"As in the case of the Clinton
Administration, the present regime in Germany, specifically Joschka Fischer's Foreign
Office, has justified its intervention in Kosovo by pointing to a "humanitarian
catastrophe," "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" occurring there,
especially in the months immediately preceding the NATO attack. The following internal
documents from Fischer's ministry and from various regional Administrative Courts in
Germany spanning the year before the start of NATO's air attacks, attest that criteria of
ethnic cleansing and genocide were not met. The Foreign Office documents were responses to
the courts' needs in deciding the status of Kosovo-Albanian refugees in Germany. Although
one might in these cases suppose a bias in favor of downplaying a humanitarian catastrophe
in order to limit refugees, it nevertheless remains highly significant that the Foreign
Office, in contrast to its public assertion of ethnic cleansing and genocide in justifying
NATO intervention, privately continued to deny their existence as Yugoslav policy in this
crucial period. And this continued to be their assessment even in March of this year. Thus
these documents tend to show that stopping genocide was not the reason the German
government, and by implication NATO, intervened in Kosovo, and that genocide (as
understood in German and international law) in Kosovo did not precede NATO bombardment, at
least not from early 1998 through March, 1999, but is a product of it. Eric Canepa
Brecht Forum, New York April 28, 1999
I: Intelligence report from the Foreign Office January 6, 1999 to the Bavarian
Administrative Court, Ansbach:
"At this time, an increasing tendency is observable inside the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia of refugees returning to their dwellings. ... Regardless of the desolate
economic situation in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (according to official
information of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 700,000 refugees from Croatia, Bosnia
and Herzogovina have found lodging since 1991), no cases of chronic malnutrition or
insufficient medical treatment among the refugees are known and significant homelessness
has not been observed. ... According to the Foreign Office's assessment, individual
Kosovo-Albanians (and their immediate families) still have limited possibilities of
settling in those parts of Yugoslavia in which their countrymen or friends already live
and who are ready to take them in and support them."
II. Intelligence report from the Foreign Office, January 12, 1999 to the Administrative
Court of Trier (Az: 514-516.80/32 426):
"Even in Kosovo an explicit political persecution linked to Albanian ethnicity is
not verifiable. The East of Kosovo is still not involved in armed conflict. Public life in
cities like Pristina, Urosevac, Gnjilan, etc. has, in the entire conflict period,
continued on a relatively normal basis." The "actions of the security forces
(were) not directed against the Kosovo-Albanians as an ethnically defined group, but
against the military opponent and its actual or alleged supporters."
III. Report of the Foreign Office March 15, 1999 (Az: 514-516,80/33841) to the
Administrative Court, Mainz:
"As laid out in the status report of November 18, 1998, the KLA has resumed its
positions after the partial withdrawal of the (Serbian) security forces in October 1998,
so it once again controls broad areas in the zone of conflict. Before the beginning of
spring 1999 there were still clashes between the KLA and security forces, although these
have not until now reached the intensity of the battles of spring and summer 1998."
IV: Opinion of the Bavarian Administrative Court, October 29, 1998 (Az: 22 BA
94.34252):
"The Foreign Office's status reports of May 6, June 8 and July 13, 1998, given to
the plaintiffs in the summons to a verbal deliberation, do not allow the conclusion that
there is group persecution of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. Not even regional group
persecution, applied to all ethnic Albanians from a specific part of Kosovo, can be
observed with sufficient certainty. The violent actions of the Yugoslav military and
police since February 1998 were aimed at separatist activities and are no proof of a
persecution of the whole Albanian ethnic group in Kosovo or in a part of it. What was
involved in the Yugoslav violent actions and excesses since February 1998 was a selective
forcible action against the military underground movement (especially the KLA) and people
in immediate contact with it in its areas of operation. ...A state program or persecution
aimed at the whole ethnic group of Albanians exists neither now nor earlier."
V. Opinion of the Administrative Court of Baden-Württemberg, February 4, 1999 (Az: A
14 S 22276/98):
"The various reports presented to the senate all agree that the often feared
humanitarian catastrophe threatening the Albanian civil population has been averted. ...
This appears to be the case since the winding down of combat in connection with an
agreement made with the Serbian leadership at the end of 1998 (Status Report of the
Foreign Office, November 18, 1998). Since that time both the security situation and the
conditions of life of the Albanian-derived population have noticeably improved. ...
Specifically in the larger cities public life has since returned to relative normality
(cf. on this Foreign Office, January 12, 1999 to the Administrative Court of Trier;
December 28, 1998 to the Upper Administrative Court of Lüneberg and December 23, 1998 to
the Administrative Court at Kassel), even though tensions between the population groups
have meanwhile increased due to individual acts of violence... Single instances of
excessive acts of violence against the civil population, e.g. in Racak, have, in world
opinion, been laid at the feet of the Serbian side and have aroused great indignation. But
the number and frequency of such excesses do not warrant the conclusion that every
Albanian living in Kosovo is exposed to extreme danger to life and limb nor is everyone
who returns there threatened with death and severe injury."
VI: Opinion of the Upper Administrative Court at Münster, February 24, 1999 (Az: 14 A
3840/94,A):
"There is no sufficient actual proof of a secret program, or an unspoken consensus
on the Serbian side, to liquidate the Albanian people, to drive it out or otherwise to
persecute it in the extreme manner presently described. ... If Serbian state power carries
out its laws and in so doing necessarily puts pressure on an Albanian ethnic group which
turns its back on the state and is for supporting a boycott, then the objective direction
of these measures is not that of a programmatic persecution of this population group
...Even if the Serbian state were benevolently to accept or even to intend that a part of
the citizenry which sees itself in a hopeless situation or opposes compulsory measures,
should emigrate, this still does not represent a program of persecution aimed at the whole
of the Albanian majority (in Kosovo)."
"If moreover the (Yugoslav) state reacts to separatist strivings with consistent
and harsh execution of its laws and with anti-separatist measures, and if some of those
involved decide to go abroad as a result, this is still not a deliberate policy of the
(Yugoslav) state aiming at ostracizing and expelling the minority; on the contrary it is
directed toward keeping this people within the state federation."
"Events since February and March 1998 do not evidence a persecution program based
on Albanian ethnicity. The measures taken by the armed Serbian forces are in the first
instance directed toward combatting the KLA and its supposed adherents and
supporters."
VII: Opinion of the Upper Administrative Court at Münster, March 11, 1999 (Az: 13A
3894/94.A):
"Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have neither been nor are now exposed to regional or
countrywide group persecution in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." (Thesis 1)
http://www.zmag.org/ZNETTOPnoanimation.html
Document compiled by Dr S D Stein