Operation 'Matchstick' has been carefully planned and executed - Western diplomats agree
© Centre for Peace in the Balkans, March 2004
Kosovo Albanian drive for independence leaves at least 31 dead, 600 wounded, over 3600 displaced and at least 25 Christian shrines destroyed.

Toronto, Ontario - Noted Kosovo Albanian political analyst Veton Surroi said yesterday that the current wave of violence in Kosovo had been organized by Albanians with the aim of expelling the Serb population. Surroi, who published Pristina daily Koha Ditore, said that the violence had entered a second phase which is obviously organized and orchestrated. “The aim is to intimidate the Serb population and expel them from central Kosovo by destroying their homes and churches.
Special Coordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, Erhard Busek believes that the Albanian politicians stood behind the organizing of these violent events in the past few days. The commander of NATO forces in southern Europe, Admiral Gregory Johnson, has also said he believes that the trouble has been orchestrated.
The operation dubbed 'Matchstick' had three main objectives:
1. Expulsion of the non-Albanian civilian population from Kosovo
2. Prevention of the non-Albanian civilian population from returning to their homes
3. Destruction of Christian religious shrines
Western diplomats and analysts said the latest operation is an effort to settle the final status of the province. Some said the scale and coordination of the Albanian attacks suggested they were part of the drive for independence. "Albanians are trying to cleanse the Serbs and create a fait accompli before any talks," said a Western source on condition of anonymity. "Anyone with political experience can see that."
More than 2000 non-Albanians have been either killed or kidnapped since 1999. Over 200,000 Serbs have fled the province due to a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing while the few remaining Serbs live in enclaves and ghettos protected by heavily armed international peacekeepers.
http://www.balkanpeace.org

Kosovo Albanians Ravage Serb Minority Enclaves
© Centre for Peace in the Balkans, March 2004
The situation is alarming At least 31 people were killed, some 500 wounded and thousands evacuated, tens of churches were set ablaze, a United Nations spokeswoman has confirmed.

TORONTO, March 18 /CNW/ - Violent attacks across Kosovo began after claims that Albanian boys had been chased into the Ibar river by Serbian boys with a dog. UNMIK spokesman Derek Chappell told media in Pristina today that this was definitely not true according to the account of the surviving boy. Chappell further said that the survivor of yesterday's river drowning has told his parents that he and three friends entered the river alone and were immediately caught up in the heavy current.
"The violence in Kosovo today has obviously been planned in advance", Chappell told Austrian state television ORF. "There has been violence in Kosovo before, but this time it's coordinated action. The violence erupted in a number of places at the same time which shows that it was planned in advance," he said. It is important to note that these attacks can not be described as clashes between Albanians and Serbs - this is a well planned and coordinated operation with the intent of ethnically cleansing the remaining Serb population from the province.
Albanian apologists are trying to find a reason behind these attacks, blaming events from the past for this kind of violence. However, brutal killing of the elderly, women and children is a crime that should not be tolerated and accepted. It is terror in its ugliest form. The Centre for Peace in the Balkans calls for KFOR and the UN mission in Pristina to protect the lives of minorities and their property in Kosovo and demands swift action from the international community in condemning these crimes.
http://www.balkanpeace.org

Planned and Coordinated Violence

KOSOVO IN FLAMES AS ALBANIANS RENEW WAR ON SERBS

"Ethnic Albanians rose against the Serb minority across Kosovo yesterday in co-ordinated attacks on them in the worst bloodletting in the province since the 1999 war."

"We are getting reports in all the time, from all over Kosovo. Wherever there is a Serbian population there is Albanian action against them," [Derek Chappell, a spokesman for the United Nations police force] said."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/18/wkoso18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/03/18/ixworld.html

KOSOVO CLASHES WERE PLANNED, SAYS UN OFFICIAL

"A senior international United Nations police official said: "The situation is not under control. This is planned, co-ordinated, one-way violence from the Albanians against the Serbs. It is spreading and has been brewing for the past week."

