Source: http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/apr1999/nato-a16.shtml
Accessed 16 April 1999
What does the bombing of Kosovar refugees say
about NATO's "humanitarian" war?
By the Editorial Board
16 April 1999
US and NATO officials acknowledged Thursday that American war planes had, the previous
day, bombed a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees in southwestern Kosovo. They continued,
however, to deny that NATO planes had struck a second convoy of refugees and insisted that
the killing of defenseless civilians was a "regrettable" accident.
Between 64 and 75 Albanian Kosovars were killed and scores more wounded when NATO jets,
operating in broad daylight, made a series of attacks over a two-hour period on convoys
near Djakovic and Meja. Thursday's partial admission by NATO and US officials followed a
series of denials that they had any responsibility for the carnage.
The acknowledgments of NATO's role in the bombings were of a perfunctory character, and
combined with declarations that such horrors were "inevitable," that NATO was
bending over backwards to avoid civilian casualties and that the real culprit was Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic. US and NATO officials continued to suggest that the Kosovars
and even the pilots were victims of a scheme to use refugees as "human shields,"
and that the second convoy was attacked by Serb warplanes.
US President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared that the loss
of life from Wednesday's bomb assaults would in no way deter NATO from escalating the air
war throughout Yugoslavia.
Both the atrocities themselves and the reaction of Western officials to the TV footage
of dead and wounded refugees--for the most part women, children and elderly people seen
lying next to tractors and civilian automobiles--discredit the claims that the US-NATO war
is being conducted for humanitarian purposes.
With Wednesday's bombing, US and allied officials have been caught red-handed in a
series of lies. This is the third time in the past week that those waging the war have
issued false statements to cover up their responsibility for large-scale civilian
casualties, only to retract them when the physical evidence made their denials untenable.
Last week Western officials initially denied that NATO missiles were responsible for
the destruction of a housing block in central Pristina, and tried to claim that the Serbs
had somehow orchestrated the TV images of smashed homes. This was followed by Monday's
strike on a passenger train in southern Serbia, for which NATO likewise initially denied
any responsibility.
The series of fabrications that followed Wednesday's bombing of the refugees was even
more shameless. When reports of the incidents first emerged, US General Wesley Clark, the
NATO supreme commander, told the Bloomberg news service he had reliable information that
Serb soldiers accompanying one of the convoys had attacked the Kosovars after a NATO jet
bombed a military vehicle.
In Bonn, German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping declared, "Everything points to
it being Serbian artillery which opened fire on the refugees and that they then presented
it as a NATO mistake."
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon repeated Clark's story at a press briefing Wednesday
afternoon and was asked to specify the evidence cited by Clark for his version of events.
Some hours later Bacon admitted that the evidence did not exist.
Later on Wednesday Bacon announced he had reports from United Nations officials in
Albania that Serb helicopters and jets had bombed one of the convoys. Bacon said UN
officials had gleaned these reports from refugees who had crossed over into Albania
following the alleged Serb attack. That evening, however, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees said her organization had received no such report.
By Thursday morning the melange of denials and lies had collapsed and NATO was forced
to issue a terse statement saying, "It appears that one of [NATO's] aircraft
mistakenly dropped a bomb on a civilian vehicle in a convoy yesterday."
The claim that the bombing was an innocent mistake is difficult to square with the
facts. The convoys of tractors and cars were large. One of them consisted of many
thousands of Kosovars. Their vehicles were loaded with mattresses, bundles of clothing and
other accouterments of civilians in flight. The attacks took place in early afternoon
daylight and the planes were reportedly flying at low altitudes.
Survivors interviewed after the attacks denied that the convoys were being used as
camouflage for military vehicles, saying Serb soldiers in the vicinity made no attempt to
insert their vehicles into the line of refugees. One survivor told a Washington Post reporter
that the Serb military vehicles sped away as soon as the planes were heard overhead.
