THE GLOBE AND MAIL, Tuesday, November 9, 1999 COMMENT
Where have all the bodies gone?
Five months after the war, teams searching for mass graves in Kosovo are not finding much evidence of Serb atrocities. Was the Western public misled, asks the Canadian general who commanded UN forces in Bosnia
LEWIS MacKENZIE
As a rule, Western democratic leaders have available to them the very best processed information, referred to by the military and security communities as intelligence, to assist them in making decisions. Unfortunately, that information is frequently highly classified and cannot be shared with the general public for fear of revealing the source and thereby endangering the life of the "spy" or alerting a potential adversary to new high-tech intelligence-gathering systems. Therefore, by default, political leaders have to react to the mood of their public who obtain their "intelligence" from the media.
Before the March, 1999, negotiations at Rambouillet, France, presumably convened to seek a diplomatic solution to the civil war being fought at the time between Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's security forces and the independence-seeking Kosovo Liberation Army, we were advised by the media that there had been approximately 2,000 people killed in the war between 1998 and March 1999. The number included about 650 Serbs; the remainder were Kosovo Albanians. The numbers seemed believable, and were similar to the total death count from the continuing "troubles" in Northern Ireland.
Days before the breakdown of Rambouillet 2 and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's subsequent bombing campaign against the Serb forces in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo, British Prime Minister Tony Blair proclaimed that NATO had to act to save "thousands of innocent men, women and children from death." The U.S. State Department frequently referred to "genocide" in Kosovo a somewhat surprising description by the American administration, given that Washington refused to use the term genocide when describing the slaughter of more than 500,000 Tutsies and their sympathizers in Rwanda in 1993.
Throughout the war, the NATO briefings would remind the assembled media of the appalling death toll being suffered by Kosovo's Albanian population, and would use this as a justification to continue and intensify the bombing campaign. Scores of Western reporters located in refugee camps in Macedonia and Albania were quick to repeat, verbatim, refugee stories of atrocities and mass murder with no way of verifying their accuracy.
Massive forced movement of displaced people by the Serb security forces certainly took place. However, one of NATO's key stated objectives was to stop the murder of innocent civilians. Early on in the war and seemingly out of nowhere, the figure of 10,000 to 11,000 murdered Kosovo Albanians was mentioned in every NATO briefing. Without this commonly used figure, the alliance's solidarity could well have crumbled. Forced relocation, particularly in that "neighbourhood," would not have been adequate justification for NATO's intervention for a significant number of alliance members France, Germany, Greece and Italy immediately come to mind.
Since the war, more than four months of investigation by 15 forensic teams from 15 different nations, including Canada, has many Europeans asking: "Where are the bodies?"
One hundred and fifty of the 400 suspected mass grave sites have been investigated. Mass graves are defined by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as any grave site suspected of containing more than one body. Teams were dispatched to the most probable large sites first, some of which featured in air photos shown during the daily NATO briefings. There were more witnesses to the alleged atrocities at these sites, and it was assumed that the necessary incriminating evidence would be all too obvious.
To date, fewer than 500 bodies have been found, and hundreds of those were individually buried not what you would expect during a mass-murder campaign. Forensic teams have expressed frustration as they follow up specific stories of atrocities and find no evidence at the precise alleged site.
Undoubtedly, the site of the best-known and most horrific NATO allegation was the infamous mine at Trepca, where, according to reports shared with the Western media, more than 700 murdered Kosovo Albanians were thrown down the mine shafts and boiled in vats of hydrochloric acid. The ICTY itself investigated this site and found no evidence to support the allegations.
There are those who hope that 9,000 more bodies are found so that NATO's justification of its bombing campaign will be vindicated. I am not one of them. I am delighted that only a small percentage of the original estimates of those murdered are being exhumed. I hope that means 9,000 fewer fellow human beings died than we were led to believe. I would hope NATO agrees.
That is the good news. What is extremely disturbing is the thought that the Western public was knowingly misled lied to to hold the NATO alliance together and to justify bombing a sovereign nation.
This absence of evidence is not a big story in North America, where we have the luxury of putting Kosovo behind us and getting on with life. Not so in Europe, where numerous governments trusted U.S. intelligence. If it transpires that they knowingly sold their citizens a lie or were duped by the United States, NATO solidarity could be seriously jeopardized, with all that implies.
Perhaps we should stick to what the alliance does best defence!
Retired Canadian General Lewis MacKenzie reported for Canadian television from Belgrade during four weeks of the NATO bombing campaign.
