-Caveat Lector- >From Int'l Herald Tribune Paris, Thursday, April 8, 1999 10,000 Refugees Disappear in Chaos at Border As War Intensifies, U.S. Warns of Trials ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- By Joseph Fitchett International Herald Tribune ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- PARIS - Aircraft of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization pressed their attacks against Serbian armored units in Kosovo on Wednesday, seeking to knock out the ground forces of Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav leader, and exploit the advantage gained by clear skies and crumbling air defenses. Alliance governments also were grappling with the continuing humanitarian emergency of nearly a million displaced Kosovars. Simultaneously, Western governments were seeking to maintain a united front for a prolonged military campaign against Mr. Milosevic's forces. In a move apparently aimed partly at creating a rift within the Yugoslav military, the State Department publicized the names of nine Serbian officers in Kosovo and warned them that war crimes committed in areas under their command could bring prosecution by an international tribunal. ''We're putting them on notice,'' said James Rubin, the State Department spokesman. ''The world is watching.'' Mr. Rubin noted that there was no statute of limitations on war crimes. He added that the United States was not accusing any of the nine of having ordered atrocities, but knew that such crimes had taken place. As to President Milosevic's ultimate responsibility for such abuses, Mr. Rubin said that determination would be up to the war-crimes tribunal in The Hague. Asked about efforts by the acting president of Cyprus to negotiate the release of three U.S. soldiers who were seized by Serbs along the Yugoslav-Macedonian border, Mr. Rubin was cautious, saying: ''We have no way of knowing what the likelihood of the return of these three is.'' Any release, he said, would have to be unconditional. Western governments were working to ensure that peace feelers from Belgrade would not split the alliance or undermine the campaign to destroy the Serbian military capabilities in Kosovo. This was partly to ensure that they could not be used for future attacks, partly as a punitive action for the ethnic cleansing against the local Albanian population. President Bill Clinton, in a foreign policy speech Wednesday, insisted that NATO was not considering a let-up in its military pressure. The president stressed that Mr. Milosevic must withdraw his forces from Kosovo, allow the refugees to return and permit an international force to enter the province to keep peace. ''Nothing less'' could lead to a settlement, Mr. Clinton said. The air attacks reportedly escalated again Tuesday night to more than 400 sorties, and the attacks continued Wednesday at the highest rate yet in daylight hours, Air Commodore David Wilby said in a briefing at NATO headquarters in Brussels. NATO's has scored its ''first major breakthrough against Serbian armored forces in the field,'' he said, describing a ground attack by allied planes on a column of 12 tanks. All of them were apparently hit, and seven were destroyed. The damage was hard to determine immediately because the attacking pilots had turned away quickly to avoid ground fire, he said. But reconnaissance planes and satellites were tracking Serbian armor and enabling NATO to pursue ''an unremitting campaign with ruthless efficiency'' against Serbian forces, he added. In this new ground-attack phase, NATO has started using cluster bombs - canisters that scatter small, armor-piecing explosive charges in a preset pattern to hamper, destroy or disable vehicles on the move. These constitute an ideal weapon against Serbian tanks supporting troops or paramilitary police units in their operations against Kosovar civilians But these munitions are designed to saturate an area with explosives, not deliver contained explosions of the sort that NATO has unleashed with precision-guided missiles used against targets like fuel depots and buildings. Devastating against tanks, these ''area munitions'' being used now also cause damage throughout the vicinity of their targets, increasing the risk of that civilian casualties that NATO has sought to avoid. But the alliance seemed more willing to take such chances now, partly because there are fewer ethnic Albanian civilians in the province and partly because the other risk involved in ground attacks - anti-aircraft fire - has also decreased. An accident involving the heaviest civilian casualties yet was reported Wednesday when Serbia's state-run news agency, Tanjug, said that 10 people were killed and eight seriously injured in a NATO missile strike on Pristina, the Kosovo capital. It said missiles hit the center of the city, damaging the main post office, the national bank building, the city council, as well as several other administration buildings. There was no comment from NATO, and no independent confirmation of the report. Rescue teams were trying to find survivors beneath the rubble and civil defense squads were hampered in clearing up the debris, Tanjug said, saying that ''cluster bombs'' were to blame for the degree of destruction. This claim seemed unlikely to some military experts. Apparently seeking to prepare opinion for a prolonged air war, Defense Secretary William Cohen said Wednesday that NATO allies were exhibiting ''greater