
speak of a Greater Albania governed from Pristina,
Kosovo, not Tirana, Albania. Bloody rioting in Pristina in 1981 demanded an
"ethnically pure" Kosovo. Slavs began fleeing. A
member of the Yugoslav presidium said "Albanians have driven the Slavic
Macedonians out." "Slavic Orthodox churches have
been attacked, wells poisoned, crops burned, Slavic boys knifed. Young
Albanians have been told to rape Serbian girls."
"Officials In Belgrade view the ethnic Albanian challenge as imperiling the
foundations of the multinational experiment called
federal Yugoslavia." "Ethnic Albanians already control almost every phase of
life in the autonomous province of Kosovo,
including the police, judiciary, civil service, schools, and factories."
(These quotes are from an article by David Binder in the
NY Times 11/1/87)
1987 (Sep): During a 30-hour session of the Serbian Central Committee, party
secretary Slobodan Milosevic deposed
Dragisa Pavlovic as head of the party. "The hope is that something will be
done to exert the rule of law in Kosovo while
drawing ethnic Albanians back into Yugoslavia’s mainstream."
1989: Kosovo’s autonomy is revoked.
1990 (Nov): The Bush Administration and Congress passed the 1991 Foreign
Operations Appropriations Law. It cut off funding for any part of Yugoslavia
that didn’t
declare independence within six months. It restricted funding to elements
judged "democratic" by the
U.S. The law specifically extended to IMF and World Bank funding as well.
This was widely recognized to be a
"death sentence" for Yugoslavia.
1991 (Feb): The Council of Europe followed the U.S. lead and demanded that
Yugoslavia break up or face economic
blockade. Fascist organizations not seen in 45 years were suddenly revived
and receiving covert support from the
United States, Germany, and Austria.
1991 (Mar): Croatian fascists attack Yugoslavia and call for expulsion of
all Serbs from Croatia.
1991 (Jun 25): At the deadline imposed by U.S. law, Slovenia and Croatia
declare independence. Right-wing parties
come to power. US backs Croat fascist leader Franjo Tudjman, who inflames
anti-Serb passions. The Croatian Ustashi
use fascist symbols and slogans from the Nazi era. They impose capitalism
and strip all minorities (specifically including
Serbs) of citizenship, jobs, pensions, passports, and land ownership.
(500,000 Serbs are expelled by 1995. Many are
raped. Thousands are killed.) (See The Guardian 8/17/92) Germany immediately
recognizes the new regimes. Then Bosnia
attempts to secede also and is opposed by the Yugoslavian government.
Tension arises between Muslims, Croats, and Serbs
in Bosnia.
1992 (Mar 18): Bosnian Muslims, Croats, and Serbs reach agreement in Lisbon
for a unified state. The
continuation of a peaceful multi-ethnic Bosnia seems assured. But the U.S.
sabotages the agreement. (See the NY Times
6/17/93) The U.S. convinces Alija Izetbegovic (head of the right-wing Party
for Democratic Action) that it will back him if he
unilaterally declares a sovereign Bosnia under his presidency. The U.S.
supervises a rewrite of the Bosnian constitution to give
power only to the most extreme right-wing nationalist forces (Izetbegovic’s
PDA). Other political parties, even Muslim ones,
were excluded. Some Muslim leaders object and are smashed by PDA and US
military power.
1992 (May 30): The UN Security Council imposes sanctions on Serbia and
Montenegro (the only remaining
republics in Yugoslavia). The vote was rushed through before members could
see a report which was about to come out. Two
days later the UN report said that Yugoslavia was in full compliance with
all UN demands, and that all Yugoslav
troops were out of Bosnia. Furthermore, the World Court in the Hague ruled
that Yugoslavia was not the
aggressor in Bosnia. Yet the sanctions stayed.
1992 (Aug 5): Penny Marshall of ITN and a crew of photograpahers videotaped
Fikret Alic, a Bosnian Muslim
emaciated, stripped to the waist, behind a barbed-wire fence. It became the
most famous image of the Bosnian war and
"proof" of Serb concentration-camp tactics. But the fence was not around the
Muslims. It was around the photographers.