"In the village of Belopolje, ethnic Albanians drove out Serb residents and set fire to their houses, the UN said. In Pec, 50 miles west of Pristina, ethnic Albanians attacked the local UN base and damaged the organisation's vehicles. Albanians reportedly set fire to three Serb homes in Pec and some 30 Serbs took shelter in a church, which was then stoned by Albanians. Shooting was also reported in the area."
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=312192004

'SINISTER PURPOSE' TO KOSOVO CLASHES?

"The commander of Nato forces in southern Europe, Admiral Gregory Johnson, has said he believes that the trouble has been orchestrated. During the height of the protests in the Kosovan capital Pristina, thousands of demonstrators marched down the main street chanting the name of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)."

The veteran Kosovan political analyst, Veton Surroi, told the BBC he detected a sinister purpose behind [the outbursts of anger]. "I think that now we have come to the second phase, when this kind of violence is clearly conducted and organised," he said. "It's organised with the intention . of frightening the Serb population - to expel it from parts of central Kosovo by destroying Serb religious buildings."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3551783.stm

ALBANIANS PLANNED VIOLENCE, SAYS ITALIAN GENERAL

"The Italian commander of a brigade of NATO troops in Kosovo accused ethnic Albanians on Friday of deliberately setting off the violence which killed at least 31 people this week."
"The general said troops had also evacuated four elderly nuns from an Orthodox Serb monastery in the town of Diesa.

"A crowd of at least 500 Albanians had begun throwing petrol bombs at the monastery. We had to line up outside and hold them back by firing in the air." "They returned later with Kalashnikovs and grenades. This time we responded with fire and wounded some of them. Then we took the four nuns away. The Albanians set the monastery on fire."
http://www.b92.net/english/news/index.php?&nav_category=&nav_id=27605&order=priority&style=headlines

Persecution and Ethnic Cleansing

UN ADMINISTRATORS FLEE "KRISTALLNACHT"

"Kristallnacht is under way in Kosovo," [one UNMIK] official told B92 on condition of anonymity. "What is happening in Kosovo must unfortunately be described as a pogrom against Serbs: churches are on fire and people are being attacked for no other reason than their ethnic background," he added. Serbs and UN officers have been the target of attacks by Kosovo Albanians."

http://www.b92.net/english/news/index.php?&dd=17&mm=03&yyyy=2004&nav_category=&nav_id=27517&order=priority&style=headlines

KOSOVO EVENTS NEAR ETHNIC CLEANSING: NATO

"Almost a thousand Serbs living in isolated villages among the majority Albanian communities in Kosovo have fled in the last three days as houses and churches were torched by Albanians despite a heavy presence of international peacekeepers".

"This kind of activity actually almost amounts to ethnic cleansing and it cannot go on," US commander of NATO forces for Southern Europe, Gregory Johnson, told reporters in Kosovo's capital Pristina."
http://www.b92.net/english/news/index.php?&nav_category=&nav_id=27619&order=priority&style=headlines

NATO SEES SPECTER OF ETHNIC CLEANSING IN KOSOVO

"The United Nations refugee agency said more bloodshed might provoke a fresh Serb exodus from the province. "There are not many (ethnic) minorities left in Kosovo -- 220,000 have fled since 1999. We don't want to see any more go," UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told a news conference in Geneva."

"Albanians are trying to cleanse the Serbs and create a fait accompli before any talks," said a Western source on condition of anonymity. "Anyone with political experience can see that.""
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4608697

KOSOVO CLASHES 'ETHNIC CLEANSING'

"The Nato commander in overall charge of Kosovo has likened the recent violence in the province - in which at least 28 people have died - to ethnic cleansing." "Admiral Gregory Johnson said almost 1,000 Serbs had been driven from their homes after attacks by ethnic Albanians"

"Mobs of angry Albanians set alight Serbian Orthodox churches and Serb-owned homes across Kosovo on Thursday."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3551571.stm

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH URGES PROTECTION OF MINORITIES

"U.N. police indicate that most of the violence is being directed at the ethnic Serb minority. Unidentified attackers have burned churches, homes, public offices and at least one school. Particularly disturbing are reports of arson attacks on newly built homes of Serbs who had recently returned to Kosovo following their forced displacement in previous years. The attacks bear similarity to the campaign of arson, abduction, intimidation and killing directed at Serbs and Roma in the summer of 1999. This campaign of violence forced 200,000 Serbs and thousands of Roma from the province. Human Rights Watch documented the violence in an August 1999 report, http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/kosov2/, "Abuses against Serbs and Roma in the New Kosovo.""

