Chronology of the Conflict in Kosovo
by Most Rev. Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt Col, USAF, ret

INTRODUCTION:

It is June 1999 and we are bombarded with images of joyful Albanian refugees worshipping their heroes — Defense Secretary William Cohen and President Bill Clinton. We are the good guys once again. But are we really? Are we sure there’s not something we’ve not been told? Or something we’ve been told that’s not exactly so? In the mid-80s, I visited Yugoslavia, and drove through all the republics. What had really happened to the peaceful Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia I had seen then? With a suspicion of the US government based on a few decades of personal experience, I set out to find out for sure. These nagging questions are best answered by a careful review of the events which brought us to this point. This is what I found:

The fact is, we started the war against Yugoslavia with the 1990 law cutting off funding unless the individual republics seceded from Yugoslavia and adopted capitalism. We used the CIA to stir up old hatreds, and supported reactionary forces in Croatia and Bosnia. We sabotaged peace deals which would have restored ethnic peace, and we used military force to support our chosen factions against their own people. We used military force to aid the Croatian fascists in the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Serbs from Krajina, dumping them as refugees upon less-affluent Serbia. We simultaneously built up a KLA force of Contras to keep the pot boiling in Kosovo. We forced Yugoslavia to reject the Rambouillet "accords" and unleashed a massive bombing campaign which we justified by a refugee exodus which didn’t start until after we started bombing.

With the above advance peek at my conclusions, let’s go back to the beginning and wade through the details. (If you are not interested in the history of Kosovo and its ethnic rivalries, and just want to see how the United States got involved, skip forward to November 1990. The most important event in this whole chronology took place then — not in Belgrade or Pristina or Sarajevo, but in Washington, DC.)

CHRONOLOGY:

1172: First Serbian state created when Byzantine rule is overthrown.

1371 (Sep 26): Battle of Marica. Turkish victory in Bulgaria opens way for Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. A large Serbian army is entirely wiped out by a surprise night attack. Serbians lose control of territory in Macedonia.

1381 and 1386: unsuccessful Turkish invasions of the Balkans.

1389 (Jun 28): Battle of Kosovo Polje. Waged on the "Field of Blackbirds," an army of 15-20,000 European Christians is defeated by 27-30,000 Turks. Most important single battle in Serbian history. Serb Prince Lazar, though he loses the battle, becomes Serbia’s greatest hero. Site of the battle in Kosovo becomes Serbia’s national shrine. (Asking Serbia to give up Kosovo because the majority are ethnic Albanians is similar to asking Israel to give up Jerusalem because the majority are Palestinians.) Serbia becomes a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire.

1500: Turkey completes conquest of Albania; Christianity largely eradicated.

1689 - 1690: An Austrian army drives the Turks from Kosovo during the Ottoman-Habsburg War, but then quickly withdraws. An Ottoman-Tartar army invades, killing and plundering on a large scale, leading to massive Serb migration. 100,000 Serbs flee Kosovo for Bosnia and other sanctuaries.

1737 (August): An Austrian force penetrates as far as Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, but retreats in the face of advancing Turks. 3,000 Christian Albanians killed or captured in an Ottoman ambush while fleeing through Serbia. Second migration of Christians begins.

1804 - 1813: Serbs rise up against Turks, gaining independence for six years, but are again subjugated.

1815 - 1817: Serbs revolt against Turks successfully, gaining a degree of autonomy.

1877 - 1878: With Russia’s help, Serbia becomes independent from Turkey. Serbian army invades Kosovo. Moslem Albanian guerrillas drive many Serbs from Kosovo; Serbs displace 30,000 Albanians. (First major Serb-Albanian conflict.) Congress of Berlin in 1878 divides the Balkans among the Imperial powers.

1901: Albanian bands pillage several cities and massacre Serbs.

1911: Young Turks Reign of Terror. Ottomans drive 150,000 people from Kosovo, including 100,000 Serbs. 200,000 Serbs remain in Kosovo.