There was no concentration camp! (Novo Jan/Feb 97)
1992 (Nov 29): Air Force Chief of Staff (ret) Michael J. Dugan published an
opinion piece in the NY Times entitled
"Operation Balkan Storm: Here’s a Plan." (Remember, Dugan was the general
fired for divulging Pentagon plans for an air war
against Iraq four months before it happened.) His piece on the Balkans said:
"A win in the Balkans would establish U.S.
leadership in the post-Cold War world in a way that Operation Desert Storm
never could."" He proposed enlisting Britain,
France, and Italy to use massive air power against Serbia. He suggested
using aircraft and Tomahawk missiles to destroy
Serbia’s electricity grid, refineries, storage facilities, and
communications. (Six and a half years later, it happened.
Dugan wanted to use Bosnia as the excuse, but the public wouldn’t have
accepted it then. It took Kosovo and a better PR
campaign to soften up the American people.)
1992 – 1993: Lt. Gen. Nambiar in Bosnia did not witness any Serb genocide.
(See "The Fatal Flaws Underlying NATO’s
Intervention in Yugoslavia", USI, New Delhi 4/6/99)
1993: By 1993, the economic strangulation of Yugoslavia imposed by US law
and European sanctions had reduced the per
capita income of Serbia from $3,000 (1990) to $700.
1994 (Feb 5): 68 people died in an open-air market in Sarajevo. The attack
was blamed on the Serbs. But the
United Nations proved that Izetbegovic’s PDA forces had done it to stir up
more hatred of the Serbs. (Reuters 2/18/94 and
NY Times 11/10/94)
1994 (Jun): Six US generals help Izetbegovic’s forces attack other Bosnian
Muslim leaders in Bihac and Tuzla.
The attacks violated the cease-fire and a UN-declared safe area. They were
assisted by US bombers under NATO
command. (See Guardian 11/17/94, Observer 11/20/94, Independent 11/12/94,
The European 11/25/94 as well as
newspapers in France and Germany.)
The Fikret Adbic government in Bihac destroyed by Izetbegovic was "one of
the few examples of successful multi-ethnic
cooperation in the Balkans." (General Charles G. Boyd, USAF, ret, Deputy
Commander-in-Chief, US European Command
1992-1995 in "Foreign Affairs" Sep/Oct 1995) Adbic outpolled Izetbegovic in
national elections, but was expelled by
US in favor of the right-wing Izetbegovic. (Boyd) According to the United
Nations, the US sabotaged every
agreement, peace plan, and cease fire in Bosnia. (Washington Post 4/30/94)
US heavy weapons flooded into the
right-wing Croats and Bosnians. (NY Times 6/24/94)
1994: The US media reported carnage, mass rapes, disembowelment, and
massacres of children by Serbs when Izetbegovic
troops pulled out of Srebrenica. UN investigating teams reported 7/24/95
that they could not find a single eyewitness to any
atrocity, even though they interviewed hundreds of Muslims in Srebrenica and
in Tuzla, where the majority of refugees were
taken.
1995 (Jul 12): "Council for Peace in the Balkans" calls for a "strategic and
sustained" air campaign against Serbia. This
"Council" consists of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Frank Carlucci, Hodding Carter,
Max Kampelman, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, all
hawks for the Trilateral Commission, which represents the world’s big banks
and multinational corporations.
1995 (Aug 4): "Operation Storm." US/NATO aircraft destroy Serb radar and air
defenses, clearing the way for
right-wing offensive against the Serb Krajina region of Croatia. US EA6B
electronic warfare aircraft jam Serb communications
and monitor Serb movements. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs are expelled into
Serbia and 14,000 are killed. The
attack is led by Brig Gen Agim Ceku, with massive US support. (See NY Times
News Service 8/11/95, AP 8/7/95, AP
8/8/95, Manchester Guardian 9/30/95, Boston Globe 10/8/95.) Military
Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI), a Pentagon
contractor made up of retired US generals and combat experts, trained the
Croats. According to the NY Times 3/21/99, the
International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague called "Operation Storm" the
most brutal event in the Balkans since World
War II. According to Jane’s Defense Weekly 5/10/99, General Ceku and several
other high-ranking Croats took leave from
the Croation Army in Feb 99. He is now (according to Jane’s) Commander of
the KLA.
