on 11/24/99 8:28 AM, Andrej Grubacic at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 1999 4:28 AM
> Subject: SPINNING THE KILL - THE TRIBUNAL HASTENS TO SAVE A LIE
>
>
>> SPINNING THE KILL - The Tribunal hastens to save a lie
>> by Max Sinclair and Jared Israel (Emperors-clothes.com)
>>
>> [http://www.emperors-clothes.com encourages everyone to distribute this
>> article but in full, including this note. If you use anything from this
>> analysis, please cite the source.]
>>
>> Defense Secretary William S. Cohen:
>> '"We've now seen about 100,000 military-aged men missing... They may have
>> been murdered,'" Mr. Cohen said yesterday on CBS' Face the Nation."
> (Quoted
>> without qualification by Joyce Howard Price in The Washington Times, May
> 17,
>> 1999)
At least the authors quote Cohen accurately. Notice however, how the
cautious "may have been murdered" immediately gets turned into a promise
that that many HAVE been murdered. Notice too how no effort is made to
ascertain whether the 100,000 figure had a basis in fact at the time Cohen
made it. On the same day, ironically, the US was also putting out a
low-end--and ultimately accurate--figure of 4600 (see below) but that fact
is inconvenient to the authors' agenda so it is carefully unmentioned.
>>
>> Juan Palafox, Spanish forensic expert: "They told us that we were going to
>> the worst zone of Kosovo. That we should prepare ourselves to perform more
>> than 2000 autopsies. That we would have to work until the end of November.
>> The result is very different. We only found 187 cadavers and now we are
> going
>>
>> to return [home]." (Spanish experts: Serbs Not Guilty! by Pablo Ordaz in
> El
>> Pais, 9/23/99, translated by Emperors-clothes and posted at
>> http://www.emperors-clothes.com/news/sp-news.htm )
"Serbs not guilty?" And these are the fellows the authors regard as
impartial. Note the differing treatment accorded the War Crimes Tribunal
later on in this article, for the same alleged behavior.
>>
>> Carla del Ponte, "War Crimes" Tribunal: "U.N. investigators have exhumed
>> 2,108 corpses in Kosovo so far, but the true number of ethnic Albanian
>> victims may be much higher, the chief U.N. [War Crimes Tribunal]
> prosecutor
>> Carla del Ponte said on Wednesday. " (Reuters, 11-10-99)
>>
>> It's a familiar story. A crime is committed in high places. Using the
>> influence of power, a campaign of disinformation is launched to cover-up
> the
>> crime.
A marvelous example of picking someone's pocket while shouting "thief!", a
propaganda reflex Chomsky has described elsewhere. This article is one long,
dishonest apologia for Serb atrocities, masquerading as concern for truth
and justice, as will become apparent as we read on.
>>
>> And then the story begins to crack. A hodgepodge of fixes is tried, but
> each
>> new fix only serves to raise new doubts, widening the crack.
>>
>> So with Wednesday's declaration by Chief Justice Carla del Ponte of the
>> so-called International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the
> "War
>> Crimes" Tribunal. (We say "so-called" with reason. To understand why, and
> why
>>
>> we call it "Albright's Tribunal," See Note # 1 at the end)
>>
>> IT'S HARD TO FIND DECENT HELP
>>
>> The whole problem started with some independent-minded Spanish Forensic
>> experts. They were sent by the "War Crimes" Tribunal to Kosovo to support
>> NATO charges of Serbian crimes of genocide. Instead, they blew the whistle
> on
>>
>> NATO:
>>
>> "The forensic people, as well as the police, applied their experience in
>> Rwanda in order to determine what occurred in Kosovo at least in that
> section
>>
>> assigned to the Spanish detachment and they were not able to find evidence
> of
>>
>> genocide." El Pais, 9-23-99,
Let's assume that the "findings" are accurate (no attempt is made by the
authors to compare the reported findings with the contents of the Tribunal's
report, which, if there were a discrepancy, would undercut the Tribunal's
findings). Notice that whatever the Spanish found or didn't find in their
sector immediately applies to all of Kosovo. This is called the fallacy of
composition.
>>
>> The Spanish forensic scientists' report was noticed by an
>> Emperors-clothes.com researcher. We translated it and posted it on
>> Emperors-clothes along with a sharp critique of the whole mass graves
> story.
