(Revised, 10:30 AM 11-12-99 based on reader input)
Artículo de Jared Israel y Max Sinclair sobre el informe Del Ponte (10 nov)
Spinning the Kill -
Albright's Tribunal makes haste to save a lie
by Max Sinclair and Jared Israel (posted 11-11-99)
[http://www.emperors-clothes.com authorizes the distribution of this article but please duplicate it in full, including this note. Thanks. By the way, if you would like to write to the "War Crimes" Tribunal, their email address is fisk.icty@un.org ]
It's an old story. A crime is committed in high places. Using the influence of power, a campaign of disinformation is launched to cover-up the crime.
And then the story starts to crack. A hodge-podge 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 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 the influential website, 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?"
Stonewall!
A US President once told his staff: when faced with exposure, 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 will continue finding more next spring. (This though the forensic experts were clearly sent to examine the "best mass graves" first...)
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 absurd. After all, justice is supposed to be disinterested. 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.
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 biggest war crime. Bombing civilian targets is a close second.
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 et al desperately 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 - well, the only reason that this is politically possible is that NATO citizens have been barraged with anti-Serbian propaganda till it's hard for us to think straight. Absent that propaganda and this investigation would be seen as a sick joke.
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. 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. 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.
KLA Helpers
Then there is 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. People who know the terrain, who can find and produce "witnesses," provide interpreters, locate graves and move bodies (think about the possibilities of that one!). 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.
Consider if you will this report from Jane's Defense Review which is highly respected and quite knowledgeable. According to Jane's, the KLA's strategy has required:
As Jane's suggests in its understated way, the KLA has had as its strategy a program of terrorizing low-level state employees and 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?
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 at Stratfor.com and various newspapers have scanned the mass grave "news" reports over the past five months - and they all come up with a few hundred bodies, not 2108. Now in a normal, or shall we say, in a reasonably-conducted police procedure, this would prove nothing, because in a reasonably-conducted police procedure the police don't broadcast every alleged finding to the press. But the "War Crimes" Tribunal has conducted its investigation in an unusual manner:
Since every grave, indeed every rumor of a grave, is broadcast far and wide, it is perfectly reasonable for Strafor.com or Gen. MacKenzie, former head of UN military forces in Bosnia, to scan the news reports and add up the numbers. (See Note # 6 at the end)
And the numbers simply don't add up. Although del Ponte's report was manifestly intended to answer the questions raised by the Spanish forensic experts, Emperors-clothes.com, antiwar.com, Strafor.com, and increasingly by newspapers around the world - she does not explain the discrepancy between the previously trumpeted figures and her new "official" tally. It makes one wonder: 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 these newspapers and websites?
What about Serbs and "Gypsies" and anti-KLA Albanians?
It's very easy to miss something that's, well, missing. What's 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 ommission suggests that the report is the crudest kind of ad-hoc cover-up, concocted hastily to silence critics, in fact concocted so hastily that the producers, hampered by arrogance and by the sloppy habits which are easy to acquire when one has lots of guns and money - that rendered feeble by arrogance, the damn fools forgot to throw in a few Serbs and "Gypsies" to make their cover-up believable.
It all adds up
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. However, for the moment, let us set aside that obvious conclusion. Let us take del Ponte's report at face value. Del Ponte says her "investigators" found 2108 bodies in graves in Kosovo.
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 they had to bomb hospitals, schools, bridges, factories, electrical plants, chemical plants? Is this why they had to drop cluster bombs on open markets, on market day? To bomb trains and then, when the ambulances came to take away the "collateral damage", fly in and bomb the ambulances? To drive hundreds of thousands of Serbs, "Gypsies" Gorani (Slavic Muslims) Turks, Croatians and other non-Albanians from their homes in Kosovo? To double the level of poverty in Yugoslavia? To forbid the importation of heating fuel for the Yugoslav winter? To cause God-knows-how-much psychological damage to millions of children? To pollute southern Europe with deadly chemicals from bombed factories and refineries?
Is this why?
An army of experts was sent to Kosovo. They had all the latest gadgets. They spent five months combing Kosovo in a macabre hunt for bodies to prove NATO's war was justified. NATO leaders promised over and over to find vast numbers of mass grave victims. They promised. And now we have the report, from the head Tribunalist herself, from the Chief Prosecutor of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Ms. Carla del Ponte.