NATO has acknowledged that an American pilot flying an F-16 dropped a laser bomb on one
of the convoys, and has issued a transcript of his tape-recorded debriefing. The pilot,
who has not been identified, describes spotting 60 vehicles plus three "uniform
shaped dark green vehicles." The presence of these "dark green vehicles" is
the only evidence he cites of the military nature of the convoy.
This, however, was sufficient "proof" for him to fire into the lead vehicles
and pass on the target coordinates to another pilot, who followed up with a second strike.
Whatever his precise motivation, the pilot's description of the attack is a damning
refutation of NATO's repeated assurances that it is taking great pains to avoid hitting
civilian targets. No NATO or allied official has suggested that the pilot's decision to
bomb the convoy violated the terms of engagement established for the air war. It must
therefore be concluded that NATO pilots have enormous latitude to launch their bombs and
missiles, and that tens of thousands of ordinary civilians are at risk.
As for the allegations that the second convoy, which was struck in the vicinity of
Meja, was bombed by Serb helicopters or jets, such claims contradict previous assertions
that three weeks of NATO attacks have neutralized Serb air defenses in Kosovo.
On Thursday afternoon Clinton delivered a lengthy policy speech on the war at a meeting
of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in San Francisco. He expressed the real
attitude of US and NATO leaders toward the ordinary people in Yugoslavia whose lives are
being shattered or terminated--Serb and Albanian alike--by failing to even mention the
previous day's tragedy in his address. Nor did he bother to note the German proposal for a
temporary halt in the bombing in return for an initial pullback of Serb forces from
Kosovo. Instead he attempted to justify an escalation of the war on supposed humanitarian
grounds.
In his response to a question from the audience on Wednesday's bombings he barely made
a pretense of remorse, stressing that such "mistakes" were
"inevitable," and making clear that far greater civilian casualties were in the
offing. Shedding his "I feel your pain" posture, Clinton said matter-of-factly,
"You cannot have this kind of conflict without some errors like this occurring. This
is not a business of perfection."
He went further, suggesting the US intended to set a precedent in Yugoslavia for the
future use of its military power, with the inevitable "collateral damage," in
other parts of the world. "If anyone thinks that this is a reason for changing our
mission," he declared, "then the United States will never be able to bring
military power to bear again."
Two basic conclusions emerge from the events of the past several days. First, the
repeated resort to unsubstantiated allegations and outright fabrications by all of the
Western governments involved in the war exposes the cynicism and hypocrisy of the entire
enterprise. Why should any thinking person accept as good coin any claims made by those
who have time and again been caught spreading lies?
Second, the basic lie is the claim that the war is being waged for humanitarian
purposes. The way in which the war was launched--after issuing an ultimatum to the Serb
government that it could not accept, and without any consideration of the catastrophic
consequences for the Albanian Kosovars--and the way in which the war is being
conducted--with ever-escalating attacks on the socioeconomic foundations of the
country--reflect a cynical disregard for the people.
What might seem a puzzling contradiction--the frequent Western statements of concern
for the ethnic Albanians "trapped" inside Kosovo, and the brutal bombing of
these very people--may not be so mysterious after all. The Americans and their European
accomplices have good reason to create an atmosphere of terror in Kosovo, and thereby
encourage even more sections of the Albanian population to flee the province.
As the New York Times military analyst noted on Thursday: "Indeed, Pentagon
and NATO officials have even mused that the complete expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo
would give the alliance a big military advantage.
"'There would be Serb troops primarily left, and we would be able to attack them
with more precision and more concentration,' a Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth H. Bacon, said
recently."
Even if one were to assume that the bombing of passenger trains and refugee columns
were not premeditated acts, that would not lessen the responsibility of NATO and the
allied governments for the human misery and social destruction they are causing. When you
start a war, you must assume responsibility for its consequences.
The very methods of this war reveal its reactionary essence. To tell the truth about
the war is not to defend the chauvinist policies of Milosevic, or lend support to Serb
nationalism. It is to state that this is a war of aggression being carried out by
capitalist great powers, the real aims of which are being concealed from the masses.
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