>> (See Spanish Experts Shoot NATO In Foot or go to
>> http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/sp-comment.htm )
>>
>> Our translation and commentary were picked up and posted twice on
>> www.anti-war.com. We then emailed the El Pais article and our commentary
> all
>> over the Internet. They were seen by Stratfor.com and a slew of newspapers
>> including: Calgary Herald, Knight Ridder/Tribune, NY Daily News, The
> Straits
>> Times (Singapore), the London Times, The (London) Spectator, The Toronto
> Sun,
>>
>> the LA Times, the National Post On-Line, and others. Everyone started
> asking:
>>
>> "Where are the bodies?"
Removed by the Serbs, according to many Kosovar Albanians, and verified by
circumstantial evidence on the ground. But counterevidence is not part of
the agenda here, so it's not even mentioned.
>>
>> WHEN CAUGHT IN THE ACT, STONEWALL!
>>
>> A US President once told his staff: deny everything and cover your tracks.
>> Enter Carla Del Ponte of the "War Crimes" Tribunal who stated, on Nov.
> 10th,
>> that it was not true that the "War Crimes" investigators had only found a
> few
>>
>> hundred cadavers in Kosovo despite five months of searching. No, said del
>> Ponte, we found: 2,108. And we promise to continue finding more next
> spring.
>> (Aside from the apparent clairvoyance of PROMISING to find more bodies,
> keep
>> this in mind: the forensic experts were very publicly instructed to
> examine
>> the "best mass graves" first...)
A highly dubious quote for which no source is given. Again, notice that the
standards of fairness and impartiality, which are supposed to apply to the
War Crimes Tribunal, are waived when it comes to the claims of its critics.
>>
>> IS THIS EMPRESS WEARING ANY CLOTHES?
>>
>> One could argue that del Ponte's findings are inherently suspect, that for
>> her "War Crimes" Tribunal to investigate Serbian actions in Kosovo is
>> manifestly inappropriate. After all, justice is supposed to be
> disinterested.
See above. Notice again that to the authors, justice is a one-way affair:
Justice for Kosovar Albanians who have been murdered and tortured is beside
the point.
>>
>> But it is no secret that the Tribunal is a creation of the US government:
>> Madeline Albright proposed it; its funding comes directly and indirectly
> from
>>
>> the US.
Doubtful. The US is on the verge of losing its vote in the UN General
Assembly for being a deadbeat on its dues. Again, no source is provided to
buttress the claim.
>>
>> The US government is hardly a disinterested party in Kosovo. It was the
> main
>> force behind a bombing campaign which violated a slew of international
>> agreements (including the UN and NATO charters). The campaign provided
>> textbook examples of war crimes: for instance, launching an aggressive war
> is
>>
>> internationally accepted as the worst war crime. Bombing civilian targets
> is
>> a close second.
Speaking of announcing guilt in advance of trial....
>>
>> The US government publicly defended these actions by claiming they were
>> necessary to stop a Serbian campaign of genocide. Now, when there is so
> much
>> evidence of terrible damage to Yugoslavia, Clinton and other NATO leaders
>> responsible for the bombing and the occupation of Kosovo need to produce
>> counter-evidence of Serbian genocide or risk a backlash in the European
>> countries - and perhaps in the US itself.
>>
>> So having the (US) "War Crimes" Tribunal hunt for evidence of Serbian
> guilt
>> is a naked conflict of interest. The only reason it is politically
> possible
>> is that NATO citizens have been barraged with anti-Serbian propaganda.
> Absent
>>
>> that propaganda and this investigation would be seen as an outrage.
The standard Stalinist reflex--turn all questions of fact into questions of
motive.
>>
>> AN OPENLY BIASED "COURT"
>>
>> The actual functioning of the Tribunal violates every accepted rule
> governing
>>
>> legal proceedings. For instance, courts are not supposed to try defendants
> in
>>
>> the mass media. They are supposed to proceed with a presumption of
> innocence.
Notice the Catch-22 the authors want to exploit: if the WCT keeps silent, as
it did until this month, the revisionists use that silence as corroborating
evidence that their witnesses are right and that no mass murders occurred;
if on the other hand they release preliminary findings that refute the
critics, they are tainting the investigation and engaging in propaganda.
Heads I win, tails you lose.
>>
>> Investigations are supposed to be conducted impartially - to discover
> guilt,
>> not to provide evidence for a vendetta. But Tribunal leaders routinely
>> declare the Serbs guilty first, then proceed to hunt for the evidence
> later.
