1. NATO’s Occupation of Kosovo

With U.S. and NATO forces now occupying Kosovo, a reign of terror and murder is being directed against the minority Serb and Roma populations as well as pro-Yugoslav ethnic Albanians, who are being killed as "collaborators" with the Yugoslav government.

Those being targeted by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army acting under U.S. and NATO military protection are the same constellation of forces that constituted the anti-fascist Partisan movement that defeated Hitler's massive invasion of the Balkans 50 years ago.

In fact, the Yugoslav government has been subjected to almost a decade of sanctions as well as war directed by the United States government because the current government was born from that Partisan struggle. Yugoslavia is the last of the socialist governments that emerged in Eastern Europe after World War II.

2. NATO's Sponsorship of the Kosovo Liberation Army

The so-called Kosovo Liberation Army is really a mercenary army that acted as agents for NATO both in provoking incidents that were used to justify the U.S./NATO invasion and as a NATO ground force during the war.

The KLA is completely dependent on foreign funding and materiel for its existence. Most of the funds were funneled through drug trafficking, much like the CIA funding of the contras in the war against Nicaragua in the 1980s.

Like other similar fascist forces, the KLA is brazenly racist. Its only publicly stated goal is to purge Kosovo of all minorities, particularly the Serbian and Roma peoples.

3. U.S. Conspiracy to Overthrow the Yugoslav Government

The U.S. government has been engaged in a concerted campaign to overthrow the legally elected government of Yugoslavia. Reports indicate that President Bill Clinton has authorized the CIA to take any action needed to topple the government of Slobodan Milosevic.

The U.S. government is actively engaging in operations designed to promote instability in the former Yugoslavia for the apparent purpose of taking over the region.

4. Damage to Civilian Infrastructure

During the 78-day bombing campaign, U.S. military and NATO forces specifically targeted schools, hospitals, farms, bridges, roads, railways, water lines, communications facilities, factories, industries and other objects necessary for the basic functioning of society.

The outright destruction of numerous economic facilities has deprived hundreds of thousands of workers of their jobs, with over 2 million more left completely without income or other means of support.

Civilian damage was increased dramatically by the use of exceptionally destructive ammunition, including ones banned by international conventions.

The civilian infrastructure was intentionally targeted by U.S. and NATO military commanders. This is shown in the following quote from NATO Lt. Gen. Michael Short: "I think no power to your refrigerator, no gas to your stove, you can't get to work because the bridge is down--the bridge on which you hold your rock concerts and you all stood with targets on your heads. That needs to disappear at 3:00 in the morning." (International Herald Tribune, May 14)

5. Destruction to the Environment

Among the targets NATO hit were oil refineries, petrochemical plants, chemical fertilizer factories, fuel storage tanks and power plants. The bombing strikes against these industries caused a severe environmental crisis in Yugoslavia.

The quantity of explosives dropped on Yugoslavia during the war equaled the yield of several Hiroshima-type A-bombs. Among the weapons used by the U.S. military and NATO forces were several types of internationally outlawed explosives: cluster bombs, gravity bombs and graphite bombs.

In addition, the United States and Britain continued to use bullets, missiles and bombs tipped with deplete uranium, or DU. These weapons were first introduced in the U.S. war on Iraq.

These weapons use radioactive waste products and are extremely toxic to humans.

NATO-created environmental damage is not limited to Yugoslavia. Many of the chemical plants and oil refineries bombed by NATO were on the banks of the Danube River or its tributaries. The damage is expected to spread to all the countries downstream--Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine. More than 10 million people depend on the Danube for their drinking water.

6. Damage to Agriculture

In testimony published in the Spanish weekly Articulo 20, a pilot described what the NATO bombers were doing. Capt. Adolfo Luis Martin de la Hoz, who returned to Spain at the end of May after having participated in the bombings since the beginning, said: times our colonel protested to NATO chiefs about why they select targets that are not military targets.

"Once there was a coded order from the North American military that we should drop anti-personnel bombs over the cities of Pristina and Nis. All of the missions that we flew, each and every one, were planned in detail, including attacking planes, targets and type of ammunition, by high-ranking U.S. military authorities.