1912 (Oct 8) – 1913 (May 30): First Balkan War. Albanians allied with Turks fight Balkan armies. Turks expelled. Serbian Third Army liberates Kosovo, committing atrocities against Albanians; 25,000 reportedly massacred. Serbia retains Kosovo under the London Conference. 800,000 Albanians still live in Kosovo.

1913 (Jun 30 – Aug 10): Second Balkan War. Serbia acquires most of Slavic Macedonia from Bulgaria. An Albanian leader pledges to "manure the plains of Kosovo with the bones of Serbs." Military deaths in the two Balkan wars total 143,000.

1914 – 1918: World War I. Serbs hold off Austrians for more than a year, inflicting 302,000 casualties. But Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian troops finally occupy Kosovo. In an epic retreat through Kosovo and the Albanian Alps in October 1915, 120,000 Serbian soldiers die. Albanians carry out reprisals. In October 1918, Serb, Italian, and French armies retake Kosovo. In the U.S., Serbians are hailed as heroes for their horrendous wartime sacrifices (about 800,000 Serbs died).

1918 – 1921: Serb-Albanian Civil War. Mostly guerrilla fighting. Thousands killed on both sides.

1918 – 1941: Between the world wars, 100,000 Albanians are driven out of Kosovo.

1929: Yugoslavia created.

1941 – 1945: World War II. German, Italian, and Bulgarian armies occupy Kosovo in April 1941. They encourage Albanian reprisals against Serbs. The 21^st SS Skanderberg Division indiscriminately kills Christian Slavs. About 100,000 Slavs are expelled from Kosovo by Albanians. German army of occupation numbers 700,000. Pro-Nazi Croatian Ustasha massacres tens of thousands of Serbs. Many Serbs were slaughtered in a death camp at Jasenovac in Nazi Croatia. It has been called the "Yugoslav Auschwitz." The Albanian Skanderberg Division and the Croats were guilty of "unspeakable atrocities" against Serbs and Jews. The U.S. and Britain recognized the reactionary forces of Col. Draza Mihajlovic and refused recognition to the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia, led by Josip Broz Tito. Only when Tito’s Partisans defeated the German and Italian fascist invaders and were on the verge of victory did the Allies recognize Tito and give token support. Even then, they gave quiet support to the pro-fascist elements, the same ones being pushed by NATO to lead the remnants of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Total of 1,014,000 Yugoslavians die in WWII, 487,000 of them Serbs.

1945 – 1946: Albanian-Partisan struggle. 30,000 Partisan (Communist) troops occupy Kosovo. Albanian resistance continues in remote parts of Kosovo until the 1950s.

1948: Tito breaks with Stalin.

1950s: Yugoslavian Udba (secret police) terrorizes Kosovo Albanians.

1952 – 1967: Tito pushes 175,000 Moslems from Yugoslavia to Turkey.

1974: Kosovo is granted autonomy.

1961 – 1989: Up to 100,000 Slavs emigrate from Kosovo to other parts of Yugoslavia. Non-Albanian population of Kosovo shrinks from 60% to 25%. Yugoslavia was multi-ethnic and socialist, with vigorous growth rates, decent standard of living, free medical care, free education, right to a job, 1 month paid vacation, literacy over 90%, life expectancy 72 years, affordable transportation, housing, utilities. The average annual income for a family of four varies from about $38,000 in Slovenia and Croatia to about $14,000 in Serbia. Above all, there was peace and ethnic harmony. The whole world saw the "Spirit of Sarajevo" at the Winter Olympics. The Western powers saw Yugoslavia as a buffer between them and the Soviet Union, and cultivated favor with the Yugoslav government, offering IMF and World Bank loans.