No evidence presented to support this. In fact, the authors' own account
demonstrates the opposite. Moreover, no accusations of "genocide" or "crimes
against humanity," to the best of my knowledge, have been issued against any
defendants by the WCT. Responsibility for the crimes being unearthed is an
unresolved issue at this point.
>> During Tribunal "investigations" every opportunity is taken to stage
>> prejudicial photo-ops and issue sensationalist statements so that the
> public
>> gets the impression that Serbian guilt is self-evident.
No evidence offered.
>>
>> DEL PONTE'S HELPERS
>>
>> Then there's the matter of the KLA.
>>
>> Though admittedly a terrorist group, and once universally described as
>> gangster-ridden, the KLA has been recruited by NATO and the UN to staff
> the
>> new police force in Kosovo.
>>
>> Any murder investigation, and particularly any investigation of mass
> murder
>> carried out in a country foreign to the investigators - any such
>> investigation needs much local help. It needs people who know the terrain,
>> who can find and produce witnesses, provide interpreters, locate graves
> and
>> move bodies. The KLA constitutes not only the functioning "civil
> authority"
>> in Kosovo, but now the officially approved police force as well. So
>> naturally, it is the KLA that has provided the Tribunal with its local
>> infrastructure.
No evidence of the KLA being involved with the WCT is offered.
>>
>> Consider if you will this report from Jane's Defense Review, which is
>> respected and knowledgeable. According to Jane's, the KLA's strategy has
>> required:
>>
>> "The harassment and assassination of Serb officials and civilians from
>> Kosovo's Serb minority. This has included sniper attacks, Serbs dragged
> from
>> their vehicles and beaten, together with pressure on them to leave their
>> homes. The killing of a Serb policeman, Milan Jovic in Podujevo, a mainly
>> Albanian town 40km north of Pristina, by men with automatic weapons on 21
>> December was one such incident. This UCK tactic has the double benefit of
>> forcing Serbs to quit the province and provoking Serb police into
> retaliation
>>
>> and subsequent censure by OSCE observers." (Jane's, 2/1/99)
>>
>> As Jane's suggests, the KLA strategy has required the terrorizing of
> Serbian
>>
>> civilians. One could ask, doesn't it taint a criminal investigation to
> rely
>> for local support on a group which has had as its strategy committing the
>> very war crimes which the investigators have promised to uncover?
And one could answer, no, it doesn't, because the question assumes an
unproved fact, namely that the WCT is depending on the KLA. Again, too, the
double standard, where the KLA is self-evidently guilty of war crimes, but
the Serbs are not.
>>(By the
>> way, another part of KLA strategy has been to terrorize uncooperative
>> Albanians. See Note # 7 at end)
>>
>> THE NUMBERS: DO THEY ADD UP?
>>
>> There have been so many different numbers. What is the basis of these
> latest
>> figures? Why should anyone believe them?
>>
>> Researchers have scanned mass grave reports printed in the media during
> the
>> past five months; by adding up the numbers of bodies reported found, they
>> come up with a few hundred bodies, not 2108.
But a few paragraphs back the WCT was allegedly guilty of elaborate staging
of just these kinds of media events! What happened to all the bodies? The
authors can't seem to keep their own pseudofacts straight. As was in fact
the case, "researchers" (read: propagandists for the Serb cause) were taking
advantage of WCT reticence to insinuate a coverrup.
>>
>> If the "War Crimes" Tribunal functioned properly, they would not
> continually
>> release every alleged discovery of a grave to the press.
Notice the instant self-contradiction.
>>They would
> collect
>> the evidence and present it during actual trials. But the "War Crimes"
>> Tribunal does not function properly at all, it functions like a Public
>> Relations firm for NATO:
>>
>> "The supposed mass grave is discovered. The newspaper or TV reporter, or
> the
>> authority figure giving the press conference, takes as a starting point
> the
>> assumption that Serbs are genocidal murderers and proceeds from there. The
>> grave has not been opened, or perhaps it has been opened but the only
>> evidence is a few scraps of clothing. Nevertheless we are told that dead
>> bodies will be found; the bodies will be Albanians; they will be
> civilians;
>> they will have been killed by Serbs; the Serbs will have been soldiers or
>> policemen. The reporter does not probe, does not investigate, does not
> test
>> these speculations against fact and nobody complains because the
> speculations
>>
>> are not presented as speculations. Once uttered, they have the authority
> of
>> Revealed Truth. They become part of the Record, to be cited in later news
>> reports as Proven Fact." (See "Spanish Forensic Experts Shoot NATO in
> Foot,"
>> by Jared Israel or go to
>> http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/sp-comment.htm
The authors quote themselves for support. Very impressive.