"They are destroying the country, bombing it with new weapons, toxic nerve gases, surface mines dropped by parachute, bombs containing uranium, napalm, sterilization chemicals, poison sprays on crops, and using weapons that we still do not know about."

With the destruction of crops, fertilizer plants, forests and other agriculture-related facilities and resources, the food-making capacity of Yugoslavia has been cut by at least 25 percent.

7. Destruction of Educational Facilities

More than 400 schools and facilities for students and children were destroyed or damaged. Most of the educational institutions that were bombed were elementary schools. Over 300 elementary schools were hit. The second most frequent target was pre-school facilities.

The schools for 100,000 children were destroyed beyond repair.

8. Damage to Civilian Health

At least a dozen hospitals and health-care institutions were partially damaged or totally destroyed by NATO bombs. In addition, the extensive damage to the economic infrastructure and the environment has created a public-health crisis.

In the coming winter months, the people of Yugoslavia are faced with the problems of safe drinking water, shelter, heating and food. They face a possible outbreak of dysentery from contaminated drinking water and eating contaminated food. Lack of shelter and heat can lead to an epidemic of acute respiratory infections.

9. Destruction of Cultural and Historical Sites

U.S. and NATO officials engaged in the willful destruction of institutions dedicated to religion, charity, works of art and sciences as well as historical monuments.

Churches, monasteries, mosques, forts, fortresses, monuments, cemeteries, memorials, archeological sites, museums and various historic or cultural sites and their contents were damaged and even destroyed by NATO bombs.

In addition to the structural damage, priceless and irreplaceable ancient frescos, literature, art, artifacts and relics in many churches and monasteries were damaged or placed in a condition that prevents their safe preservation.

These cultural and historic sites had survived the Nazi bombing campaign during World War II, but not the widespread NATO bombing campaign.

10. Destruction of the Yugoslav Media

On the orders of the U.S. general command, NATO forces destroyed the Serbian state television headquarters in downtown Belgrade on April 23. Twenty civilian employees were killed; many more were wounded.

U.S./NATO bombs destroyed at least 10 private radio and television stations, and 36 TV transmitters.

NATO officials said that the Serbian media centers were hit because they refused to drop their regular programming and replace it with NATO war propaganda. The Serbian state television was hit because it had become the primary source for news that exposed the death and suffering caused by NATO's bombing campaign.

Only days before the bombing, NATO Air Commander David Wilby announced that unless the Yugoslav media stopped showing such reports and replaced it with six hours of U.S.-created programming, the media infrastructure would be destroyed.

11. Use of Illegal Weapons

The use of cluster bombs is a prohibited act of war under the Hague Conventions, the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg Charter. International law also prohibits the used of depleted uranium weapons. Both were used by U.S. military forces in the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia.

The indiscriminate nature of cluster bombs and depleted uranium weapons make their use impossible to limit strictly to military personnel and objects.

Aerosolized DU particles not only endanger soldiers in the combat zones where DU weapons are used, but they also endanger civilians in outlying communities. DU particles may also contaminate farm animals, planting soil and water supplies, making areas within at least a 25-mile radius a toxic wasteland for generations to come.

Unexploded cluster bombs act as antipersonnel landmines. It is usually children, who mistake the bright yellow canisters and parachutes for toys, and unsuspecting civilians who fall victim to unexploded cluster bombs. Unexploded cluster bombs are a threat to civilians long after the war is officially declared to be over.

The U.S. military commanders do not deny that they used these weapons in their attacks on Yugoslavia. They claim the right to defy international law and use these weapons in the interest of ultimate victory.

12. Attacks on Yugoslav Leaders

Throughout the 79-day NATO bombing campaign, NATO leaders intentionally attempted to assassinate Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and numerous other high-level Yugoslav government officials. NATO commanders made several attempts to murder Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and his family by demolishing his residence. Ronald Hatchett, a former Pentagon official speaking on MSNBC April 23, said, "There is no question about the fact that [the assassination of Milosevic] was what we were trying to do in striking that house."