1980s: The goal of radical pre-KLA Albanian nationalists is an "ethnic Albania that includes western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo, and Albania itself." Others speak of a Greater Albania governed from Pristina, Kosovo, not Tirana, Albania. Bloody rioting in Pristina in 1981 demanded an "ethnically pure" Kosovo. Slavs began fleeing. A member of the Yugoslav presidium said "Albanians have driven the Slavic Macedonians out." "Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, wells poisoned, crops burned, Slavic boys knifed. Young Albanians have been told to rape Serbian girls." "Officials In Belgrade view the ethnic Albanian challenge as imperiling the foundations of the multinational experiment called federal Yugoslavia." "Ethnic Albanians already control almost every phase of life in the autonomous province of Kosovo, including the police, judiciary, civil service, schools, and factories." (These quotes are from an article by David Binder in the NY Times 11/1/87)

1987 (Sep): During a 30-hour session of the Serbian Central Committee, party secretary Slobodan Milosevic deposed Dragisa Pavlovic as head of the party. "The hope is that something will be done to exert the rule of law in Kosovo while drawing ethnic Albanians back into Yugoslavia’s mainstream."

1989: Kosovo’s autonomy is revoked.

1990 (Nov): The Bush Administration and Congress passed the 1991 Foreign Operations Appropriations Law. It cut off funding for any part of Yugoslavia that didn’t declare independence within six months. It restricted funding to elements judged "democratic" by the U.S. The law specifically extended to IMF and World Bank funding as well. This was widely recognized to be a "death sentence" for Yugoslavia.

1991 (Feb): The Council of Europe followed the U.S. lead and demanded that Yugoslavia break up or face economic blockade. Fascist organizations not seen in 45 years were suddenly revived and receiving covert support from the United States, Germany, and Austria.

1991 (Mar): Croatian fascists attack Yugoslavia and call for expulsion of all Serbs from Croatia.

1991 (Jun 25): At the deadline imposed by U.S. law, Slovenia and Croatia declare independence. Right-wing parties come to power. US backs Croat fascist leader Franjo Tudjman, who inflames anti-Serb passions. The Croatian Ustashi use fascist symbols and slogans from the Nazi era. They impose capitalism and strip all minorities (specifically including Serbs) of citizenship, jobs, pensions, passports, and land ownership. (500,000 Serbs are expelled by 1995. Many are raped. Thousands are killed.) (See The Guardian 8/17/92) Germany immediately recognizes the new regimes. Then Bosnia attempts to secede also and is opposed by the Yugoslavian government. Tension arises between Muslims, Croats, and Serbs in Bosnia.

1992 (Mar 18): Bosnian Muslims, Croats, and Serbs reach agreement in Lisbon for a unified state. The continuation of a peaceful multi-ethnic Bosnia seems assured. But the U.S. sabotages the agreement. (See the NY Times 6/17/93) The U.S. convinces Alija Izetbegovic (head of the right-wing Party for Democratic Action) that it will back him if he unilaterally declares a sovereign Bosnia under his presidency. The U.S. supervises a rewrite of the Bosnian constitution to give power only to the most extreme right-wing nationalist forces (Izetbegovic’s PDA). Other political parties, even Muslim ones, were excluded. Some Muslim leaders object and are smashed by PDA and US military power.

1992 (May 30): The UN Security Council imposes sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro (the only remaining republics in Yugoslavia). The vote was rushed through before members could see a report which was about to come out. Two days later the UN report said that Yugoslavia was in full compliance with all UN demands, and that all Yugoslav troops were out of Bosnia. Furthermore, the World Court in the Hague ruled that Yugoslavia was not the aggressor in Bosnia. Yet the sanctions stayed.

