-Caveat Lector-
>From www.startribune.com/stOnLine/
Published Saturday, May 15, 1999
Editorial: Cluster bombs -- For Yugoslavia's kids, a pernicious gift
In Yugoslavia, as in every other land, children wake up on a weekend
morning ready to play. They check the sky and, if it's free of clouds
and F-15s, head out into the neighborhood. They play ball, kick
sticks and hunt through the grass for bits of treasure. Lately
they've been stumbling upon some especially alluring objects --
bright orange-yellow things the size of soda cans, and shiny spheres
the size of tennis balls. The kids snatch them up. They explode. The
kids lose an arm, an eye or a life.
This scenario is made possible by NATO, which has been scattering the
colorful trinkets across Yugoslavia for weeks. The soda-can things
are CBU-87 and RBL755 bomblets, while the bright little balls are
ATACMS bomblets. None of them is meant for children, of course.
They're unexploded submunitions -- the little bombs inside of cluster
bombs. NATO likes to drop them on enemy airfields, because cluster
bombs release a shower of explosives that then explode again -- doing
great damage to planes and other equipment.
But every now and then NATO misses its mark. It drops cluster bombs
not on a military installment, but on a civilian center. This
happened earlier this month in the southern Yugoslavian city of Nis,
when an airstrike meant for an airfield instead hit a hospital
complex and a market. The damage of such a mishap doesn't end with
the airstrike. That's because the bomblets inside cluster bombs don't
always explode when they're dropped. A good 5 percent of them are
duds -- lying in quiet wait for an unwitting walker to happen by.
They become a kind of land mine, detonating when they're disturbed on
the ground. Like land mines, they remain lethal years after a
conflict has ended -- killing innocent civilians.
This circumstance has caught the attention of the acclaimed
international group Human Rights Watch, which is calling on NATO to
stop using cluster bombs. The group cites testing data that suggests
that each cluster bomb leaves behind 5 to 10 duds on average. The
danger posed by these bomblets is anything but theoretical: On April
24, Human Rights Watch reports, five children playing with unexploded
submunitions in southern Kosovo were killed. Two were injured. The
death toll is likely to increase.
NATO and Pentagon spokesmen insist the cluster bomb is an especially
effective weapon in a campaign like this because of its ability to
devastate a wide area. But similar arguments can be made for many
other weapons already forsaken -- chemical and biological weapons,
for instance. Civilized nations refrain from using them not because
they're ineffective, but because they hurt civilians as well as
soldiers and because their effects outlast even the longest war.
This war -- any war -- can't help but stir pangs of conscience for
the thoughtful. Slobodan Milosevic's cruelty to the Kosovars evokes
horror, and pounding his military machine may seem the only proper
response. But it's impossible not to wince at the idea that Serbian
children have been left motherless by NATO jets. And it seems right
to cry out in anguish at the news that NATO's weapons are leaving
behind spangly lethal little toys that beckon to little Yugoslavian
children. Surely no wager of war -- especially one fighting to save
lives -- should leave such a legacy.
� Copyright 1999 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<<When I was on Guam (late '70s), no one was allowed out in the
jungles because of all the ordnance left over from WW2, still 'live'
and still explodable. When I was in Germany (mid-'90s), they were
still finding bombs from the same conflict (different theatre), still
'live', still explodable. I wonder what it must be like to have
grown up in places where the worst thing that could happen would be
like, oh, getting a bad sunburn, or, turned down for a date.
A<>E<>R >>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Via www.antiwar.com
Excerpted from The-Times (UK)
<<Begin excerpt>>
May 15 1999 BALKANS WAR<Picture: Line>
Italian fishermen injured as munitions explode; 100 feared dead in
Kosovo raid
Nato jets dump bombs off Venice
FROM RICHARD OWEN IN ROME
ITALIAN authorities yesterday cordoned off a coastal area off Venice
where hundreds of cluster bombs apparently dumped by US warplanes
flying bombing missions in the Balkans had fallen. Officials said
fishermen who had hauled in the bombs had been injured and
minesweepers were to move into the area today.