CNN conspired with NATO to murder a high-level Serb official. In the British newspaper the Independent, Robert Fisk reported on July 2: "Two days before NATO bombed the Serb television headquarters in Belgrade, CNN received a tip from its Atlanta headquarters that the [Serbian TV] building was to be destroyed. They were told to remove their facilities from the premises at once, which they did.

"A day later, Serbian Information Minister Aleksander Vucic received a faxed invitation from the Larry King Live show in the U.S. to appear on CNN. They wanted him on air at 2:30 in the morning of 23 April and asked him to arrive at Serb television half an hour early for make-up.

"Vucic was late--which was just as well for him since NATO missiles slammed into the building at six minutes past two. The first one exploded in the make-up room where the young Serb assistant was burned to death."

13. U.S. Military Spending

According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, the 78 days of air strikes against Yugoslavia cost the U.S. people from $2.3 billion to $4 billion. These funds were diverted from essential domestic social programs.

Immediately after the end of the air war, Congress and the White House agreed to cut U.S. domestic programs by 11 percent, focusing on cuts in education, job training, housing, health and human services, environmental protection, and medical and technological research.

The U.S. government has the largest military in the world, larger than the next 16 countries combined. The United States has bases in over 100 countries around the world.

While military spending saw no limits during the war, the cuts in social programs have been unprecedented, with $53 billion in cuts to domestic spending since 1994. More than half the U.S. domestic budget is spent on the military, with additional funds directly diverted from social programs to pay for the war on Yugoslavia.

Aside from the direct profits made by the military-industrial complex in selling the weapons of war, the demonstration of the latest military technology in the air war against Yugoslavia, such as satellite-guided bombs, will mean increased sales of U.S. military equipment worldwide.

14. Violations of International and Domestic Laws and Conventions

NATO violated a number of international and domestic laws and conventions by its declared aims, by starting the war on Yugoslavia, and by the actions it took during its aggression against Yugoslavia. Specifically NATO's aggression is a violation of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, as well as Articles 33, 37, 39, 41, 42, 51, and 79. It is also a violation of Articles 1 and 7 of NATO's own charter.

The so-called Rambouillet "Agreement" written by the U.S. State Department is a violation of Articles 51 and 52 of the 1980 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which forbids coercion and force to compel any state to sign a treaty or agreement. The "Agreement" is also a violation of the Helsinki Accords Final Act of 1975.

NATO violated the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in time of War. It also violated the 1977 Geneva Convention and the 1899 and 1907 Hague conventions, which provide that military operations should not target and kill civilians.

NATO violated the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines. The U.S. military violated the UN resolution from 1996 against using depleted uranium weapons. The list summarizing the international laws and conventions violated fills four pages of this report.

15. Economic Motivation for the War

The U.S. military-industrial complex plays an active role in formulating U.S. military and foreign policy. Yugoslavia was the last country in Europe to retain characteristics of a socialist economy, including political and economic rights for the working class. Now that the bombing is over and the destruction of parts of Yugoslavia almost total, the profiteers are drooling over the new markets that have been opened. There is a close connection between military aggression and economic expansion.

16. Future Plans for Dismemberment

The US wants Milosevic out of power. Clinton has given presidential authority to the CIA to topple Milosevic and to disrupt his private financial transactions and to electronically drain his overseas bank accounts. The plan for the Balkan region is dismemberment of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and for the fragments to either become EU member states or closely aligned, with the former provinces undergoing "reform." NATO plans for Kosovo to become an independent Albanian state with dollars and deutschmarks becoming the currency.

Future dismemberment also includes the northern Yugoslavian province of Vojvodina, which holds about 350,000 ethnic Hungarians. New NATO member Hungary has already requested military intervention from the alliance on behalf of the ethnic minority, and also a plan for autonomy has been signed by the Vojvodina Hungarians and Hungarian government officials.

Western leaders are also focusing on Kosovo and its close infrastructural link to the rest of Yugoslavia. They seek to break Kosovo’s link to the FRY. The CIA’s "Roots" covert operation is aimed at the destruction of Yugoslavia through the loss of Kosovo, Montenegro, and Vojvodina provinces, which are indispensable to Yugoslavia because of their mineral-rich land

 

17. Economic Provisions of Rambouillet

Rambouillet was never intended to be signed by the Serbian government. Why did a so-called peace-seeking agreement have economic provisions such as Chapter 4, Article I, Section 1, which states: "The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles."