1995 (Aug 28): Yet another explosion in a Sarajevo marketplace kills 37
civilians. Almost immediately, NATO
launches over 4,000 bombing sorties against the Serbs. But the Serbs didn’t
do it. Analysis of the crater and debris prove
that it was dropped off a roof by Izetbegovic’s own forces in order to get
NATO to act. NATO knew, but didn’t say. (David
Binder of the NY Times in The Nation 10/2/95)
Late 1990s: The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is organized by the CIA, the
German BND, and Albanian
fundamentalists. Some are trained in Osama bin Laden’s camps. Though
portrayed in the media as communists, they are in fact
fascists and mercenaries.
1996 – 1997: The KLA attacks Albanian "collaborators" who oppose the
separatist movement in Kosovo.
1997: Sali Berisha became head of Albania with US support, then allowed US
to have military bases in Albania, and turned
Albanian secret police over to the CIA. (French Press Agency 10/26/97) KLA
headquarters is on Berisha’s estate in Albania.
1997 (Nov): KLA kill Qamil Gashi, Albanian chairperson of Serbian Socialist
Party in Kosovo.
1997 (late) - 1998 (early): KLA went through "rapid and startling growth,"
with mercenaries from the US and
Germany, lots of money, and weapons of all kinds. The KLA started serious
military operations, attacking government
buildings and police stations. (NY Times 4/25/98) According to Jane’s, the
KLA includes US Special Forces and British SAS
units. It is not a liberation army. It is an arm of NATO.
1998: For years, Albanians in Kosovo demonstrated peacefully for the
restoration of some of their rights lost when they lost
control of Kosovo in 1989. They won back the right to attend university and
to take classes in the Albanian language. Though
untrained in the advanced techniques of nonviolence, they were making some
progress – in spite of the fact that the Western
world ignored their pleas for support. Instead of lending them moral
support, the West formed and armed the KLA. The
Albanian pacifist President of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, was on the verge of
an agreement with Milosevic to
restore Kosovo autonomy. Then the CIA stepped up KLA attacks on Yugoslav
police units in Kosovo. Yugoslav police
retaliation and attempts to curtail the KLA were put forward as a pretext
for NATO attacks on Serbs. But the public in the
US isn’t ready for war yet. Total losses on both sides in Kosovo are around
2,000. This is "low-intensity warfare," not "ethnic
cleansing."
1998 (Oct 29) and 1999 (Jan 12): German intelligence reports say that
Yugoslav security forces in Kosovo were
not acting against Albanians as an ethnic group, but only against the KLA
and its actual or alleged supporters.
1999 (Jan 15): The Racak "Massacre." (See Le Figaro 1/20/99 and Le Monde
1/21/99) On Friday morning,
January 15, 1999, Serb police alerted both the Associated Press (AP) and the
Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) that they
were going to Racak to attempt to arrest KLA terrorists responsible for
killing a policeman. At 10 AM, AP journalists
followed the police into the deserted town. They filmed from a hilltop
overlooking the town, then later in the streets. Upon
entering the town, the police came under fire from KLA snipers in the woods.
The main fighting occurred in the woods, where
police attempted to encircle the guerrillas. At least 15 KLA were killed.
Many escaped into the mountains. By 3:30 PM the
shooting had stopped, and the police left, followed by the AP team. The
police carried away a heavy machinegun, 4 rifles, and
about 30 Chinese-made kalashnikov assault weapons confiscated during the
day.
At 4:40 PM a French journalist drove through the village and met three
orange international observer vehicles. The observers
were chatting calmly with 3 middle-aged Albanians in civilian clothes. At 6
PM, the journalist returned and talked to the
observers as they were leaving. They were taking two very slightly injured
old men and two women. The KLA had returned to
the village. At night, it is theirs.
