NATO's humanitarian cleansing

AFP - 4 June 1999

Kosovo no "happy place" for Serbs

Pentagon

"I don't think that Kosovo is going to be a very happy place for Serbs when NATO comes in and ... I don't think Serbs will want to stay there," Defense Department spokesman Kenneth Bacon told reporters.

"I think they will want to return to Serbia," he said.

But Bacon stressed that "the Serb minority will be allowed to stay if it wants to stay" but that there were reports that a number of Kosovo's Serbs wanted to leave.

"We are getting reports that many will want to leave. If that's true, they can leave."

The Irish Times
Tuesday, June 8, 1999

Serbs are being asked to ethnically cleanse region of themselves

Lara Marlowe writes from Belgrade

The Serbs thought they had concluded peace with honour. But now, they complain, NATO is treating them as if the agreement accepted by Belgrade last Thursday were an unconditional surrender.

When talks on a military-technical agreement for a Serb withdrawal from Kosovo broke down on Sunday night, Mr Nebojsa Vujovic, the Foreign Ministry spokesman who is participating in the talks in Macedonia, stressed that Yugoslavia accepted the Ahtisaari-Chernomyrdin accord because it guaranteed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and because it provided for the deployment of a peacekeeping force under UN auspices.

"Where is the UN?" a military source in Belgrade asked yesterday. "Gen Jackson doesn't look like a UN officer to me." Lieut Gen Sir Michael Jackson's presence at the Bloody Sunday massacre was mentioned by Serb officials, who describe him as arrogant and accuse him of misrepresenting the Serb position in the Macedonian talks.

The Russian Foreign Minister, Mr Igor Ivanov, joined the Serbs in saying that NATO - not Belgrade - added new conditions to the agreement reached last week.

Mr Goran Matic, a Yugoslav minister without portfolio, tried to minimise tension yesterday, saying the talks continued "in a constructive climate", that "progress has been achieved" and that he expected a rapid resolution....

But the reluctance of the Yugoslav army, in particular the Third Army deployed in Kosovo, to accept what it sees as a humiliating defeat has certainly complicated the military-technical discussions. Officers of the Third Army met President Milosevic on Friday night to express their "deep dissatisfaction" with the Ahtisaari-Chernomyrdin accord, a military sources said...

"The army wants a genuine UN force - blue berets, blue flags, and Russians," the source said. The 20-point document proposed by Gen Jackson does not mention the UN once. Military sources privately accused NATO of "trying to create facts on the ground" by exacting the maximum number of concessions before a UN Security Council resolution giving a mandate to the force is passed.

Belgrade tried to sell the accord on the grounds that responsibility for Kosovo was being transferred from NATO to the UN...

Once the 30-page draft UN Security Council resolution prepared by the G8 is approved in New York, quibbles over the details of the Serb withdrawal from Kosovo could subside.

The page-and-a-half Ahtisaari-Chernomyrdin agreement is so vague that disputes over implementation were bound to arise. It calls for "verifiable withdrawal from Kosovo of military, police and paramilitary forces".

Gen Jackson now accuses the Serbs of refusing to withdraw all forces; Serb military sources claim NATO is demanding the departure of all non-Albanians between the ages of 18 and 55. "They are asking the Serbs to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of themselves," one officer grumbled.

Statements by the Pentagon spokesman, Mr Kenneth Bacon, and Mr Robertson have strengthened the Serbs' impression that the West wants to "cleanse" Kosovo of some 200,000 Serbs. Mr Bacon has predicted the Serbs will probably leave, and Mr Robertson said yesterday that "Serbs out, NATO in, refugees home" was NATO's goal. In his letter to the UN Security Council, [Yugoslav Foreign Minister] Mr Jovanovic appealed to the UN to protect Serb civilians in Kosovo...

Meanwhile, the war in Yugoslavia continues. Serb television reported that NATO bombarded five villages in central Serbia yesterday afternoon. The Yugoslav army does not trust NATO to keep its promise to disarm the Kosovo Liberation Army - for which NATO aircraft are now providing air cover. The KLA attacked a passenger bus in Kosovo on Saturday night, and the wounded driver is in critical condition. Fighting between the Yugoslav army and the KLA has actually increased since the June 3rd peace agreement. The official news agency, Tanjug, reported that 500 "terrorists" who attempted to enter Kosovo from Albania were "liquidated" in recent days.