The news came amid claims that up to 100 Albanians had been killed
and many more injured by Nato cluster bombs dropped in Kosovo. If
confirmed, the death toll would be the highest among civilians in a
single airstrike since the bombing began seven weeks ago. Still-
smouldering tractors, trailers and dead bodies littered the streets
of a village near the Albanian border yesterday, more than 12 hours
after the reported attack.
<<End excerpt>>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<<Just in there was any wondering what the Yug's are publishing. As
I research my recollection for the specificity of information
pertinent to this issue (and I could be in error),
-- Christiane Amanpour works for CNN (unless there are two);
-- She is married to one J. Rubin, who works for one M. Albright,
who works for some agency in the U.S. government.>>
<<More of the same at www.originalsources.com, a site that can be
accesed via www.reagan.com>>
>From www.inet.co.yu/war/info/newscen12-05-1.htm
<<Begin excerpt>>
Black operations: Markale market "massacre� the sequel
<Picture>
1994, Sarajevo, Bosnia. War crime at its worst. Muslim troops fired
at their own people, in a propaganda ploy to win world sympathy and
draw military intervention.
We have been notified from our unofficial sources (rather reliable,
so far) that a sequel to Sarajevo Markale market "massacre" is in
preparation. NATO countries' public has been reluctant to accept the
ground troops deployment. The air raids are not yielding any tangible
results. The war can not be won from air alone, and for escalating
the air strike to full deployment of ground troops a REALLY good
cause is needed. Similar ideas have been toyed with for quite a
while. There were rumours of "something" going on, some unspecified
preparations being carried out, but no more details given, leaving
everything in the realm of the usual propaganda and counter-
propaganda of both sides. But latest information we gathered have
more disturbing details, adding considerable weight to the rumours:
"Reportedly a group of American and German pilots are training for
some time now on Yugoslav made Croatian Air Force planes "galeb" and
"jastreb". The planes will be painted in the FRY Air Force colours
and insignia and used for bombing the ethnic Albanian refugee camps
in Albania. That would be the "just" cause for ground troops
intervention. Additional facts that support this scenario are:
1. For days NATO has intensified the relocation of refugees from the
border regions of Albania and Macedonia further inland.
2. The arrival of NATO aeroplanes into Albania and Skopje is not
covered by tv reports as before (business associate in Macedonia
confirmed that the number of transport aeroplanes arriving to Skopje
has significantly increased).
3. Christian Amanpour has arrived to Albania. "
--- break ---
And to conclude, if all other data is missing, watch for Amanpour
trail - she is literally the "source" of news. Her timely appearance
on each and every occasion where a biased and hysteric media coverage
is needed to justify extreme measures against a side that Amanpour (a
long time proponent of biased journalism) labels as "bad guys", is
probably the most significant indication of future actions.
<<End excerpt>>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpted from www.iacenter.org/racak.htm
<<Begin excerpt>>
Press Review from Diana Johnstone in Paris
THE "RACAK MASSACRE" QUESTIONED BY FRENCH MEDIA
Paris, 20 January 1999
French newspaper and television reports today feature evidence
apparently ignored by U.S. media, suggesting that the "Racak
massacre" so vigorously denounced by the U.S.-imposed head of the
OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe)
"verifiers" mission to Kosovo, William Walker, was a setup.
This coincides with reports in the German press indicating strong
irritation with Walker among other OSCE members.
Meanwhile, the ineffable State Department spokesman James Rubin
appeared tonight on CNN for short glimpses between Clinton
impeachment dronings, plodding forward amid questions from
journalists even more gung-ho for NATO bombings than he and his bride
Christiane Amanpour, whose love story apparently owes so much to the
common anti-Serb cause. It seems the U.S. is clueless as to the
doubts being cast elsewhere on the "massacre" story, and the only
questions well-paid U.S. journalists could conjure up were variations
on the theme, "why isn�t cowardly NATO already bombing the Serbs?"
<<End excerpt>>
A<>E<>R
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
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A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
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It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
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Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed
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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.
A<>E<>R
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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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