2,108 bodies.
What happened to the other 98,000?
A delicate matter of identity
Assuming her investigators actually did find 2,108 bodies, Carla del Ponte's avoids dealing with two nagging questions: who are these dead people? And who killed them?
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 also shown victims of NATO bombs?
Most of the rest of the people the Spaniards examined were men buried in individual graves facing Mecca, an act of respect in the Muslim religion 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 burned to cinders by NATO bombs back 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 didn't 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 - 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 realize this sounds crazy, but that's exactly what a NATO spokesperson said - it's all quoted in the May 17th Boston Globe.)
We remind you of these incidents because they illustrate two things: a) that NATO bombs killed Albanians and b) that NATO was willing to go to extremes to deny responsibility for these killings. Given such powerful denial, isn't it fair to suggest that there are most likely many more Albanians whom NATO killed, and about whom we are unaware? How many of these people have been dug up by del Ponte's experts to provide evidence of Serbian guilt? How many Albanians killed by NATO bombs while walking or driving or working in their fields, or just sitting at home?
And how many Serbs were killed this way? How many Roma ("Gypsies")? Slavic Muslims? Ethnic Turks? How many of these people figure among del Ponte's 2,108?
Since the NATO military occupation of Kosovo, Western media have reported nearly one hundred cases of people - mainly children - killed by unexploded cluster bombs. What about people who were killed by these horrible weapons when they were dropped, during the actual war?
LA Times reporter Paul Watson was in Pristina, in Kosovo, during the bombing. He reported seeing no evidence of Serbian atrocities. (And he'd been in Rwanda, so he knew what to look for...) But Watson did see Albanians killed by NATO bombs. (See Note # 3 at end)
How many of the alleged 2,108 are Yugoslav soldiers, killed during NATO air raids? How many are KLA members, mistakenly bombed by NATO? We know of two such incidents. In the first, NATO A-10 aircraft strafed a KLA-captured hamlet in Kosovo, near Albania. In a second case NATO planes mistakenly bombed a KLA base in Albania itself. We know about these incidents only because of the unlikely presence of KLA camera crews. How many times did NATO mistakenly bomb KLA positions inside Kosovo without camera crews present? And how many of these people are now being unearthed as victims of Serbian atrocities?
Does this far-fetched? Well, remember the testimony of the Spanish forensic experts. They were shown about 100 bodies of prisoners who died when NATO bombed the prison at Istok. They were supposed to view these people as victims of Serbian atrocities...
What about Loyalist Albanians "Punished" by the KLA?
FBI investigators say they found 200 bodies. About 150 were buried in graves in Kacanik and Kotlina. Well, Kacanik and Kotlina were centers of Albanian resistance to the KLA, NATO's ally. In mid-March, the 162nd KLA brigade under Commander Bardhi slaughtered loyalist Albanians in Kacanik and Kotlina. Are these victims of NATO among the FBI's 200?
Similarly, in early April, twelve Albanian villagers were murdered in the Pec area by one of KLA Commander Ramush Hajredinaj's men. How many other Albanian loyalists, killed in secret by the terrorist KLA, have been morphed into KLA martyrs?
What about Serbs and Roma killed by the KLA?
Since the NATO military occupation of Kosovo began, tens of thousands of Roma ('Gypsies') have been terrorized by the KLA. The same thing happened during the bombing. No one knows how many were killed. And how many of the 2108 are Serb civilians killed by the KLA? Do you recall the spate of KLA terrorist bombings in December of '98 and January of '99? Serbian civilians were blown up as they sipped a drink in Pristina cafes. As the quote (posted earlier) from Jane's Review states, the KLA has assassinated many ordinary Serbian civilians because that was their strategy over the past 20 months. Are they among the 2108?
By Serbian Orthodox custom, these victims of KLA violence were buried. Are they being counted too?
What about KLA members and Yugoslav soldiers killed in "legitimate fighting"?
Many KLA members and Yugoslav soldiers were killed during the so-called "civil war" that raged for a year before the bombing and continued throughout the NATO attack? (See Note # 4 at end)
In the winter of 1998-99, the Western media often reported that 2,000 people on both sides had died in this "civil war", which began in Feb., 1998. At the time, we argued that the 2000 figure was inflated. Are some or all of these people being counted by del Ponte?
