> Women Against Military Madness
> Yugoslavia Committee
> Minneapolis, MN
> wamm@...
>
> February 28, 2001
>
> The propaganda war against the Serbs and Yugoslavia
> came home to Minnesota Public Radio on January 25.
> MPR’s documentary division American RadioWorks,
> broadcast a gruesome account of an alleged Serbian
> attempt to cover-up their war crimes. Serbian
> soldiers, using first names only, told us in grisly
> detail that in the summer of 1999 they dug up 1500
> ethnic Albanians massacred by Serbs and in the dead of
> night transported them to a lead mine in Trepca, a
> mine complex near Mitrovica in northern Kosovo. There
> the soldiers ground up the bodies and incinerated them
> in furnaces so hot there is no trace left except for
> amazingly, a pile of women and children’s clothing.
> The piece “The Promise of Justice: Burning the
> Evidence” by reporters Michael Montgomery and Stephen
> Smith for American RadioWorks was widely publicized,
> run nationally several times and reported in many
> newspapers.
>
> Hardly reported was the statement the next day by OSCE
> (Organization for European Cooperation and Security)
> spokeswoman Claire Trevena refuting the RadioWorks
> report. She said they’d heard the stories in 1999
> during the bombing (including the one circulated by
> the US government that 700 bodies had been burned.
> Notice the inflation of numbers in the MPR report) and
> investigated the site at that time. A French forensic
> team with sophisticated equipment found no evidence of
> remains nor evidence to substantiate the story. Smith
> and Montgomery did not interview anyone from the OSCE.
>
> Another glaring and important problem with the report
> is that the mines and furnaces at Trepca shut down two
> weeks after the bombing began in March 1999 well
> before the alleged cover up occurred the summer of
> 1999. The report can be discredited on this fact
> alone.
>
> It withers even more under a little scrutiny. The “eye
> witness’s” who said they committed the crime claimed
> to be members of an elite division of the Serbian
> army. They indicated no remorse. Why would they give
> information so devastating that would lead to
> indictment of themselves and their colleagues?
>
> How could such a large operation have gone unimpeded
> by the US/NATO which had Kosovo under total
> surveillance at the time. For that matter, why would
> anyone take the time and trouble to strip decomposing
> bodies only to leave a pile of clothes as evidence.
>
> The numbers don’t add up. In July 1999, the
> International Red Cross (ICRC) produced a
> comprehensive list of 3300 Kosovo residents including
> Albanians, Serbs and Romas missing and unaccounted for
> between September l998 and July 1999. They determined
> most had been missing before the beginning of the
> bombing. The ICRC estimated that several hundred Serbs
> had been kidnapped and by the KLA (Kosovo Liberation
> Army) and are presumed dead. 2200 were KLA suspects
> put into Yugoslav jails in an effort to suppress the
> Albanian independence movement. Subtract the several
> dozen KLA members killed off by their own leaders as
> reported by NY Times reporter Chris Hedges. The number
> is well below 1000 and below the 1500 claimed in the
> report.
>
> The impartiality of Smith and Montgomery is
> questionable. Could they have been influenced by their
> positions as consultants to the Independent
> International Commission on Kosovo which was set up by
> the governments of NATO at the instigation of George
> Soros (well known KLA supporter) and Kofi Annan,
> Secretary General of the UN. It is also noteworthy
> that Kevin Close, president of NPR came to the network
> from Radio Free Europe/America , propaganda arm of the
> state department.
>
> This piece of journalism is the latest example in a
> long list used to demonize the Serbs and Yugoslavia.
> Often official investigations prove they are untrue
> but the damage is done and the correction is under
> reported.
>
> This was the case with the release of another report
> the same week. A Finnish forensic team found there was
> no evidence that 42 ethnic Albanians had been
> massacred in the village of Racak, Kosovo in March
> 1999. This was the allegation by the then head of the
> OSCE William Walker (infamous for his protection of
> death squads in El Salvador) The massacre was reported
> world wide at the time and was the excuse to begin the
> bombing; the Tonkin Bay of the war against Yugoslavia.
> The investigation was completed two years ago but the
> results were kept secret by the UN and the EU(European
> Union) until now.
>
> Coincidentally and ironically, the very day the MPR
> report aired, Yugoslavia President Kostunica sent
> Carla del Ponte, prosecutor at the UN’s International
> Criminal Tribunal on war crimes in the former
> Yugoslavia, packing with her list of secret
> indictments against Milosovic and demands he be
> extradited to the Hague. Testimony at the WAMM War
> Crimes Hearing on Yugoslavia in March 2000 revealed
> the Hague tribunal is a kangaroo court, financed and
> controlled by the US.
>
> The US government is also contending with the growing
> furor in Europe over the use of depleted uranium (DU)
> munitions in Bosnia and Kosovo and the alarming
> incidence of illness among soldiers stationed in those
> areas. The growing movement calling for the ban of
> these weapons threatens US/NATO solidarity. The policy
> makers must also be concerned US public opinion will
> grow against the presence of US troops in the area.
> The RadioWorks piece momentarily distracted the public
> from this knowledge.
>
> MPR must be held accountable for their part in the
> ongoing destruction and occupation of Yugoslavia,
> their unethical reporting of the news and their lack
> of coverage of what is happening in Yugoslavia.
>
> As sidebars for further information check out websites
> antiwar.com emperors-clothes.com and iacenter.com

---

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