Throughout the economic provision of the agreement, Yugoslavia was unfairly asked to allow for the free flow of capital into Kosovo, allow for international reconstruction plans to be implemented, and to basically allow for international corporations to run rampant in their country, while allowing for the privatization of all government assets. Most notably, natural resources were explicitly sought. Kosovo has some of the most mineral-rich mines in the world, providing a substantial amount of gold, silver, zinc, cadmium, and other ores. Like in Bosnia, these government assets would be sold off at garage-sale prices to corporations to turn maximum profit.

Also, why was there a reconstruction provision in the agreement if the fighting between the KLA and Serb forces was limited to certain pockets of Kosovo with limited damage? That is, of course, unless there was always a plan for a massive bombardment......

18. Selective Reconstruction

After all the damage to Yugoslavia after 78 days of bombardment, nearly all of the reconstructive aid will go to Kosovo. NATO has already claimed that they will not deal with Yugoslavia as long as Milosevic is in power; they will not get help until Yugoslavia undergoes democratic free market reforms. Clinton has been quoted as saying that Yugoslavia will not get "one red cent," "not a bit, not a penny."

Almost all money is slated for Kosovo. This is where the World Bank and IMF are establishing a Balkan beachhead to force submission to "structural adjustment," which is better defined as neo-liberal Western-style capitalism. Also, the US has been successful in evading paying for any substantial amount of the reconstruction costs, with most of it falling to the EU, even though the US did most of the bombing. By Clinton’s reckoning, "We paid for the bulk of the bombing. They should pay for the bulk of the clean-up."

19. Damage to the Yugoslav Army

We were told with the utmost confidence by Jamie Shea and General Wesley Clark that the NATO bombing had caused severe damage and casualties to the Yugoslav army. This couldn’t have farther from the truth. It is clear now that the Yugoslav army suffered little damage. NATO intelligence reported that 20,000 troops were in Kosovo at the start of the bombing with 20,000 more on the border ready to move in. When the bombing stopped and the Yugoslav Army was pulling out, NATO officials were in for a surprise. Over 50,000 troops were reported to have been filing out of Kosovo with a large amount of tanks and armored personnel carriers working in fine condition.

The Serbs outsmarted NATO in every way. They deployed wooden and plastic decoys, black plastic sheets to resemble roads with more decoys, fake bridges made from logs, and old and unusable vehicles. The Serbs also learned early on to fool the sophisticated on-board computers of Cruise missiles by burning cars near important targets, thereby drawing the missile’s thermal sensing screen. They also painted railways and bridges in this way to confuse the missiles.

One reason that the Serb army didn’t suffer heavy casualties was because NATO’s initial attack phase was to target Serb air defense, which gave the army time to empty bunkers, disperse into smaller units, and to dig into the mountainside terrain. Yugoslavia and Kosovo also have a complex web of shelters and bunkers. All told, the Yugoslav government’s official number of combat deaths: 462 soldiers and 114 policemen killed, as opposed to NATO’s 5,000 to 10,000 estimate. And the number of tanks and armored pieces destroyed was at most 50 percent of what NATO estimated.

20. Dismemberment of Yugoslavia: Kosovo

Spokespeople for the NATO governments presented the alliance’s bombing attack on Yugoslavia as an "humanitarian intervention" in defense of the rights of the Kosovar Albanians. However, the facts show that every step taken by NATO aimed at exacerbating tensions among the different nationalities in Kosovo and provoking a war against Yugoslavia. NATO’s real goal was the direct control of Kosovo, with a puppet government that would function as a NATO client.

This is a continuation of NATO, and especially German and U.S., policy toward Yugoslavia since 1990, which is to dismember Yugoslavia and privatize all the means of production in the Balkans. At Rambouillet, Yugoslavia was given the choice of being bombed or accepting NATO occupation and control of their country. The bombing was horrible and deadly for all nationalities in Kosovo. NATO has now divided up the province into five slices much as the 19th Century colonial powers divided up Africa.