Put bluntly, del Ponte has provided no evidence of mass murder by Serbian forces during the NATO bombing. She has provided: nothing. Her report is simply an attempt to influence public opinion because the NATO war crimes justification is - finally! - falling apart.
Which leave us with: an UNJUST war
According to human rights organizations, NATO bombs killed nearly 2,000 civilians in Serbia apart from Kosovo. How many more were killed by NATO bombs in Kosovo? 1000 is a conservative figure, so add that to the 2000 outside Kosovo and we get about 3000 murdered by NATO.
So who is the war criminal?
Moreover, since NATO took over Kosovo, most of the non-Albanian population has been driven out. Their property has been stolen. (This is routinely reported without expression of outrage in the mass media. It seems that any abuse is understandable given Albanian outrage at all those tens of thousands of imaginary Albanian victims!) Priceless Serbian churches have been desecrated and blown up all over Kosovo, suggesting an orchestrated effort to remove the evidence of Kosovo's cultural roots. Many of the remaining non-Albanians are imprisoned under unbelievable conditions in Orahovac and other Kosovo towns, apparently with the intention of breaking their spirits so that they can be produced in show trials staged by the "War Crimes" Tribunal. (This is not hyperbole. Not only has evidence that Orahovac is a war-crimes-show-trial factory been reported in Emperors-clothes interviews with six different people from Orahovac, but it is also implied in Western media reports. Some of the interviews are now posted at emperors-clothes.com. More, and quotes from the Western media reports, will be posted this weekend.)
On November 10, the AP reported that about 400 people, mostly Serbs and (we assume) loyalist Albanians, have been murdered since NATO/KLA took over Kosovo; clearly these crimes are the work of the KLA and its followers. (See note # 5 at end - other reports suggest much higher figures.)
Was the transformation of Kosovo into a fascist nightmare what Clinton had in mind when he said NATO was fighting to recreate a multiethnic, peaceful society in Kosovo?
A Spanish judge just issued arrest warrants to 2 Argentine ex-Presidents and 95 officers for crimes against humanity committed years ago. Perhaps Clinton, Blair, George Robertson and Madeline Albright should stay out of Spain.
***
If you would like to write to the "War Crimes" Tribunal their email address is fisk.icty@un.org
Note # 1 - For a thorough and devastating look at the War Crimes Tribu/nal, of which Ms. del Ponte is Chief Prosecutor, see Raymond Kent's Contextualizing Hate: The Hague Tribunal, the Clinton Administration and the Serbs or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/misc/kent.htm
Note # 2 - For Jared Israel's comments on the Spanish forensic experts' report, see Spanish Experts Shoot NATO In Foot or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/sp-comment.htm
Note # 3 - To read Paul Watson's wartime report from Pristina, see Eye-Witness Report from Kosovo during the Bombing or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/watson/radioInt.html
Note # 4 - We refer to the "so-called 'civil war'" between the KLA and Yugoslav Army. While foreign influences may exist in civil wars - for example, England had strong commercial ties to and supported the U.S. south during the U.S. civil war - Kosovo is in a different league. There is much evidence that the US and Germany instigated and encouraged race-hate for Serbs among Kosovo's ethnic Albanians; this campaign made use of the fascist movement among Albanians in WWII. (The earlier fascist movement was itself fostered by Germany.)
Emperors-clothes is working on a history of fascism in Kosovo. In the meantime, you can find some discussion of this in A Not-So-Nonviolent Debate on the Nonviolence 'Board' or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/nonviole.html.
There is much evidence that Germany was behind the creation of the Kosovo Liberation Army. For more on that birth see How Germany backed the KLA or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/news/europ.htm
For a much more complete, and highly documented, analysis see The KLA: Grim Origins or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/chuss/kla.html
Note # 5 - Serbian sources have presented overwhelming evidence that the number of Serbs killed since the NATO/KLA takeover of Kosovo is much higher than the AP reports. Please see NATO downplays Kosovo terror or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/news/downplays.htm
Note # 6 - Gen.
MacKenzie's report can be read at Former UN military chief asks:
Where have all the bodies gone? or
go to
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/news/mack.htm
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