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/03/18/serbia8129.htm

THOUSANDS FLEE KOSOVO VIOLENCE

"AT least 3600 Serbs and other non-Albanians had been forced to flee violence from ethnic Albanian groups in the province of Kosovo over the past few days, a UN official said today."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,9031975%255E1702,00.html

NATO PUSHES TO CALM KOSOVO

"Mobs of ethnic Albanians systematically looted villages and apartments abandoned by minority Serb civilians during violence that also injured hundreds of people, including peacekeepers and police. Serbs driven from their homes camped out in a storage room at a NATO base in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, waiting for conditions to stabilize so they could leave the southern Serbian province and its uncertain future behind."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1079737810798&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724

Destruction of Churches and Monasteries

KOSOVO RIOTERS BURN SERB CHURCHES

"Mobs of angry Albanians in Kosovo have burned Serbian Orthodox churches and homes on a second day of violence which is showing no sign of a let-up."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3525168.stm

BURNT-OUT SERBS DRIVEN INTO EXODUS FROM KOSOVO

"The full extent of the Serbian internal exodus is now clear. They have either fled, or been evacuated from towns such as Obelic, Staro Gradsko and Svinjare. At Svinjare, Albanian mobs burnt the empty homes and drove cattle and pigs into the flames. Nuns at an isolated monastery in Devic, in the north, were flown out by Nato helicopters as a mob was closing in."

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=503384

Situation Prior to March 17, 2004

TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH K. GRIEBOSKI OF THE INSTITUTE ON RELIGION AND PUBLIC POLICY BEFORE THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE, FEBRUARY 10, 2004

"Kosovo's Serbian Orthodox have become second-class citizens in their own country, deprived of their basic human rights. Under the eye of tens of thousands of NATO troops, including Americans, over 115 churches and monasteries have been leveled. The situation is intolerable and it is happening under our watch. Two-thirds of the pre-war Kosovo Serbian Orthodox population has been cleansed from the province, their homes burnt to the ground. And thousands have been murdered. Those Orthodox who remain live in ghettos."

http://wwwa.house.gov/international_relations/108/gri021004.htm

Violence was Unprovoked

NO SERBS INVOLVED IN DROWNING: UNMIK

"Wednesday UNMIK spokesman Derek Chappell said tonight that the survivor of yesterday's Ibar River drowning has told his parents that he and three friends entered the river alone and were immediately caught up in the heavy current."

http://www.b92.net/english/news/index.php?&nav_category=&nav_id=27522&order=priority&style=headline

'NO PROOF' FOR CHILD DROWNING TALE

"Investigators in Kosovo had not been able to confirm claims that Serb attackers drowned three children in a river, thus sparking the latest inter-ethnic violence in the province, a UN official said today."

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9032128%255E1702,00.html

Responsibility

AN OPEN LETTER TO BAJRAM REXHEPI, PRIME MINISTER OF THE PROVISIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT OF KOSOVO

"Serbian villages across Kosovo are in flames, and a raging mob is set to destroy orthodox churches as symbols of the Serbian presence in Kosovo. Their acts are disgraceful, but so is the absence of clear and unequivocal condemnation of the anti-Serb violence by the Kosovo Albanian leadership. Shifting the blame to the other side, and attempts to exploit the escalation of ethnic violence to further the political cause of the majority population, are unacceptable."

http://assembly.coe.int/

KOSOVARS BURY THEIR DEAD AS UN TROOPS BLAMED FOR FAILING TO STOP ETHNIC RIOTS

"Fresh questions were being raised, however, about why the international force in the former Yugoslav province had allowed the systematic ethnic cleansing to take place, with troops and police accused of simply watching while Albanian mobs drove out Serbian residents and ransacked and burnt their properties."