resolve'' toward continuing air attacks against Yugoslavia. He made the comments to reporters on a trip to Brussels, where he was taking members of Congress for NATO briefings. General Wesley Clark, the NATO military commander, announced that he had requested more strike aircraft - such as the U.S. F-15 fighter-bombers and European countries' Tornados and Mirage 2000s - to intensify the air campaign. To ''tighten the pressure'' on Yugoslavia, General Clark said, he wanted more reconnaissance aircraft, which would almost certainly have to come from the United States because the European allies have already deployed most of what they have. The Clinton administration has seemed reluctant to send additional aircraft - especially those with capabilities like the deadly Apache ground-attack helicopters - whose mere presence would signal an escalation. The Apaches were finally approved by Washington after NATO allies backed a request by General Clark, which had apparently been stalled in Washington. But no date for their arrival in the war zone was announced. This was apparently because the United States was unable to find cargo planes to transport them. Mr. Milosevic appeared to be trying to put flesh on suggestions he could deal with a puppet government of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo prepared to accept a peace deal on his terms. Belgrade said Tuesday night that all its military and police operations in the province had ceased. Western diplomats have been seeking access to Ibrahim Rugova, the moderate ethnic Albanian leader who has been quoted as calling for a halt in the NATO attacks. Some officials say Mr. Rugova might be under Serbian duress. Beyond the rising stress on war crimes trials for Serbian leaders, revived by reports of three mass graves in Kosovo, the NATO spokesman, Jamie Shea, said Wednesday that alliance leaders had put five questions to Mr. Milosevic: - Is he ready to cease all military activity? - Is he ready to withdraw troops, police and paramilitary units? - Is he ready to accept the deployment of international forces? - Will he permit the return of all refugees? - Will he accept a political agreement based on the formula arrived at in negotiations at Rambouillet, France? These terms - which implicitly include a demand, spelled out in Rambouillet, for a NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo - would amount to a major political defeat for Mr. Milosevic, particularly after the destruction suffered by his country in its hostilities entailed by his earlier refusal to accept the same deal for Kosovo. >From wsws.org WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : The Balkan Crisis Political motives behind the bombing of Serb civilians By the Editorial Board 8 April 1999 American and NATO officials responded with perfunctory statements of regret to Tuesday's bombing of the southern Serb town of Aleksinac. They declared the killing of civilians to be an unintentional, but "inevitable" byproduct of the air war against Yugoslavia. A serious analysis of the war policies of the NATO powers, and especially the United States, demonstrates that no credibility can be given to such disavowals. Rather it leads to the conclusion that the targeting of Serb civilians is a calculated measure driven by definite political considerations. Washington is deliberately targeting civilian centers in an attempt to terrorize and intimidate the Serb population. It is using its vast arsenal of hi-tech weapons to create widespread misery and suffering, hoping thereby to sow demoralization and undermine support for the regime of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. It cannot be seriously maintained that any significant military or strategic targets exist in the vicinity of Aleksinac, a poor mining town some 200 kilometers south of Belgrade. NATO officials claimed that bombs dropped by US jets "fell short" of the intended targets, which they did not name. But the only structure that could remotely be considered of military value is an old, dilapidated army barracks that is nearly a mile from the town center and was already abandoned and partially destroyed. Elderly residents traumatized and outraged by the bombing that shattered the center of the town, killing 12 and injuring dozens more, recalled that even the German Wehrmacht spared the local population when it made its blitzkrieg assault on Yugoslavia in 1941. Moreover the attack on Aleksinac was followed a day later by a missile strike on the center of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. At least 20 missiles fell on the center of the city, destroying the post office, the welfare center and numerous houses. At least 10 residents were killed. According to earlier statements of American and NATO officials, the city, which has a large concentration of Serb inhabitants, had previously been purged of its ethnic Albanian population. These air strikes on civilians are consistent with the general pattern of US-NATO bombing, which has increasingly targeted non-military facilities in major cities and towns, such as bridges, oil refineries and depots, industrial facilities and television broadcast centers. The response of Washington and its NATO allies to Belgrade's announcement of a unilateral cease-fire has been to intensify the air war. Typical were the remarks of a top French general, who predicted NATO would carry out "massive strikes" in coming days "greater than anything