21. Is the International Court of Justice Just?

The International Court of Justice is the judicial wing of the United Nations and is composed of 15 judges. The judges are elected by UN member states every three years, with special weight given to the UN Security Council members. With U.S., U.K. and France permanent members of the Security Council, this gives NATO countries a controlling influence. The ICJ mainly rules in favor of these NATO countries, as seen in many past cases where nations like Nicaragua, Libya, and Iran have lost cases against the United States for various crimes. Even in one case where the court ruled against the United States, the order went ignored by the U.S.

In the case where Yugoslavia has tried to make a case against the 1999 NATO bombing, all appeals were denied or the court claimed not to have jurisdiction. Despite overwhelming evidence to prove NATO’s guilt, the court rules in favor of NATO in every case.

Even so, the United States has found a way to exempt itself from the Geneva Convention Article IX concerning genocide. The U.S. stands by these laws to indict whom they please, but they consider themselves above those very same laws. The current president of the ICJ is an American, Stephen Schwebel. He was a top official in the U.S. State Department from 1967 to 1981 when he was admitted to the ICJ as a judge. He has almost always voted in favor of the US. Now as president of the ICJ, he is the U.S.’s most powerful tool on the international court.

22. The Rambouillet Accord: Pretext for a War of Aggression

Rambouillet was deliberately crafted is such a way so as to force the Serbs to reject it. The "agreement" called for actions such as: a NATO occupying force as "peacekeepers," unrestricted access to all of Yugoslavia, exemption from all Yugoslav laws, unrestricted flow of capital and corporate investment in Kosovo, foreign control of all government assets—especially natural resources.

The media focus of Rambouillet was directed at the Serbs’ refusal to "discuss key points" of the agreement. The unreported truth was that Yugoslavia agreed to a UN monitoring force, but not NATO occupation. However, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was vehement in demanding that NATO be the key factor in the "peace" of the region. She is also quoted as saying behind the scenes that the U.S. intentionally set the standards of the agreement too high for the Serbs to accept. "They need some bombing and that’s what they are going to get."

23. The Forced Migration of Serbs

Anti-Serb sentiments is nothing new in this decade. The demonization of Serbs can be traced back to medieval times and continues to this day. In the 1990s, the Serbs have been displaced from Croatia, Bosnia, and now Kosovo, in a systematic fashion by nationalistic fascist forces with the backing of U.S. and NATO military power. While being falsely accused of ethnically cleansing Croats, Bosnians, and Kosovar Albanians, the reality remains that it is the Serbs who have been driven out by the hundreds of thousands, with tens of thousands of civilians killed, and their land shrunk by hundreds of thousands of square miles at the hands of Western greed. Even today, the so-called Bosnian Serb Republic is nothing more than a reservation run by NATO..

24. The Demonization of Serbs in the Media

The word "libel" is defined as the printed defamation of a person or group, prosecutable in all of the NATO countries that have undertaken anti-Serb propaganda in their respective media. Almost universally, one can find certain key words to describe Serbs and their leaders, such as: evil, new Nazis, new Hitler, immoral, butchers. Other words are commonly found whenever the word "Serb" appears in a sentence: atrocities, massacres, brutality, warmongering, deceit.

Nearly all news stories concerning Serbs are meant to overwhelm our consciences with the haunting images of the Nazi massacres in the concentration camps. And the amazing thing is, it is done almost entirely with words. Hardly any concrete proof in picture or video is ever shown. That may be because there would be nothing to show but Serbs being oppressed.

In every incident of violence between Serbs and the aggressors within their borders, the number of people supposedly killed at the hands of the Serbs is automatically increased ten-fold, and then it becomes a "massacre" or a "slaughter." Any instance of violence directed at Serbs goes unmentioned. Many news stories that purport Serb "atrocities" use such phrases as "alleged" and "as yet unconfirmed reports." Despite the lack of investigation and the use of such ambiguous terms, readers see only the big words: "massacre," "slaughter," "genocide," "ethnic cleansing."

25. Civilian Casualties of NATO’s War