June 10, 2000 International Tribunal for U.S./NATO warcrimes in Yugoslavia

U.S./NATO PROPAGANDA AND THE SO-CALLED RACAK "MASSACRE"

by Preston Wood

Gay activist and International Action Center organizer Preston Wood participated in tribunal hearings in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia and was a leading anti-war organizer in the Los Angeles area. He debunked anti-Serb charges regarding the supposed massacre in Racak, Kosovo, used to justify the attack on Yugoslavia.

A major part of US and NATO strategy, in order to carry out their criminal activities against Yugoslavia, has been to create stories of massacres and horrendous atrocities and then manipulate the truth to make it seem that the victims are to blame. Several "marketplace bombings" in Bosnia and Kosovo, where innocent civilians were killed were used to falsely accuse Serbian forces of these crimes even though all the evidence points to the KLA or other pro-US/NATO forces.

The so called Racak massacre was a trigger action which helped the US and NATO justify the criminal bombing war against Yugoslavia.

On Jan. 15 1999, Serbian police -- accompanied by observers from the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission and an Associated Press video team who were French citizens -- had entered the village of Racak, a stronghold of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army. A firefight ensued in which the Serb police bested their attackers.

The next day KLA members led William Walker, the head of the OSCE mission, and ambassador to Yugoslavia, accompanied by the international media to a gully at the edge of the village. They pointed out 20 bodies in the gully and and then another 20 elsewhere in the village.

In front of the world media, Walker immediately accused Serbian security forces of having committed a massacre of ethnic Albanian unarmed civilians.

William Walker, rather than being someone who has in the past exposed horrendous atrocities, is hated throughout Central America for his role in covering up the heinous crimes of the right wing and Contra death squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

The story spread around the world and Bill Clinton did not hesitate to condemn the so-called massacre as a deliberate and arbitrary act of murder.

The Yugoslavian government categorically denied the allegation and called the incident a manipulation. It accused the KLA of gathering the corpses of its fighters, and arranging them so as to resemble a mass execution of civilians.

This so-called massacre and the charade going on a Rambouillet were the trigger events that enabled Madeleine Albright to call for the bombing of Yugoslavia as "punishment"

In the meantime, teams of forensic experts arrived in Racak, including a team sent the United Nations, from Finland.

In February 1999, the Finnish spokesperson gave a report that backed up Walkers unsupported charges.

Now, however, there is a report issued in May of this year where the Finnish team is now saying that in fact no massacre occurred. Of the 40bodies found in the village, none were mutilated, and only one showed any sign of being killed at close range.

The US and NATO of course knew at the time that there was no massacre, but they kept the evidence suppressed in order to confuse public opinion and launch the most brutal war in Europe since WWII.

The Finnish report now documents in detail that there is virtually no evidence of any massacre at Racak. There was no massacre at Racak village. But there was a massacre that ensued of the people of Yugoslavia by NATO forces.

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