1992 (Aug 5): Penny Marshall of ITN and a crew of photograpahers videotaped Fikret Alic, a Bosnian Muslim emaciated, stripped to the waist, behind a barbed-wire fence. It became the most famous image of the Bosnian war and "proof" of Serb concentration-camp tactics. But the fence was not around the Muslims. It was around the photographers. There was no concentration camp! (Novo Jan/Feb 97)

1992 (Nov 29): Air Force Chief of Staff (ret) Michael J. Dugan published an opinion piece in the NY Times entitled "Operation Balkan Storm: Here’s a Plan." (Remember, Dugan was the general fired for divulging Pentagon plans for an air war against Iraq four months before it happened.) His piece on the Balkans said: "A win in the Balkans would establish U.S. leadership in the post-Cold War world in a way that Operation Desert Storm never could." He proposed enlisting Britain, France, and Italy to use massive air power against Serbia. He suggested using aircraft and Tomahawk missiles to destroy Serbia’s electricity grid, refineries, storage facilities, and communications. (Six and a half years later, it happened. Dugan wanted to use Bosnia as the excuse, but the public wouldn’t have accepted it then. It took Kosovo and a better PR campaign to soften up the American people.)

1992 – 1993: Lt. Gen. Nambiar in Bosnia did not witness any Serb genocide. (See "The Fatal Flaws Underlying NATO’s Intervention in Yugoslavia", USI, New Delhi 4/6/99)

1993: By 1993, the economic strangulation of Yugoslavia imposed by US law and European sanctions had reduced the per capita income of Serbia from $3,000 (1990) to $700.

1994 (Feb 5): 68 people died in an open-air market in Sarajevo. The attack was blamed on the Serbs. But the United Nations proved that Izetbegovic’s PDA forces had done it to stir up more hatred of the Serbs. (Reuters 2/18/94 and NY Times 11/10/94)

1994 (Jun): Six US generals help Izetbegovic’s forces attack other Bosnian Muslim leaders in Bihac and Tuzla.The attacks violated the cease-fire and a UN-declared safe area. They were assisted by US bombers under NATO command. (See Guardian 11/17/94, Observer 11/20/94, Independent 11/12/94, The European 11/25/94 as well as newspapers in France and Germany.)

The Fikret Adbic government in Bihac destroyed by Izetbegovic was "one of the few examples of successful multi-ethnic cooperation in the Balkans." (General Charles G. Boyd, USAF, ret, Deputy Commander-in-Chief, US European Command 1992-1995 in "Foreign Affairs" Sep/Oct 1995) Adbic outpolled Izetbegovic in national elections, but was expelled by US in favor of the right-wing Izetbegovic. (Boyd) According to the United Nations, the US sabotaged every agreement, peace plan, and cease fire in Bosnia. (Washington Post 4/30/94) US heavy weapons flooded into the right-wing Croats and Bosnians. (NY Times 6/24/94)

1994: The US media reported carnage, mass rapes, disembowelment, and massacres of children by Serbs when Izetbegovic troops pulled out of Srebrenica. UN investigating teams reported 7/24/95 that they could not find a single eyewitness to any atrocity, even though they interviewed hundreds of Muslims in Srebrenica and in Tuzla, where the majority of refugees were taken.

1995 (Jul 12): "Council for Peace in the Balkans" calls for a "strategic and sustained" air campaign against Serbia. This "Council" consists of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Frank Carlucci, Hodding Carter, Max Kampelman, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, all hawks for the Trilateral Commission, which represents the world’s big banks and multinational corporations.

1995 (Aug 4): "Operation Storm." US/NATO aircraft destroy Serb radar and air defenses, clearing the way for right-wing offensive against the Serb Krajina region of Croatia. US EA6B electronic warfare aircraft jam Serb communications and monitor Serb movements. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs are expelled into Serbia and 14,000 are killed. The attack is led by Brig Gen Agim Ceku, with massive US support. (See NY Times News Service 8/11/95, AP 8/7/95, AP 8/8/95, Manchester Guardian 9/30/95, Boston Globe 10/8/95.) Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI), a Pentagon contractor made up of retired US generals and combat experts, trained the Croats. According to the NY Times 3/21/99, the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague called "Operation Storm" the most brutal event in the Balkans since World War II. According to Jane’s Defense Weekly 5/10/99, General Ceku and several other high-ranking Croats took leave from the Croation Army in Feb 99. He is now (according to Jane’s) Commander of the KLA.