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=503710

Kosovo: One Year Later

Nearly one year after NATO first intervened in Kosovo, it appears the alliance has failed to fulfill its chief objectives, both in waging the war and keeping the peace. Increasingly, Kosovo seems beyond the alliance’s control as crime, weapons and drug trafficking resurface. Alliance forces are now on the defensive against former allies within the ethnic Albanian community; the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) now appear to hold positions of considerable power. Nine months after the war, the West faces a choice. It can increase its grip on Kosovo, committing more troops and confronting the KLA, or the alliance can resign itself to losing control of Kosovo.

http://www.stratfor.com/CIS/specialreports/special26.htm

Where Are Kosovo’s Killing Fields?

"During its four-month war against Yugoslavia, NATO argued that Kosovo was a land wracked by mass murder; official estimates indicated that some 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed in a Serb rampage of ethnic cleansing. Yet four months into an international investigation, bodies numbering only in the hundreds have been exhumed. The FBI has found fewer than 200. Piecing together the evidence, it appears that the number of civilian ethnic Albanians killed is far less than was claimed. While new findings could invalidate this view, evidence of mass murder has not yet materialized on the scale used to justify the war. This could have serious foreign policy and political implications for NATO and alliance governments."

http://www.stratfor.com

Some Ethical Aspects on NATO's Intervention in Kosovo; Part A

Perhaps the biggest lie in all this was the statement that ‘we are not at war with the Yugoslav people.’ But NATO destroyed 300 factories and refineries, 190 educational establishments, 20 hospitals, 30 clinics, 60 bridges, 5 airports; it killed at least 2,000 civilians and wounded 6,000 and many will die and suffer because of the health infrastructure destruction. To this you may add the sanctions since 1991 and the burden of more than 700.000 refugees from other republics and now from Kosovo. Only 12-15 tanks of 300 main battle tanks and some planes were destroyed, the rest seem to have been dummies!

http://www.transnational.org/

Western Policy Toward Serbia Has Been Biased

By Malcolm Fraser, © International Herald Tribune, 10/22/99

"The West’s mistakes against Yugoslavia were not only military. Diplomacy was conducted without finesse. People who did not understand the Balkans put together a plan and summoned the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Yugoslav government to Rambouillet in France. There was no negotiation. This diplomatic initiative seemed designed to provide an excuse for war."

http://www.iht.com

NATO’s reputation a casualty of war

By Peter Worthington, © Toronto Sun, 11/18/99

"It’s now irrefutable that ‘humanitarian bombing’ (an obscene perversion of language) ostensibly to save Albanians from being ‘ethnically cleansed’ actually triggered cleansing (refugees) and atrocities. Our leaders invoked images of ‘genocide’ and ‘mass graves’ to justify the war. Albanian refugees got (comparatively) lavish treatment. Guilt opened Western wallets."

http://canoe.cedrom-sni.com/scripts/cshtml.exe?TO_PAGE=canoe/cs/search

Kosovo’s Killers

From the foreword of the OSCE report: "The human rights violations ... for the period June-October 1999 include executions, abductions, torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, arbitrary arrests and attempts to restrict freedom of expression. House burnings, blockades restricting freedom of movement, discriminatory treatment in schools, hospitals, humanitarian aid distribution and other public services based on ethnic background, and forced evictions from housing recall some of the worst practices of Kosovo’s recent past."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-adv/archives/front.htm

Ten-Year Chapter Of Errors; Mixed motives in the Balkans

By Xavier Bougarel, Le Monde diplomatique, September 1999

In organising the Rambouillet conference, Western diplomats prided themselves on having learned the lessons of the Dayton accords and earlier Yugoslav conflicts. But as things have turned out, far from repeating the triumph of Dayton, they have merely reproduced the disaster of Lisbon - in other words, one of those artificially engineered peace agreements that precipitate the conflict they are intended to prevent.

http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/

The Media And The Kosovo Crisis

by Philip Hammond, www.beograd.com

"The media have played a key role in sustaining the idea of a ‘humanitarian’ foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Complex conflicts have been simplified into epic battles between Good and Evil; enemies have been demonised; and the Western powers have been lionised as heroic saviours of the world."

Download the article here.