>>
>> Since every grave, indeed every rumor of a grave, has been broadcast far
> and
>> wide, it is perfectly reasonable that Gen. Mackenzie, former head of UN
>> military forces in Bosnia, and other researchers have estimated the number
> of
>>
>> bodies possibly found by reading news reports and adding the numbers. (See
>> Note # 6 at the end for Mackenzie's report)
>>
>> The numbers simply don't figure. There are multiple discrepancies. We have
>> the earlier "estimates" which were used to justify the bombing - those
> ranged
>>
>> from hundreds of thousands of dead, during the bombing, to 10,000, after
> the
>> bombing ended.
No evidence offered (as usual) for the former figure, while the latter
figure is looking quite plausible in light of the preliminary WCT report.
>>Then we have the numbers of bodies based on press reports.
>> These apparently amount to several hundred, or at least that is what
>> Strtfor.com, Mackenzie and others found when they counted. And now we have
>> yet another figure, this from del Ponte, a figure of 2108.
>>
>> Although del Ponte's report was manifestly intended to answer the
> questions
>> raised by the Spanish forensic experts, Emperors-clothes.com, antiwar.com,
>> and increasingly by newspapers around the world - she does not explain the
>> discrepancy between the previously trumpeted figures and her new
> "official"
>> tally.
There is no particular discrepancy at all between a figure of 2100 based on
roughly 30% of the sites examined, and a final tally of 10,000. Apparently
the authors expect NATO to operate from a platform of total omniscience, so
that any fluctuation, no mater how insignificant, between inherently
unreliable estimates derived under conditions of war and final tallies from
firsthand investigation can only be ascribed to an intent to deceive.
>>Are we unreasonable to ask: did the Tribunal people pick the figure
> of
>>
>> 2108 because a) it's not a round number, hence more believable b) it's a
> good
>>
>> compromise between the Tribunal's previously claimed, much higher numbers
> and
>>
>> the number of bodies, in the hundreds, suggested by the newspapers and
>> websites?
Answer: Yes, it's not only unreasonable, it's silly. These findings will
ultimately be used in any war crimes trial of Milosevic and his
subordinates, and hence will be subject to scrutiny by the defense. Every
death will therefore have to be thoroughly documented. For that reason,
these figures are, if anything, conservative. This is called common sense.
>>
>> WHAT ABOUT SERBS AND "GYPSIES" AND ANTI-KLA ALBANIANS?
>>
>> It's very easy not to notice something that is missing. Missing from del
>> Ponte's report is any mention that the investigators found the bodies of
>> Serbs, "Gypsies" and other minorities, or any anti-KLA Albanians in any of
>> the graves. One could say that this fact alone invalidates the report.
>> Weren't any of them killed? Weren't they buried?
>>
>> This omission suggests that the report is a cover-up, intended to silence
>> critics, and thrown together so hastily that the producers forgot to claim
>> that a few of the bodies were Serbs or "Gypsies" to make the report
>> believable.
On the one hand, the omission of KLA atrocities is "easy not to notice," but
on the other, failure to include same in the report makes the report
unbelievable. The authors talent for self-contradiction is formidable
indeed.
>>
>> NOT CREDIBLE
>>
>> All this could lead one to conclude that del Ponte's report of 2,108
> bodies
>> of Albanian victims of Serb terror -- that this report is entirely without
>> credibility: it is incredible.
Nonsense for reasons that should be abundantly clear.
>>
>> The only reason the report has not been universally rejected is that:
>>
>> a) Western media is obedient to the requirements of U.S. and German police
>> makers and
>>
>> b) Consequently, Western critical reasoning about Kosovo has been confused
> by
>>
>> a drone of misinformation. Every news story about Kosovo includes the same
>> statements, often worded the same way. We are told over and over that the
>> Serbs under Milosevich committed massive war crimes. We are told that it
> is
>> therefore understandable Albanians are taking revenge. These statements
> are
>> attached to the most unlikely news reports (e.g., onto the news report
> that
>> Pristina Albanians beat and shot a Bulgarian UN worker dead for speaking
> a
>> language that sounded like Serbo-Croatian)
>>
>> It doesn't matter how inappropriate the talk of revenge may be; the effect
> of
>>
>> such repetition is to establish that Serbian guilt is axiomatic.