1995 (Aug 28): Yet another explosion in a Sarajevo marketplace kills 37 civilians. Almost immediately, NATO launches over 4,000 bombing sorties against the Serbs. But the Serbs didn’t do it. Analysis of the crater and debris prove that it was dropped off a roof by Izetbegovic’s own forces in order to get NATO to act. NATO knew, but didn’t say. (David Binder of the NY Times in The Nation 10/2/95)

Late 1990s: The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is organized by the CIA, the German BND, and Albanian fundamentalists. Some are trained in Osama bin Laden’s camps. Though portrayed in the media as communists, they are in fact fascists and mercenaries.

1996 – 1997: The KLA attacks Albanian "collaborators" who oppose the separatist movement in Kosovo.

1997: Sali Berisha became head of Albania with US support, then allowed US to have military bases in Albania, and turned Albanian secret police over to the CIA. (French Press Agency 10/26/97) KLA headquarters is on Berisha’s estate in Albania.

1997 (Nov): KLA kill Qamil Gashi, Albanian chairperson of Serbian Socialist Party in Kosovo.

1997 (late) - 1998 (early): KLA went through "rapid and startling growth," with mercenaries from the US and Germany, lots of money, and weapons of all kinds. The KLA started serious military operations, attacking government buildings and police stations. (NY Times 4/25/98) According to Jane’s, the KLA includes US Special Forces and British SAS units. It is not a liberation army. It is an arm of NATO.

1998: For years, Albanians in Kosovo demonstrated peacefully for the restoration of some of their rights lost when they lost control of Kosovo in 1989. They won back the right to attend university and to take classes in the Albanian language. Though untrained in the advanced techniques of nonviolence, they were making some progress – in spite of the fact that the Western world ignored their pleas for support. Instead of lending them moral support, the West formed and armed the KLA. The Albanian pacifist President of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, was on the verge of an agreement with Milosevic to restore Kosovo autonomy. Then the CIA stepped up KLA attacks on Yugoslav police units in Kosovo. Yugoslav police retaliation and attempts to curtail the KLA were put forward as a pretext for NATO attacks on Serbs. But the public in the US isn’t ready for war yet. Total losses on both sides in Kosovo are around 2,000. This is "low-intensity warfare," not "ethnic cleansing."

1998 (Oct 29) and 1999 (Jan 12): German intelligence reports say that Yugoslav security forces in Kosovo were not acting against Albanians as an ethnic group, but only against the KLA and its actual or alleged supporters.

1999 (Jan 15): The Racak "Massacre." (See Le Figaro 1/20/99 and Le Monde 1/21/99) On Friday morning, January 15, 1999, Serb police alerted both the Associated Press (AP) and the Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) that they were going to Racak to attempt to arrest KLA terrorists responsible for killing a policeman. At 10 AM, AP journalists followed the police into the deserted town. They filmed from a hilltop overlooking the town, then later in the streets. Upon entering the town, the police came under fire from KLA snipers in the woods. The main fighting occurred in the woods, where police attempted to encircle the guerrillas. At least 15 KLA were killed. Many escaped into the mountains. By 3:30 PM the shooting had stopped, and the police left, followed by the AP team. The police carried away a heavy machinegun, 4 rifles, and about 30 Chinese-made kalashnikov assault weapons confiscated during the day.

At 4:40 PM a French journalist drove through the village and met three orange international observer vehicles. The observers were chatting calmly with 3 middle-aged Albanians in civilian clothes. At 6 PM, the journalist returned and talked to the observers as they were leaving. They were taking two very slightly injured old men and two women. The KLA had returned to the village. At night, it is theirs.