Kosovo: Some call it victory

By Lorrie Goldstein, © Toronto Sun, 10/27/99

"If all Serbs are monsters as some in the West seem intent upon portraying them, why has there been no Serb-inspired terrorism against the NATO countries that led the air war?"

http://canoe.cedrom-sni.com/scripts/cshtml.exe?TO_PAGE=canoe/cs/search

Curbing Revenge; Preparing to break the violent cycle in Kosovo groups like UNICEF are developing programs to keep young Albanians from avenging Serbs

By Michael J. Jordan, © The Christian Science Monitor, 12/08/99

According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Kosovo saw widespread lawlessness in its first four months as a UN protectorate. There were 348 murders, 116 kidnappings, 1,070 lootings, and 1,106 cases of arson. The UN police have repeatedly requested that their force be beefed up.

http://www.csmonitor.com/

Essential Public Policy Points Relating to the ISSA Mission to Yugoslavia

April 18-21, 1999

"The International Strategic Studies Association organized a fact-finding mission from Washington DC to Yugoslavia on April 18-21, 1999. The purpose was for the Association and a key US Congressman to determine to a greater extent factors important to future policymaking with regard to the war being prosecuted against Yugoslavia. ISSA worked with a Yugoslav NGO, the Institute for Geopolitical Studies, in facilitating the mission."

http://www.strategicstudies.org/conflict/kosovo.htm

Kosovo: Where Do We Go From Here?

To know what ought to be done next in Kosovo, we must know what has been done up to now. While this may sound obvious, nothing regarding American involvement in the Balkans should be taken for granted. The entire operation has had a certain Alice in Wonderland quality, often defying even rudimentary logic. So a logical assessment of how the United States came to be involved in this latest Balkan quagmire is essential if America is to once again develop a foreign policy that serves its basic interests.

Needed: More intelligent intelligence

By Craig Eisendrath

1999 Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nov 1999

ON MAY 7, AT THE PEAK OF the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia, U.S. B-2 bombers hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists, injuring 20 staff members, and wrecking the embassy. The Chinese government charged that the bombing was intentional.

On June 17, following an interagency investigation, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas R. Pickering explained in a hand-wringing briefing to the Chinese leadership in Beijing that the bombing had been a "terrible mistake" resulting from a series of "tragic errors."

Assuming that Pickering’s summary of how the United States came to bomb the embassy of the world’s most populous nation was accurate, it was a jarring wake-up call. The bombing was simply one more destructive failure in a long string of U.S. intelligence failures.

The Joyless Victory

A Survey of Recent Articles

1999 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

The Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 1999

When NATO’s war over Kosovo ended last June with the saving appearance of victory and not a single American life lost, there was, curiously, no sense of triumph among Americans: no jubilation, no parades, no boost in the polls for President Bill Clinton. Was this because of general indifference to events in the Balkans - or widespread suspicion that the victory was hollow?

The bombs that failed in Kosovo(evaluation after-the-fact shows many flaws in bomb campaign)

By Richard J. Newman, © U.S. News & World Report, Sept 20, 1999

It was a rare moment of euphoria for fatigued NATO staffers. As two B-52 bombers lumbered over southwest Kosovo on June 8, war planners at NATO’s operations center in Vicenza, Italy, gazed hopefully at a live video feed from an unmanned spy plane circling over suspected Serbian troop lines. As 37 bombs dropped by the jets began to explode, "they were whooping and hollering," says Col. Floyd Carpenter, operations group commander for the 5^th Bomb Wing, who was on the phone to Vicenza at the time. Initial reports estimated 800 dead Serbian troops. A day later Yugoslavia agreed to withdraw all its forces from Kosovo.

The strikes appeared to have been the decisive blow NATO had been hoping for—until NATO analysts inspected the area from helicopters hovering 50 feet off the ground. There were plenty of bomb craters, sure enough. But investigators "saw nothing," according to a NATO official, "that would indicate that kind of devastation"—such as scattered personal effects. "Unless Hazel came in with her broom and cleaned things up," he insists, "nothing serious was destroyed in the area."

What I learned from the War(NATO-Yugoslavia conflict, 1999)

By Dennis J. Kucinich, © The Progressive, August 1999

Bombing Yugoslavia was the wrong way to approach the conflict in Kosovo. It brought only a false peace. NATO should have gotten approval from the United Nations and the Congress of the United States should reclaim its authority to declare war. Society should also energize the peace movement.

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