done so far." The escalation of the air offensive, and its concentration on facilities crucial to the basic social and economic infrastructure of the country, take place within a definite military and political context. The atmosphere of crisis and dissension within NATO and within the American political and military establishment, which emerged in the first days of the air war, has intensified. It is common knowledge that the Clinton administration made a series of staggering miscalculations about the response of Yugoslav President Milosevic first to the threat of air strikes, and then to the actual launch of military action. The Washington Post on Wednesday carried an article entitled "Albright Misjudged Milosevic on Kosovo," which outlined the central role of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in pushing for military action against the Serbs. The author, Thomas W. Lippman, hinted at the atmosphere of bitterness and recrimination among US and European policymakers, noting that the American State Department has been at pains to "dispute the notion that Kosovo is 'Albright's war.'" The Post reports that Albright has for months been insisting that the Yugoslav regime would cave in to US demands, including a NATO occupation force in Kosovo, if not under the threat of NATO attack, then within a few hours of the onset of military action. She never seriously considered the possibility that Milosevic would respond with a general offensive against the Kosovar Albanians and the separatist guerrilla movement, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). As a result Washington and NATO were unprepared for the Serb offensive, which has apparently shattered the KLA forces in Kosovo, upon whom the Americans have come to rely in pursuing their strategy for asserting US domination of the Balkans. The Post article followed a series of press reports of serious reservations by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA to the policy being pursued by the Clinton administration. In advance of the air strikes, warnings reportedly came from both quarters that bombing the Serbs could end up strengthening the position of Milosevic in Kosovo and creating a massive refugee crisis. Now that these warnings have been borne out, the military brass and the CIA are eager to relieve themselves of political responsibility and place the onus for a potential debacle squarely on Albright and Clinton. Another major miscalculation, and undoubtedly a further source of internal contention, concerns the response of the Serb population to the bombing. Far from heightening discontent with Milosevic--which was widespread before the onset of the war--the US-NATO attack has produced the opposite result. Ordinary Serbs have overwhelmingly put aside their opposition to Milosevic and focused their outrage against the warmongers in Washington and Europe. There is a direct connection between the growing political crisis facing the Clinton administration and the increasing barbarity of its war policy. The expansion of the air war, including the targeting of urban centers and civilians, and the initial steps toward introducing groups troops, are to a significant extent the product of the administration's growing desperation--which leads it to adopt even more reckless and brutal measures. There should be no doubt--the leaders of American imperialism are pursuing a policy whose logical outcome is the utter destruction of Yugoslavia: the decimation of its industrial, commercial and social infrastructure, and the devastation of its people. In the name of "human rights," Washington is creating a human disaster of incalculable proportions. See Also: United States uses, and abuses, Kosovar refugees [8 April 1999] Where is the outrage? NATO bombs Serbian town [7 April 1999] The United States and the war in the Balkans: On the road to catastrophe [6 April 1999] US attitude toward "ethnic cleansing" depends on who's doing it [3 April 1999] Behind and beyond the propaganda: Why is the US bombing Serbia? [2 April 1999] Top of page Readers: The WSWS invites your comments. Please send e-mail. WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : The Balkan Crisis United States uses, and abuses, Kosovar refugees By Martin McLaughlin 8 April 1999 The scenes of tens of thousands of Kosovar refugees, driven from their homes by Serbian troops and police, deprived of all possessions except the clothes on their backs, have been broadcast throughout the world, evoking widespread sympathy for their plight. By focusing television cameras on the refugees' distress, the US and NATO have sought to shift public opinion in favor of the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. According to polls published this week in the United States, Britain and France, this media campaign has had an effect, at least temporarily boosting support for both the bombing and for the introduction of ground troops, a major escalation of the imperialist assault on Yugoslavia. The enormous flood of refugees is being exploited for another purpose as well--rebuilding the Kosovo Liberation Army, the US-backed guerrilla force which was largely broken in the Serb military offensive of the past two weeks. KLA officials are reportedly recruiting heavily from among the Kosovar refugees in Albania, aided by the fact that KLA guerrillas, not Albanian government troops, man most of the guard posts along the border between Albania and