The next morning, KVM observers and the press came to the village. Armed KLA took them to a ditch where 23 bodies were piled up — almost exclusively men. At noon, William Walker, head of the US Kosovo Verification Mission, arrived and declared his indignation at the atrocities committed by "the Serb police forces and the Yugoslav Army." The KLA said the men were marched to the ditch at the edge of the tiny village about noon the day before, and executed with several bullets to the head of each. The whole world saw William Walker on TV declaring this "ethnic cleansing" and a "massacre."

But no one had seen anything like that the day before. It would have been impossible (with all the sniper fire) to march people to the edge of town and calmly execute them. Besides, the town was essentially empty. Smoke rose from only two chimneys in the entire village. What’s more, there were hardly any shell casings around the ditch where the people were supposedly shot, and hardly any blood.

What really happened was that the KLA had dressed the bodies of their combat victims in civvies, put some extra bullets in their heads, and then carried them to the ditch and piled them there. It was staged. And Walker knew it, because three vehicles full of his observers had been there the day before, watching all that went on.

By the way, this is the same William Walker who ran the Contra war against Nicaragua for Ollie North and Elliott Abrams. He ran a bogus "humanitarian" mission at Ilopango Air Base, flying weapons to the Contras and drugs back to the United States. He was also Ambassador to El Salvador during the worst of the death squad massacres, including the killing by School of the Americas (SOA) graduates of American Jesuit priests. Wherever the CIA is most heavily involved, he seems to show up. And he was our top guy in Kosovo until the Yugoslav government ordered him out after this Racak "massacre."

Nevertheless, William Walker’s judgment prevailed. The American media never picked up on the French accounts of what really happened at Racak. The American people were never told that it wasn’t a "massacre" after all. Milosevic is threatened with NATO bombing.

1999 (Mar): The Rambouillet "negotiations."The US draws up a document which it presents to the KLA and the Yugoslav government. There are no negotiations. Both sides are told to "take it or leave it." The document requires Yugoslav withdrawal from Kosovo, the introduction of a NATO occupying force with total powers, and a plebiscite to decide on independence for Kosovo. What the American people aren’t told is that the document also gives NATO forces free rein throughout Yugoslavia, including Serbia itself, even Belgrade. It grants NATO forces free use of airports, roads, rails, and ports; free telecommunication services; and total immunity throughout Yugoslavia. In essence, this "agreement" would allow NATO to occupy all of Yugoslavia, not just Kosovo. Members of the US "negotiating" team bragged that they intentionally set the bar too high for Milosevic to accept. "He needs a good dose of bombing, and that’s what he’s going to get."

Amazingly, Milosevic accepted all the Rambouillet demands except for NATO occupation of Yugoslavia itself. He wanted the troops to be under UN command. (NY Times 4/8/99) Dan Goure, Deputy Director, CSIS and a Pentagon official under Bush said, "Rambouillet was not a negotiation, it was a setup, a lynch party." (Institute for Public Accuracy 5/4/99)

1999 (thru Mar 23): Until the bombing started, the Yugoslavian government allowed opposition radio and publications. Over 20 political parties had their own newspaper. There were more opposition parties represented in the Yugoslavian parliament than in any other European country. Yet Milosevic, who was elected three times in what international observers declared to be fair elections, is branded a dictator and compared to Hitler.

1999 (Mar 24): NATO begins 78 days of air strikes against Kosovo and Serbia. Within days, Serbs start expelling ethnic Albanians from their homes in Kosovo.

1999 (Mar 31): 3 GIs are captured on the Macedonian border. US patrols on the border cease. On May 1 the three are released to Jesse Jackson.

1999 (Apr 4): NATO bombs the Monastery of Holy Mother and the Monastery of St Nicholas in Kursumlija (both built in the 12th century). At least 14 other monasteries were bombed by the middle of April.

1999 (Apr 12): NATO bombs a train on a bridge over Grdelica gorge, killing 10 civilians and wounding 16.

1999 (Apr 15): NATO bombs a refugee convoy on the road from Prizren to Djakovica, killing 74 civilians.