The next morning, KVM observers and the press came to the village. Armed KLA
took them to a ditch where 23 bodies
were piled up — almost exclusively men. At noon, William Walker, head of the
US Kosovo Verification Mission, arrived
and declared his indignation at the atrocities committed by "the Serb police
forces and the Yugoslav Army." The KLA said the
men were marched to the ditch at the edge of the tiny village about noon the
day before, and executed with several bullets to
the head of each. The whole world saw William Walker on TV declaring this
"ethnic cleansing" and a "massacre."
But no one had seen anything like that the day before. It would have been
impossible (with all the sniper fire) to march people
to the edge of town and calmly execute them. Besides, the town was
essentially empty. Smoke rose from only two chimneys in
the entire village. What’s more, there were hardly any shell casings around
the ditch where the people were
supposedly shot, and hardly any blood.
What really happened was that the KLA had dressed the bodies of their combat
victims in civvies, put some extra bullets in
their heads, and then carried them to the ditch and piled them there. It was
staged. And Walker knew it, because three
vehicles full of his observers had been there the day before, watching all
that went on.
By the way, this is the same William Walker who ran the Contra war against
Nicaragua for Ollie North and Elliott
Abrams. He ran a bogus "humanitarian" mission at Ilopango Air Base, flying
weapons to the Contras and drugs back to the
United States. He was also Ambassador to El Salvador during the worst of the
death squad massacres, including the
killing by School of the Americas (SOA) graduates of American Jesuit
priests. Wherever the CIA is most heavily involved, he
seems to show up. And he was our top guy in Kosovo until the Yugoslav
government ordered him out after this Racak
"massacre."
Nevertheless, William Walker’s judgment prevailed. The American media never
picked up on the French accounts of what
really happened at Racak. The American people were never told that it wasn’t
a "massacre" after all. Milosevic is threatened
with NATO bombing.
1999 (Mar): The Rambouillet "negotiations." The US draws up a document which
it presents to the KLA and the
Yugoslav government. There are no negotiations. Both sides are told to "take
it or leave it." The document requires Yugoslav
withdrawal from Kosovo, the introduction of a NATO occupying force with
total powers, and a plebiscite to decide on
independence for Kosovo. What the American people aren’t told is that the
document also gives NATO forces free rein
throughout Yugoslavia, including Serbia itself, even Belgrade. It grants
NATO forces free use of airports, roads, rails,
and ports; free telecommunication services; and total immunity throughout
Yugoslavia. In essence, this "agreement" would
allow NATO to occupy all of Yugoslavia, not just Kosovo. Members of the US
"negotiating" team bragged that they
intentionally set the bar too high for Milosevic to accept. "He needs a good
dose of bombing, and that’s what he’s
going to get."
Amazingly, Milosevic accepted all the Rambouillet demands except for NATO
occupation of Yugoslavia itself. He
wanted the troops to be under UN command. (NY Times 4/8/99) Dan Goure,
Deputy Director, CSIS and a Pentagon
official under Bush said, "Rambouillet was not a negotiation, it was a
setup, a lynch party." (Institute for Public Accuracy
5/4/99)
1999 (thru Mar 23): Until the bombing started, the Yugoslavian government
allowed opposition radio and publications.
Over 20 political parties had their own newspaper. There were more
opposition parties represented in the Yugoslavian
parliament than in any other European country. Yet Milosevic, who was
elected three times in what international observers
declared to be fair elections, is branded a dictator and compared to Hitler.
1999 (Mar 24): NATO begins 78 days of air strikes against Kosovo and Serbia.
Within days, Serbs start
expelling ethnic Albanians from their homes in Kosovo.
1999 (Mar 31): 3 GIs are captured on the Macedonian border. US patrols on
the border cease. On May 1 the three are
released to Jesse Jackson.
1999 (Apr 4): NATO bombs the Monastery of Holy Mother and the Monastery of
St Nicholas in Kursumlija (both built
in the 12th century). At least 14 other monasteries were bombed by the
middle of April.
