Accessed 18 April 1999 Three Misconceptions about the Organized Atrocities in Kosovo 1. The NATO action caused the horror. Response: The robbing, plundering, mass-killing, and expulsion of Kosovar Albanians was planned for years. It is the official policy of Milosevic's governing partner Vojislav Seselj's Radical Party and has been the Milosevic agenda since the revocation of Kosovo's autonomy in 1989. For the exact ideology and plan of the genocide, that had already begun before the NATO operation, see the following specific program by the Radical Party. This rationale and agenda is echoed in the resolutions of the Serbian Unity Congress.
Note: Danielle Sremac who has been featured on NBC and CNN as representing the "Institute for Balkan Studies" was a member of the Serbian Unity Congress and was an official representative in the U.S. for the government of indicted war-criminal Radovan Karadzic. Neither NBC nor CNN has properly identified her connections. Note: The Serbian Unity Congress which supports "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia and Kosovo has given large campaign contributions to key present and former members of Congress. The contribution list includes Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham who echoes Slobodan Milosevic in calling everyone guilty, equalizing the perpetrators with the victims. The recipient of the largest amount of SUC contributions by far is Rep. Dan Burton. Note: I had listed Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, who has opposed the NATO efforts both in Bosnia and in Kosovo, as being on the recipient list. However, it turns out that the Hutchinson campaign returned at least one of the SUC contributions promptly after receiving it. See Serbian Unity Congress PAC contribution list.2. NATO is exercising a double standard by not intervening against organized atrocities in Burma, Chechnya, Rwanda, Sudan, and other places. Reponse: NATO is a European alliance. In 1994 its mandate was changed from defense of NATO members against Soviet aggression to protecting the peace and security of Europe. NATO has no mandate to operate in Africa or Asia. Africans and Asians would not take kindly to the forces of their former colonizers, even when those forces were sent to help them in humanitarian ways. The world should respond better to genocide and atrocities wherever they occur. The tragedy in Africa at this moment is that the African peacekeeping forces, such as the Nigerian peacekeepers in Sierra Leone, do not have the resources need and western industrialized nations need to support such endeavors better. But that does not mean NATO should turn a blind eye to genocide in Europe. Should the world, including the western powers, have done more to stop the genocide in Rwanda and should they do more to stop other atrocities in Africa and Asia--yes, but not as a NATO operation. It is a malicious argument to demand that because one has failed in the past or cannot help in every area and achieve utopia, one should do nothing where one has the resources to stop genocide. 3. These are age old antagonisms; it is the nature of Balkan peoples to exterminate one another. This ugly stereotype was used for three years to allow "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia. There have been tensions in the Balkans for centuries as in every other region of the world. But the tragedy in Yugoslavia and in Kosovo was caused in large part by Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbian religious nationalist militarization of the Kosovo story and symbols in 1989, the revocation of Kosovo's autonomy, and the stirring up of a mass psychology of fear and hatred. There was and is nothing inevitable about such acts of destruction carried out by particular political, religious, military, and intellectual leaders. The Bridge Betrayed explains in detail how the Kosovo issue and heritage were abused and manipulated to create the crisis in which the Balkans has been placed. |
Document compiled by Dr S D Stein