1999 (Apr 22): NATO bombs the residence of Milosevic in an apparent unsuccessful assassination attempt.

1999 (Apr 23): NATO bombs the offices of Serbian Television, killing 15.

1999 (Apr 24): NATO uses cluster bombs on Doganovici, killing (among others) five children from one family (the Kodza family). They were Vadjet (age 15), Burim (age 14), Osman (age 13), Fisnik (age 9), and Edon (age 3).

1999 (Apr 27): NATO bombs a residential district in Surdulica, killing (among others) 12 children.

1999 (May 1): NATO bombs a bus on the Luzan Bridge, killing 15 children, 19 adults.

1999 (May 13): NATO cluster bombs kill 79 refugees in Prizren (National Catholic Reporter, CBS News, Lehrer News Hour). NATO bombs kill 87 Albanians in Korisa, Kosovo the same day. At first NATO denies responsibility, then changes its story and says it did the bombing, but against a military target. It says the Serbs used the Albanians as human shields. But reporters from the London Independent reported seeing scraps of flesh and scattered possessions, but no sign of a military presence. (Independent 5/16/99). The Los Angeles Times also said the only targets were the tractors and wagons of refugees. (LA Times 5/15/99).

1999 (Jun 3): The Yugoslavian government accepts terms proposed by the G-7 and Russia for ending the war. The terms are similar to those of Rambouillet except that (1) Kosovo remains part of Serbia and (2) the occupying forces, though made up largely of NATO countries, would officially be acting in the name of the United Nations. These are exactly the conditions Milosevic agreed to before the bombing started!

RESULTS:

So what did 33,000 bombing missions accomplish? Exactly what NATO intended all along. They destroyed the viability of Yugoslavia as an independent country, destroyed what had been one of the world’s most successful communist economies, and solidified US, British, and German domination in the Balkans. Both militarily and economically, what used to be Yugoslavia is now a collection of small colonies.

It also changed our relationships with Russia and China, and set back disarmament by 20 years. It increased the Pentagon budget and caused defense stocks to go through the roof. Boeing, GM, Honeywell, Motorola, Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon, TRW, United Technologies each donated up to $250,000 for NATO’s 50th anniversary celebration. But they could well afford it. The war had used up a huge inventory of Tomahawk cruise missiles (at $1.2 Million apiece) and created orders for replacements.

REASONS:

But why? Surely there’s more to it than that. There is. First and foremost, the war had nothing whatsoever to do with compassion for the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. If we were concerned with stopping or punishing human rights violations, we would be launching cruise missiles at China and Saudi Arabia and Guatemala and Turkey. If we were concerned about self-determination for ethnic peoples, we would be bombing London for not freeing the Catholics in Northern Ireland. As Gorbachev pointed out recently, we would be bombing Russia to free the Chechens, bombing Turkey to free the Kurds, and bombing Israel to free the Palestinians. If we were concerned for victims of ethnic cleansing, we would be at war in the Sudan and several other places where the number of displaced and massacred dwarfs what happened in the Balkans. And we would have been on the side of the Serbs against Franjo Tudjman in Croatia instead of the other way around. (Dare we mention what happened to the Native Americans?) No, the war against Yugoslavia had nothing to do with humanitarian goals or compassion for the Albanians.

But there were reasons. These are among the objectives behind the policy which made this war inevitable:

1. Get rid of the largest remaining post-Soviet socialist nation refusing to cooperate with the Multinational Corporations who rule the New World Order.
   
   
2. Destabilize and divide Yugoslavia, opening the pieces to monopoly capital, military occupation, and US domination.
   
   
3. Set an example for increasingly radicalized workers in Eastern Europe, who are disillusioned and disappointed with capitalism.
   
   
4. Get access to Bosnia’s and Kosovo’s rich natural resources (oil, chrome, copper, gold, nickel, platinum, coal, lead, zinc, and lignite). See Viviano & Howe in the San Francisco Chronicle 8/28/95.
   