>>
>> In such a climate of intense Serbophobia, any report should "pass," even
> one
>> consisting of blank pages. It is rather impressive, therefore, that the
> "War
>> Crimes" writers have produced a document that some newspapers find
>> questionable. For these newspapers, questioning a NATO report may be a
> new
>> experience; one hopes they will find it refreshing.
What newspapers? Who knows? Certainly the authors aren't telling us.
>>
>> Let us set aside the conclusion that the report is bankrupt. Let us forget
>> that its claim that 2108 bodies have been found constitutes an admission
>> that earlier claims of 10,000 to 100,000 victims - or more - were simply
> war
>>
>> propaganda.
Again, 2100 bodies from 30% of the sites hardly invalidates the estimate of
10K; on the contrary, it supports it. But the authors don't tell the readers
about the partial nature of the findings, which is convenient for their
agenda.
>>
>> Let us set that aside. We are told the Empress is clothed. We shall
> disregard
>>
>> the fact of her nudity. She gives us numbers. We shall consider the
> numbers.
>>
>> Del Ponte says her "investigators" found 2108 bodies in graves in Kosovo.
>>
>> So we ask: two thousand bodies?
>>
>> Is this the "new holocaust"? Is this the worst genocide since Hitler?
>>
>> Is this why NATO had to kill and wound thousands of human beings? Is this
> why
>>
>> it was necessary to bomb hospitals, schools, bridges, factories,
> electrical
>> plants, chemical plants? Is this the justification for dropping cluster
> bombs
>>
>> on open markets, on market day? For bombing trains and then, when the
>> ambulances came to take away the "collateral damage", flying in and
> bombing
>> the ambulances? For driving hundreds of thousands of Serbs, "Gypsies"
> Gorani
>> (Slavic Muslims) Turks, Croatians and other non-Albanians from their homes
> in
>>
>> Kosovo?For doubling the level of poverty in Yugoslavia by destroying
>> factories? For forbidding the importation of heating fuel for the Yugoslav
>> winter? For causing unknown psychological damage to millions of children?
> For
>>
>> polluting southern Europe with deadly chemicals from bombed factories and
>> refineries?
>>
>> Is this the justification?
Yep. Germany was also in pretty bad shape after WWII. They started it. Got a
problem with that? Oh, but that holocaust thing was also exaggerated, I'll
bet.
>>
>> An army of experts was sent to Kosovo. They were well-equipped. They spent
>> five months hunting for bodies to prove NATO's war was justified. NATO
>> leaders promised to find vast numbers of mass grave victims, promised in
>> advance of discovery. And now we have the report, from the chief
> prosecutor
>> of the "War Crimes" Tribunal, Carla del Ponte.
>>
>> 2,108 bodies.
>>
>> What happened to the other 98,000?
There never was a claim of 100K. A lie repeated a thousand times is still a
lie.
>>
>> A DELICATE MATTER OF IDENTITY
>>
>> Assuming her investigators actually did find 2,108 bodies, Carla del
> Ponte's
>> avoids dealing with two questions: who are these 2108 dead people? Who
> killed
>>
>> them?
That will be for a war crimes trial to decide, won't it?
>>
>> DID NATO KILL THEM?
>>
>> Spanish forensic scientists reported that about half the 187 bodies they
>> autopsied were victims of NATO raids on the prison at Istok (in Kosovo.)
> Were
>>
>> other investigators shown victims of NATO bombs and told they were victims
> of
>>
>> Serbian terror?
Proof by insinuation. One might surmise, however, that the difference
between a bombing victim and a gunshot victim are pretty easy to spot. For
instance, bombing victims don't bury themselves in mass graves.
