RAT SHIT

[bedlam@mtn.org]

Here's some more crap to chew on, it shouldn't be too surprising, in fact
it's the only theory so far that makes any sense at all...

Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 15:09:19 -0600
From: Zoltan Grossman <mtn@igc.apc.org>

KOSOVO: The bombing of Yugoslavia is less about ethnic rivalries and more
about strategic mineral reserves, according to the New York Times and
several other news sources. In July last year the Times reported heavily on
the Trepca mining complex in the heart of Kosovo which is valued at US$5
billion, and would be privatized under structural adjustment except that
the Yugoslavian government has refused to bow to IMF strictures. The Stari
Tng mine alone contains over 30% lead and zinc in the ore. Then there are
the 17 billion tons of coal which constitute the largest deposit left in
Europe. These strategic minerals led the Nazis to take this corner of the
Balkans and first develop this enormous mining operation which includes
smelters, metal treatment plants, a battery factory that first fed U-boats,
and extensive railyards (New York Times, July 8, 1998; March 29, Reuters;
BUSINESS WIRE, April 6, 1999 - Read the next D&T for more).

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 15:33:42 -0700
From: Sid Shniad <shniad@sfu.ca>
To: ccpa@policyalternatives.ca
Subject: REPORTER CHALLENGES REPORTS OF MASSACRES IN PRISTINA

The Globe and Mail	                           Wednesday, April 14, 1999

REPORTER CHALLENGES REPORTS OF MASSACRES IN PRISTINA

	"There is no evidence that such a thing happened in Pristina" 
	— Paul Watson, journalist for the Los Angeles Times 

	By Marcus Gee

	One of the few Western journalists reporting from inside Kosovo 
says his impressions clash with NATO reports of what is happening 
in the war-torn province.
	Paul Watson, a Canadian who works for the Los Angeles Times, 
says he has seen no evidence that Serb authorities have massacred 
Albanians in the Kosovo capital of Pristina.
	In an interview yesterday with the CBC radio program As It 
Happens, he said he has toured ethnic-Albanian neighbourhoods 
several times and has not seen any bodies.
	"It is very hard to hide an anarchic wholesale slaughter of 
people," said Mr. Watson, who has been in Kosovo since the North 
Atlantic Treaty Organization began bombing on March 24. "There is 
no evidence that such a thing happened in Pristina."
	NATO blames Serb troops for the exodus of hundreds of 
thousands of ethnic Albanians in the past three weeks. It says they 
have been raped, massacred and burned out of their homes. The 
reports of refugees in border camps support that version.
	Yugoslavia, however, says the NATO bombings are forcing the 
ethnic Albanians to flee.
	"I am certain it is a mixture of both," said Mr. Watson, who won 
a Pulitzer Prize for news photography when he was covering the 
international intervention in Somalia for The Toronto Star.
	"I have spoken personally to people who have been ordered to 
leave their homes by police in black. I've also spoken to people who 
are simply terrified."
	For example, he said, many people fled the area around Pristina's 
airport after a NATO bombing there. "I see a pretty clear pattern of 
refugees leaving an area after there were severe air strikes."
	Mr. Watson said the effect of the NATO bombing has been to 
"stir the pot" in Yugoslavia. "We shouldn't be surprised that it has 
spilled over. And in spilling over it has created anarchy in the 
countryside."
	That does not excuse Serb atrocities, he said. "But I don't think 
that NATO member countries can, with a straight face, sit back and 
say they don't share some blame for the wholesale depopulation of 
this country.
	"If NATO had not bombed, I would be surprised if this sort of 
forced exodus on this enormous scale would be taking place."
	He said the centre of Pristina has been devastated by the NATO 
bombing. The police headquarters, the post office and other 
government buildings are in ruins. A graveyard and a children's 
basketball court have also been hit.
	Even so, people continue to walk in the streets. "Even this 
morning at 10 o'clock, as large explosions were rocking high-rise 
buildings in the centre of the city, there were people strolling up and 
down and oohing and aahing as if they were watching a fireworks 
demonstration."
	Mr. Watson said most of the villages between Pristina and the 
Albanian border to the southwest were deserted when he travelled 
through them. He also saw large convoys of vehicles carrying 
refugees.
	He did not see large groups of refugees living in the open, as 
NATO has reported, but he stressed that does not mean it is not 
happening. 