   
5. Gain control of the oil and gas pipeline routes from the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan.
   
   
6. Force the privatization of major industries and resources. Entire industrial complexes can now be bought for next to nothing by the multinational corporations.

LEGALITIES:

1. The war was against the UN Charter, Article 2, which prohibits the use of force against a sovereign state which has not acted as an aggressor against other states.
   
   
2. The war was against the NATO Charter, which specifies that NATO is a defensive alliance to be used only if a member state is attacked. (None was.)
   
   
3. The war was against the Constitution of the United States and US law. The Constitution makes Congress responsible for the decision to go to war. The House voted against a declaration of war (only two members voted in favor). The House refused to authorize the air campaign, and voted against sending ground troops. The War Powers Act gives the President 60 days to act without a vote of Congress. The bombing went on for 78 days.
   
   
4. The war was against International Law. Cluster bombs were used against civilians in Novi Sad and Nis (London Sun-Telegraph) in violation of the rules of warfare.
   
   
5. The Rambouillet "negotiations" were against the 1980 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which forbids coercion and force. Yugoslavia was told "sign or be bombed."
   
   
6. The recognition by NATO countries of Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia, and the attempted secession of Kosovo are against the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which guarantee territorial frontiers of states in Europe.
   
   
7. The war was a violation of the Nuremberg Principles, which make a war of aggression or in violation of treaties a crime.

CONCLUSIONS:

As the war against Yugoslavia brewed and then erupted, many in the peace movement were confused and troubled. They were taken in by reports of "ethnic cleansing" and felt that we had to do something. "We can’t just stand by the way we did in Bosnia." But of course that understandable feeling is based on a distorted view of what went on in Bosnia. We did not just stand by. If we had, there would have been no war there either.

The fact is, we started the war against Yugoslavia with the 1990 law cutting off funding unless the individual republics seceded from Yugoslavia and adopted capitalism. We used the CIA to stir up old hatreds, and supported reactionary forces in Croatia and Bosnia. We sabotaged peace deals which would have restored ethnic peace, and we used military force to support our chosen factions against their own people. We used military force to aid the Croatian fascists in the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Serbs from Krajina, dumping them as refugees upon less-affluent Serbia. We simultaneously built up a KLA force of Contras to keep the pot boiling in Kosovo. We forced Yugoslavia to reject the Rambouillet "accords" and unleashed a massive bombing campaign which we justified by a refugee exodus which didn’t start until after we started bombing.

This is not to say that, once the war started, the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo were not subjected to horrible treatment. Obviously, many of them were, and many died. And clearly, the refugees were happy that we were on their side and were making it possible for them to go back to what was left of their homes. But it is to say that they would have been much better off if we had never gotten involved in the Balkans at all.

And this is not to say that Milosevic is a good guy. But it is to say that he is not nearly as bad as the right-wing puppets we support in Croatia and Bosnia. And his indictment as a war criminal (by a NATO-dominated court) just as a peace settlement was in sight was a travesty of justice and yet another ploy to prolong the war. And he is decidedly better than the ultranationalist who will probably succeed him if he does step down.

It turns out that those who said that violence is never the answer, that there must be another way, were right. The bombing was wrong. We weren’t being the good guys after all.

INTO THE FUTURE:

It has not been easy pulling together this chronolgy of events. It is no wonder so many Americans have been confused. They have been misled. Somehow, we the American people must regain control of the corporate-owned media and the corporate-owned government of this country. Otherwise, there will be more Vietnams, more Grenadas, more Iraqs, more Bosnias, more Kosovos ... until the billionaires and their multinational corporations and banks control everything — all the land, the governments, the resources, the money, and the people. All of us in every land will be reduced to cheap labor and consumers of each others products. None of us will own anything. We will have no rights. We will be expendable, like the people in Iraq and the Balkans.

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