1999 (Apr 12): NATO bombs a train on a bridge over Grdelica gorge, killing
10 civilians and wounding 16.
1999 (Apr 15): NATO bombs a refugee convoy on the road from Prizren to
Djakovica, killing 74 civilians.
1999 (Apr 22): NATO bombs the residence of Milosevic in an apparent
unsuccessful assassination attempt.
1999 (Apr 23): NATO bombs the offices of Serbian Television, killing 15.
1999 (Apr 24): NATO uses cluster bombs on Doganovici, killing (among others)
five children from one family (the
Kodza family). They were Vadjet (age 15), Burim (age 14), Osman (age 13),
Fisnik (age 9), and Edon (age 3).
1999 (Apr 27): NATO bombs a residential district in Surdulica, killing
(among others) 12 children.
1999 (May 1): NATO bombs a bus on the Luzan Bridge, killing 15 children, 19
adults.
1999 (May 13): NATO cluster bombs kill 79 refugees in Prizren (National
Catholic Reporter, CBS News, Lehrer News
Hour). NATO bombs kill 87 Albanians in Korisa, Kosovo the same day. At first
NATO denies responsibility, then changes its
story and says it did the bombing, but against a military target. It says
the Serbs used the Albanians as human shields. But
reporters from the London Independent reported seeing scraps of flesh and
scattered possessions, but no sign of a military
presence. (Independent 5/16/99). The Los Angeles Times also said the only
targets were the tractors and wagons of refugees.
(LA Times 5/15/99).
1999 (Jun 3): The Yugoslavian government accepts terms proposed by the G-7
and Russia for ending the war.
The terms are similar to those of Rambouillet except that (1) Kosovo remains
part of Serbia and (2) the occupying forces,
though made up largely of NATO countries, would officially be acting in the
name of the United Nations. These are exactly
the conditions Milosevic agreed to before the bombing started!
RESULTS:
So what did 33,000 bombing missions accomplish? Exactly what
NATO intended all along. They destroyed the viability of
Yugoslavia as an independent country, destroyed what had
been one of the world’s most successful communist economies,
and solidified US, British, and German domination in the Balkans.
Both militarily and economically, what used to be
Yugoslavia is now a collection of small colonies.
It also changed our relationships with Russia and China, and set
back disarmament by 20 years. It increased the Pentagon
budget and caused defense stocks to go through the roof.
Boeing, GM, Honeywell, Motorola, Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon,
TRW, United Technologies each donated up to $250,000 for
NATO’s 50th anniversary celebration. But they could well
afford it. The war had used up a huge inventory of Tomahawk
cruise missiles (at $1.2 Million apiece) and created orders for
replacements.
REASONS:
But why? Surely there’s more to it than that. There is. First and
foremost, the war had nothing whatsoever to do with
compassion for the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. If we were
concerned with stopping or punishing human rights violations, we
would be launching cruise missiles at China and Saudi Arabia and
Guatemala and Turkey. If we were concerned about
self-determination for ethnic peoples, we would be bombing
London for not freeing the Catholics in Northern Ireland. As
Gorbachev pointed out recently, we would be bombing Russia
to free the Chechens, bombing Turkey to free the Kurds, and
bombing Israel to free the Palestinians. If we were concerned
for victims of ethnic cleansing, we would be at war in the Sudan
and several other places where the number of displaced and
massacred dwarfs what happened in the Balkans. And we would
have been on the side of the Serbs against Franjo Tudjman in
Croatia instead of the other way around. (Dare we mention what
happened to the Native Americans?) No, the war against
Yugoslavia had nothing to do with humanitarian goals or compassion
for the Albanians.
But there were reasons. These are among the objectives behind
the policy which made this war inevitable:
(1) Get rid of the largest remaining post-Soviet socialist nation
refusing to cooperate with the Multinational Corporations who
rule the New World Order.
(2) Destabilize and divide Yugoslavia, opening the pieces to
monopoly capital, military occupation, and U

La verità, è che la NATO, ha combattuto un libero popolo, per favorire un
esercito da fogna.
Padano.