1
Posted on 11/10/1999 18:33:33 PST by Antiwar Republican
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To: Antiwar Republican
I wonder how this is being played out in the halls of power in Berlin, London, Paris and other European capitals.
It was bad enough that Bubba again used the international might and prestiege of the United States to cover his own worthless hide, this time he dragged practically every nation on earth into the same stinking cess-pool with him.
The damage that this ego-maniac has done to American interests is boggling.
It's going to take decades for the world to recover from the mistake Americans made in electing this utterly contemptible scumbag.
2 Posted on 11/10/1999 18:51:08 PST by Ronin
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To: Antiwar Republican
>Early on in the war and seemingly out of nowhere, the figure of 10,000 to 11,000 murdered Kosovo Albanians was mentioned in every NATO briefing.
THIS WAS A LIE.
10,000-11,000 was the number they came up right after the war ended.
During the bombing, they were touting figures of 44,000, 100,000 and even "500,000 missing and suspected dead".
3 Posted on 11/10/1999 18:55:40 PST by bgarid
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To: Antiwar Republican
The UN came out today and said over 2000 bodies have been recovered and that is only one third of the graves thus far. I find this hard to believe- as every Nato country has sent in reams of experts and forensic people to identify and unearth these graves. Now they are saying we are going to have to wait until - the winter is over- a winter that has yet to begin.
I suspect even the 2000 body count as the UN knows it can lie, the press will sit on their hands, and when some out of the way periodical exposes their lie- who will listen- as no other major "news" org will print it or broadcast it.
4 Posted on 11/10/1999 18:57:11 PST by Burkeman1 (edbu01@aol.com)
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To: bgarid
Absolutely correct.
5 Posted on 11/10/1999 19:02:25 PST by Buckeroo
(gibraltar@discover.net)
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To: Burkeman1
Just remember that the "one third" of discovery sites, so far, were the 99% of confidence of the largest slaughter yards. They won't tell you that minor detail, however.
They know how to spin stats.... just like me.
6 Posted on 11/10/1999 19:06:38 PST by Buckeroo
(gibraltar@discover.net)
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To: Kate22, Joe Montana
some plain talk from a plain-talking Canuck and veteran professional peacekeeper who's served in Cyprus, the Suez, Bosnia and Central America. In MacKenzie's book "Peacekeeper," there's a chapter entitled "From Peacekeeper to War Criminal" where he recounts the Bosniak gov't's efforts to smear him because he wasn't towing their propaganda line (viz "It's all the Serbs' fault") and just doing his job instead.
Here's a response to MacKenzie's piece printed in today's letters to the Globe and Mail:
NATO's stenographers
Nicholas Tintor
Wednesday, November 10, 1999
Toronto -- Retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie's article on NATO's exaggeration of the number of deaths in Kosovo (Where Have All The Bodies Gone? -- Comment, Nov. 9) only begins to scratch the surface of NATO's massive propaganda war, which was designed to maintain support for its bombing campaign.
But what I find even more troubling was the media's eagerness to accept unverified allegations of mass graves and genocide. As one wry commentator said during the war, journalists acted more like "stenographers" as they simply rewrote what NATO spin doctors told them.
Thanks to NATO's bombing of Serbia, the Albanians of Kosovo have won their freedom to hate. They are now expelling and murdering Serbs, Turks, Gypsies and non-Albanian Muslims with impunity and all under NATO's watch. Where one form of ethnic cleansing was vigorously denounced, the current form is ignored.
The sad truth, as Lewis MacKenzie and other writers have concluded, is that Bill Clinton's "victory" in Kosovo was a monstrous disaster. This flawed policy irreparably damaged Canada's peacekeeping reputation by aiding an extremist group in achieving its ultimate goal of an ethnically pure Albanian Kosovo.
7 Posted on 11/10/1999 19:19:25 PST by sjy
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To: Ronin
You're assuming that he was actually elected.
Given the drugs, rape, probable murders and everything else he's done, what's a little vote fraud?
8 Posted on 11/10/1999 19:27:50 PST by Michael Rivero (rivero@accessone.com)
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To: Ronin
"I wonder how this is being played out in the halls of power ....in European capitals..." We already know how it's playing out in Greece, where Bubba has already warned about possible violence and the inability of officials there to protect him against it when he "visits" on the 17th. He'll cancel, I bet, when the prognosis remains the same all week. Seems that all these people who wind up "making" our own history are precisely those most ignorant and heedless of the lessons of history.