>>
>> Most of the rest of the bodies the Spaniards examined were men buried in
>> individual graves facing Mecca, an act of respect in the Muslim religion,
>> which is embraced by most ethnic Albanians. Does it sound like these men
> were
>>
>> victims of hate crimes? (See Note #2 at end)
>>
>> 75 Albanians in a refugee column were killed by NATO bombs in April. As
> you
>> may recall, NATO initially denied the incident, then claimed to have a
> tape
>> that showed the pilot had targeted Yugoslav military vehicles among the
>> refugees, and finally admitted the tape did not exist. Another 75 were
> bombed
>>
>> while bedded down for the night in the town of Korisa, in May. NATO
> justified
>>
>> that bombing by arguing that it was the Serbs' fault, that they should
> have
>> known the refugees would be bombed if they stayed in Korisa because Korisa
>> was typical of the kind of places NATO bombed. (We are not exaggerating;
> this
>>
>> is exactly how NATO was quoted in the May 17, 1999 "Boston Globe".)
Not exaggerating? Here's the article. There is nothing in it even
approximating the "quote" the authors claim is in it. Note, too, that even
at this juncture (5/17/99), NATO is acknowledging a wide range of
uncertainty in the scale of Serb atrocities, a cautiousness that is
inconsistent with the authors' unsubstantiated assertions that NATO flatly
"claimed" 100K Albanian dead.
I think that by this point the emptiness, not to mention dishonesty, of the
authors' article has been beaten to death, so I won't continue demolishing
it. However it is ironic to note that the authors practice exactly the
propagdanda technique that Chomsky, in his Political Economy of Human
Rights, Vol. 2, ascribed to the mass media after the fall of
Cambodia--namely, picking the high end of a wide range of estimated
atrocities and turning it into an official figure, playing up the wild,
third-hand claims of people with manifest axes to grind, while ignoring the
careful assessments of the actual death toll made by State Dept., UN and
other governmental agencies. This is no doubt why, in case you wondered,
Chomsky has not bought into this shameful revisionist nonsense, even if he
remains fiercely critical of the NATO campaign on other grounds.
Here's the 5/17/99 Boston Globe article the authors dishonesty cite:
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ALLIES SEE `HUNDREDS' OF INNOCENT CASUALTIES
NATO ASSAILS CRITICISM BY SERBS OF AIRSTRIKES
Author: By Bob Hohler, Globe Staff
Date: 05/17/1999 Page: A1
Section: National/Foreign
WASHINGTON -- NATO leaders said yesterday that allied airstrikes have caused
``perhaps hundreds of innocent casualties'' and warned that they cannot
guarantee the safety of a UN team that arrived in Serbia for the first
independent inspection of the Kosovo province since the bombardment began.
But NATO officials, citing new estimates that Serb forces have executed at
least 4,600 ethnic Albanian men and possibly as many as 100,000, decried
Serb criticism of the fatal allied attacks.
``For the Serbs to lament publicly about the deaths of these refugees is
almost tantamount to Adolf Eichmann complaining about allied forces bombing
the crematoriums,'' said Defense Secretary William S. Cohen. ``These are
crocodile tears coming out of mass killers.''
Also yesterday, a senior Pentagon official said the two Serb soldiers held
as prisoners of war by US military authorities in Germany will be released,
possibly today.
``They are going to be released,'' the official said, speaking on condition
of anonymity. ``We're just working out the details now.''
Cohen strongly hinted a few weeks ago that there was a possibility that the
prisoners would be released.
Three US Army soldiers captured along the Kosovo-Macedonia border were
released two weeks ago, but there was no indication of any linkage between
the two releases.
In Brussels, NATO officials yesterday dismissed Yugoslav assertions that
escalating allied airstrikes have prevented Serb troops from withdrawing
from Kosovo. Yugoslav leaders said last week that they had ordered a partial
troop withdrawal because they had completed their operations against ethnic
Albanian rebels.
NATO spokesman Jamie Shea called it ``perverse'' for Yugoslavia to blame the
airstrikes for the failed troop withdrawal. ``It's like an alcoholic blaming
a whiskey company for his problem,'' Shea said at NATO headquarters.
The 15-member UN team, scheduled to meet today with Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic, vowed yesterday to visit every corner of Kosovo to
assess the depth of the humanitarian crisis that has unfolded as Milosevic's
forces have committed a number of alleged war crimes in driving 1.5 million
ethnic Albanians from their homes.
``It's the first time we are able to embark in this kind of way and right in
the middle of a war,'' said Sergio de Mello, the UN undersecretary for
humanitarian affairs, in the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade.
The UN mission follows the arrival in Kosovo on Friday of the first Red
Cross convoy to deliver relief supplies to the province since the airstrikes
began on March 24.