Kosovo. US arms shipments to the KLA have been sharply accelerated, and the Pentagon is expected to provide military instruction to the new recruits. According to a report in the Irish Times Wednesday, a private military training company set up by retired US officers, Military Personnel Resources Incorporated (MPRI), is preparing to provide training to the KLA once Washington gives the green light. MPRI has a sinister record in the Balkans. Its personnel planned and directed the Croatian military offensive in 1995 which resulted in the largest single instance of ethnic cleansing prior to the current events in Kosovo: the expulsion of more than 200,000 Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia, where they had lived for many centuries. The international war crimes tribunal in the Hague is now considering charges against the Croatian generals who commanded the Krajina campaign. Their American "advisers" would be good candidates to join them in the dock. While the US government regards the refugees as useful for propaganda purposes and as potential cannon fodder in the war against the Milosevic government in Yugoslavia, its real indifference to the suffering of the Kosovar Albanians is demonstrated in Washington's response to the human catastrophe taking place in Macedonia and Albania. No aid was in place for the surge of refugees which was to be anticipated as soon as the international monitors left Kosovo with the start of the US-NATO bombing campaign. Especially dismal are the conditions in Macedonia, where the government is openly hostile to the refugees, fearing that they will settle permanently there and alter the ethnic balance in a country which already has a 23 percent Albanian minority. On Tuesday there were terrible scenes in Macedonian camps where hundreds of unwilling Albanian refugees were herded onto buses and then cargo jets where they were shipped, like so much baggage, to Turkey. Macedonian police used batons and rifle butts to coerce the refugees into embarking on a journey whose destination they did not know. In one case they warned reporters not to tell the Albanians that they were being sent to Turkey, hundreds of miles from their homeland. Even more barbaric is the proposal to ship as many as 40,000 refugees to various parts of northern Europe and to Guantanamo Bay, the US naval base in Cuba. These Kosovars are being removed thousands of miles from their homeland, not for humanitarian purposes, but as part of a diplomatic arrangement between the imperialist powers and Macedonia. The authorities in Skopje have made it clear that their continued collaboration with the NATO onslaught on Serbia is conditioned on keeping down the number of Albanian refugees on their territory. In Europe, the Kosovar deportees will be dispersed as far as Norway and Scotland--the southern European countries closer to Kosovo, like France and Italy, have refused to take any refugees. Even more repugnant is the airlift set to begin soon from Macedonia to Guantanamo Bay. Refugees shivering from the spring snowfall in the Kosovo mountains will be packed into jetliners and flown directly to a tropical destination where the temperature is regularly above 90 degrees Fahrenheit and tents bake in the sun on the tarmac of a converted airfield. Guantanamo Bay was previously a prison camp for tens of thousands of Cuban refugees, and before that for as many as 21,000 Haitians intercepted in the Atlantic by the US Navy as they attempted to reach Florida or the Bahamas in tiny fishing boats. The living conditions and crowding were so bad that riots broke out on several occasions. When the Haitians were detained there, US officials cynically commented that their purpose was to keep them alive, but not to make conditions better than those prevailing in Haiti, for fear of attracting more boat people. A Pentagon spokesman described the virtues of Guantanamo as a refugee camp, telling USA Today, "It's all set up. It's a cordoned-off area. It's easy to control. It's easy to supply. And nobody will be freezing there." Nobody will be escaping either. On one side is the Caribbean Sea, on the other, a military perimeter across which US and Cuban forces face each other, one of the most heavily-mined borders in the world. The main reason for choosing Guantanamo as the dumping ground for the US share of Kosovo refugees is that it prevents the Kosovars from entering the continental United States where they might make contact with relatives and immigration lawyers and assert their rights as political refugees fleeing repression. According to a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Washington, the Kosovars at Guantanamo will not be allowed to meet with INS agents or attorneys and will not be permitted to apply for political status or US residency. The US government is prepared to rain bombs and missiles indefinitely on Serbia and move ground troops into position for an assault, all in the name of defending "human rights" in Kosovo. But not a single Kosovar can be permitted to exercise those rights within the boundaries of the United States. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Copyright 1998-99 World Socialist Web Site All rights reserved ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A<>E<>R The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. -Thomas Huxley + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. 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