9 Posted on 11/10/1999 19:36:51 PST by willyboyishere
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To: Burkeman1
"I suspect even the 2000 body count as the UN knows it can lie, ..."
I think the biggest problem with waving figures around as the
dumb(main)stream media has been doing is not discussing the
"context" in which these people died. I want to know
how many died after the bombing started because that then makes
NATO complicit in the deaths of these people !!!
10 Posted on 11/10/1999 20:12:14 PST by downunder (thirdway@nato.terrorist.org)
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To: Antiwar Republican
Good Post - Anymore articles on Mac Kenzie would be greatly appreciated. He is a great General and intelligent man.
11 Posted on 11/10/1999 20:14:57 PST by downunder
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To: sjy
Bill tries on a motocycle jacket.
12 Posted on 11/10/1999 20:19:49 PST by Joe Montana
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To: Joe Montana
a good illustration of where his priorities lie.
13 Posted on 11/10/1999 20:52:20 PST by sjy
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To: Antiwar Republican
Great post, thanks!
Interesting phrase: "Mass graves are defined by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as any grave site suspected of containing more than one body."
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
In the former days (early 1990’s), before Minitrue and newspeak, mass graves were known as a cemeteries or graveyards. When graves were unmarked they used to be known as unmarked graves. When more than one body was found in a single hole it was called a mass grave. Alas so much has changed.
14 Posted on 11/10/1999 22:21:26 PST by robbinsj
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To: Antiwar Republican
If it transpires that they knowingly sold their citizens a lie or were duped by the United States, NATO solidarity could be seriously jeopardized, with all that implies.
"Insider," the alleged German government official with access to intelligence and defense information, claimed in his leak of April that German government officials were fully aware of the relatively small role Serb terror played in the displacement of the ethnic Albanians and of the utter mendacity of the claims of genocide. Events seem to have fully confirmed his claims. That means that the German government -- and presumably all the other European governments -- were indeed lying.
The question is: why?
15 Posted on 11/11/1999 07:43:08 PST by aristeides (demosthenes@olg.com)
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To: Antiwar Republican
" What is extremely disturbing is the thought that the Western public was knowingly misled lied to to hold the NATO alliance together and to justify bombing a sovereign nation. "
What is extremely disturbing is the thought that now fully informed of the truth the Western public won't do a damn thing about it.
16 Posted on 11/11/1999 14:50:32 PST by Stay'n Alive
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To: Ronin
" It's going to take decades for the world to recover from the mistake Americans made in electing this utterly contemptible scumbag. "
Stay tuned, they're about to elect another lawyer.
17 Posted on 11/11/1999 14:53:01 PST by Stay'n Alive
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To: Burkeman1
" Now they are saying we are going to have to wait until - the winter is over- a winter that has yet to begin."
I presume they are referring to the time needed for the KLA to fill holes with Serb sympathizing ethnic Albanians. The only face saving choice left to the west is to fill some holes pretty fast.
18 Posted on 11/11/1999 14:57:46 PST by Stay'n Alive
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To: Antiwar Republican
What is extremely disturbing is the thought that the Western public was knowingly misled lied to to hold the NATO alliance together and to justify bombing a sovereign nation.
REMEMBER THE EVIL, "LYING" AND CORRUPT CREEP...VOTE THE DEMOCRATS OUT...
19 Posted on 11/11/1999 15:04:57 PST by thewildthing
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To: sjy
" This flawed policy irreparably damaged Canada's peacekeeping reputation by aiding an extremist group in achieving its ultimate goal of an ethnically pure Albanian Kosovo. "
I'M afraid that the Somalia torture murders in 92 pretty much took care of the last shreds of credibility for the Canadian Forces and the rest, ie; pepper spraying protesters, ignoring the rape of fellow soldiers have been vehicling the whole shibang downhill since then. These things are inevitable when lawyers are running things.
20 Posted on 11/11/1999 15:05:01 PST by Stay'n Alive
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To: Joe Montana
Bill tries on a motocycle jacket.
Shouldn't the stripes be running vertically?
21 Posted on 11/11/1999 15:08:50 PST by aruanan
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To: willyboyishere
" We already know how it's playing out in Greece, where Bubba has already warned about possible violence "
Watch the Turks get the unfair advantage in their decades long sabre rattling with Greece. Maybe Greece will become eligible for a humanitarian rescue from imaginary atrocities like Kosovo..God help them then.
22 Posted on 11/11/1999 15:10:24 PST by