NATO warplanes, meanwhile, are pounding Serb targets in Kosovo around the
clock.
``We support these humanitarian convoy efforts,'' Shea said. ``But obviously
we cannot guarantee the security of those humanitarian convoys and our air
operations will continue.''
There were these other developments yesterday:
About 800 ethnic Albanians reached Macedonia and described enduring weeks of
terror as they tried to elude Serb forces who were searching door to door
for members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. UN officials expect thousands
more refugees to flee to Macedonia, which reopened its border last week with
Kosovo after closing border stations for several days because of
overcrowding in the refugee camps.
General Henry Shelton, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, refused to
speculate when, if ever, the Apache helicopters that were sent last month to
Albania would be used against Serb troops in Kosovo. The New York Times
reported yesterday that the Pentagon is blocking deployment of the
helicopters. ``Basically, we will use them at a time and place of our
choosing,'' Shelton said on CBS's ``Face the Nation.''
Under pressure from the peace movement in Germany, Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder is preparing to step up his pursuit of a settlement of the Kosovo
crisis. ``Given the current developments in the Kosovo conflict, Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder has decided to intensify efforts for a political
solution,'' his administration said in a statement.
A rocket struck the German ambassador's residence in Athens, apparently the
latest in a series of attacks in Greece against businesses and interests
linked to NATO countries involved in the Kosovo campaign. The ambassador and
his wife were in the residence at the time, but no one was reported hurt.
Amid controversy over a NATO raid last week that killed many ethnic Albanian
civilians in the Kosovar village of Korisa, US Secretary of State Madeleine
K. Albright and British Foreign Minister Robin Cook expressed deep regret
yesterday that ``there have been perhaps hundreds of innocent casualties as
a result of NATO action.''
Thomas Pickering, a US undersecretary of state, reaffirmed the NATO
assertion that the Korisa victims were being used as human shields. He said
there is an unconfirmed report of a survivor saying Serb troops forced the
ethnic Albanians to the target site and told them, ``Now you will feel the
brunt of the NATO bombing.''
Yugoslav authorities called the allegation ``crazy.''
Albright and Cook, in an op-ed article in the Washington Post, also cited
the deadly, ``mistaken'' airstrike recently on the Chinese Embassy in
Belgrade.
``NATO has gone to extreme lengths to avoid civilians and to attack military
targets,'' Albright and Cook wrote. ``But with thousands of missions being
flown every week, perfection is unattainable.''
Chinese officials remained unsatisfied. Warning that US-China relations have
``suffered very serious damage,'' the Chinese ambassador to the United
States, Li Zhaoxing, said on NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' ``The US-led, US-NATO
force should bear all the responsibility arising therefrom.''
The mistaken deaths in NATO bombings prompted a prominent US ally, Argentine
President Carlos Menem, to urge NATO to send ground troops into Kosovo.
``This will continue if there is no decision to occupy part of the
territory,'' Menem said in Buenos Aires.
NATO's reliance on airstrikes also was questioned by retired General Colin
Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who commanded US
forces during the Persian Gulf War.
``In due course, Milosevic may blink, but the danger with this particular
strategy is that it is up to Mr. Milosevic to decide when he is gong to
blink,'' Powell said on ``Meet the Press.''
``Remember what winning means,'' Powell added. ``In this case, the political
objective is that we will allow Mr. Milosevic to let us bring troops into
Kosovo to allow the Kosovar Albanians to go home. In Desert Storm, we took
that decision away from Saddam Hussein when we launched the ground attack.''
Meanwhile, Newsweek reported that the Joint Chiefs have informed Cohen that
ground troops will be necessary to ``guarantee fulfillment of the
administration's political objectives,'' particularly helping the Kosovar
refugees return home before snow begins falling in October.
Cohen, appearing on CBS's ``Face the Nation,'' said NATO stands by its
belief that the airstrikes will achieve the allied goals. ``We are going all
out to win,'' Cohen said. ``We are going to win this.''
Cohen said the Kosovo Liberation Army is regrouping and gaining strength and
will pose increasing problems for Milosevic. ``They will prove to be his
quagmire,'' Cohen said, ``his Vietnam.''
Material from the Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.
HOHLER;05/16 NIGRO ;05/17,06:14 YUGOSL17
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Tresy Kilbourne
Seattle WA
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