Part II:  
From: epicenter@igc.org
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 10:33:08 +0000
To: <knugent@yawmail.com>
Subject: True tales of NATO's misadventure

The First Casualty is Truth
by Geov Parrish 

War is hell, but it is also lies, and the Pentagon, State Department,
Clinton Administration, and the major networks have fallen right into old
patterns as the expanded bombing of Serbia and Kosovo enters its fourth
week. So far the bombings have achieved no discernable military goals, but
they have: united Serbs behind Slobodan Milosevic; created, before the
closing of the borders, a torrent of Kosovar refuges that were apparently
fleeing not from Serb atrocities but from the bombing itself; targetted and
destroyed a wide range of civilian targets and caused an untold amount of
"collateral damage" (that's weasel-speak for civilian deaths); and been a
financial bonanza for weapon-makers, especially Lockheed-Martin.

One of the more interesting aspects of this conflict is that it is the
first time the target country ('90s wars, as fought by the United States,
are inevitably one-sided affairs, more massacre than war) has had extensive
access to the Internet. This has led to the curious practice of Serb
nationalists spamming U.S. and European addressing with angry pleas to stop
the bombing; it has also allowed a clearer, more thoughtful presentation of
the opposing side's view than we usually get in a war, and allowed a much
more immediate portrayal of what it's like to get bombed. And it has also
meant the U.S. government media has had a harder time than usual
maintaining a happy face and an information blockade, with more honest
international coverage readily available. To wit:

"The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia must stop, the moderate Kosovo Albanian
political leader Ibrahim Rugova told journalists in Pristina Wednesday_.
Rugova was speaking at his home in the Kosovo capital after reports that he
was in hiding and his house had been destroyed." [Agence France-Presse,
March 31]

"U.S. diplomatic and Kosovo Albanian sources on Wednesday contradicted an
earlier claim from NATO that two prominent Kosovo Albanian leaders were
summarily executed by the Serbs." [MSNBC, March 31]

"A football stadium in the Kosovo capital Pristina stood empty Wed nesday,
one day after reports that Serbian forces were herding ethnic Albanians
there in an apparent prelude to a massacre. An AFP report er who visited
the site said the stadium, whose galleries can host some 25,000 spectators,
was completely empty and there were no signs of any mass groupings."
[Agence France-Presse, March 31]

"Mirvei, a tall Albanian woman clutch ing her four-month-old baby, looked
bewildered when asked if Serbian troops had driven her out. `There were no
Serbs,' she said. `We were frightened of the bombs.' Red Cross officials
say many of the most recent arrivals [in Macedonia] intend to return to
Kosovo as soon as the NATO bombardment stops." [London Sunday Times, March 
27]

An excellent source for information throughout the war has been Z
Magazine's web site, ZNet (http://www.zmag.org), which posted the following
useful compendium of information:

BALKAN STATS I

FROM A COLUMN BY TONY SNOW: Key members of the United States Senate sat
slack-jawed through a confidential briefing last Thursday from the Clinton
administration foreign-policy team. After the foreign-policy wise men
asserted that the United States has a moral imperative to stop the
murderous Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, one senator asked: How
many Albanians have Milosevic's troops massacred this year? The president's
emissaries turned ashen. They glanced at each other. They rifled through
their papers. One hazarded a guess: "Two thousand?" No, the senator
replied, that was the number for all of last year. He wanted figures for
the last month--or even the year to date, since the president had painted
such a grisly picture of genocide in his March 24 address to the nation.
The senator pressed on. How often have such slaughters occurred? Nobody
knew. As it turns out, Kosovo has been about as bloody this year as, say,
Atlanta. You can measure the deaths not in the hundreds, but dozens. (I'm
not trying to deny Milosevic's brutality here; only to provide some
comparisons.) More people died last week in Borneo than have expired this
year in Kosovar bloodshed--more died in a single Russian bomb blast; in a
single outburst of violence in East Timor; in a single day in Rwanda. China
has been bloodier this year.