ANOTHER CASE OF MASS DECEPTION
1. WEAK CASE AGAINST MILOSEVIC HAS HAGUE IN 'A PANIC' Massacres in
Kosovo never happened, say Canadians who investigated mass graves
(Bruce Garvey)
2. ANOTHER CASE OF MASS DECEPTION? In Iraq, it's the missing mass
weapons of destruction. In Kosovo, it's the missing mass graves
(Lawrence Martin)
=== 1 ===
The Ottawa Citizen
August 29, 2004
WEAK CASE AGAINST MILOSEVIC HAS HAGUE IN 'A PANIC'
Massacres in Kosovo never happened, say Canadians who investigated mass
graves
Bruce Garvey
The war crimes tribunal in The Hague is "beginning to panic" over its
case against former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic according to a
Vancouver detective sent to unearth mass graves in Kosovo and a
Canadian filmmaker who documented the exhumations.
"I would think they'll have a tough time with the charge of genocide
with only 5,000 bodies," said retired Vancouver detective sergeant
Brian Honeybourn. "It seems as though The Hague is beginning to panic."
Mr. Milosevic's trial is to resume next week with the former Serbian
dictator defending himself against charges of genocide and crimes
against humanity. Former Canadian Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour
made history when she laid the charges -- the first against a head of
state -- as the tribunal's special prosecutor.
Calgary filmmaker Garth Pritchard and Sgt. Honeybourn are critical of
Ms. Arbour, now UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and her claims
that the Serbs, directed by Mr. Milosevic, murdered as many as 200,000
civilians during its ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.
The alleged massacres were used by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright and Western leaders as justification for their bombing
campaign and intervention in Kosovo, and were regularly and routinely
reported as fact on television networks such as the CBC and CNN, as the
West backed the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) against the Serbs.
"This was a massacre that never happened," Mr. Pritchard maintains.
"I was standing there when the forensic teams were telling Louise
Arbour there were no 200,000 bodies and she didn't want to know."
Mr. Pritchard, who has produced more than a dozen documentaries on the
Balkan and Afghan wars, said yesterday he has been approached by Hague
prosecutors to testify in their case against Mr. Milosevic after
turning down a request to appear as a defence witness for the former
president.
"I was telephoned by an RCMP officer seconded to the Hague tribunal's
investigative unit, a corporal named Tom Steenvoorden, who told me the
total number of bodies they have recovered amounts to 5,080, which is a
far cry from 200,000," he told the Citizen.
"I want someone like Peter Mansbridge or Ms. Arbour to tell me where
the other 195,000 bodies are. This is a massacre that never happened."
Mr. Pritchard said he refused to co-operate with the Hague prosecutors,
just as he had with representatives of Mr. Milosevic.
Other Canadians who have been named as potential defence witnesses
include Citizen reporter David Pugliese and retired Maj.-Gen Lewis
MacKenzie, who have both said they will refuse, and war correspondent
and magazine publisher Scott Taylor, who has agreed to defend articles
he wrote for the Citizen from Kosovo.
Sgt. Honeybourn and forensic team leader Brian Strongman echoed Mr.
Pritchard's doubts that the genocidal massacre by the Serbs ever took
place.
"I can't say that there weren't 200,000 bodies because I wasn't
covering the entire country," said Sgt. Honeybourn.
"But I never saw any sign of anything like 200,000. If there were that
many, then why did they have us exhuming single graves? The biggest
mass grave we examined contained about 20 and there was another one of
11. But mostly our nine-member team worked on single graves."
Mr. Strongman said he recalls that exhumations by the Canadian group
and 11 other international teams never matched the "rumours" of mass
graves holding the bodies of many thousands.
"We only spent 45 days there," he said, "but I believe the largest mass
grave we investigated held 20 bodies. I was in Bosnia and remember one
mass grave that held 200 -- certainly we never saw anything like that
in Kosovo. Of course, Louise Arbour and people had to talk about
figures like 200,000 to justify bringing in NATO."
Sgt. Honeybourn, a veteran of more than 30 years of police work, was a
member of the first Canadian forensic specialist team that joined units
from several western countries in the search for the alleged 200,000
buried victims.
Now he maintains that the Hague staff under Ms. Arbour was confused and
incompetent.
"Our resources were not maximized, simple as that," he said. "There
seemed to be a pronounced lack of co-ordination, which was extremely
frustrating. I don't think we were deployed properly."
In the six weeks Sgt. Honeybourn spent digging up fetid graves in
Kosovo during the sweltering summer of 1999, the Canadian team exhumed
86 bodies.
Outside of being able to give information to family members of bodies
they exhumed and identified, he regarded the mission, which cost Canada
more than $1.2 million, as an investigative failure and "a waste of
time."
=== 2 ===
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Globe&Mail
TODAY'S PAPER
Another case of mass deception?
By LAWRENCE MARTIN
Thursday, September 2, 2004 - Page A17
Where are the bodies? Was the other big war of the last decade, Kosovo
in 1999, triggered by bogus allegations as well? Another case of mass
deception?
In Iraq, it's the missing mass weapons of destruction. In Kosovo, it's
the missing mass graves.
In alleged ethnic cleansing exercises by Serbian leader Slobodan
Milosevic, as many as 100,000 to 200,000 civilians were said to have
gone missing or been killed in Kosovo, many of them buried in mass
graves. Members of a Canadian forensic team to the Serbian province
have come forward to label the numbers nonsense. No mass graves, they
say, and, on both the Albanian and Serb sides, only a few thousand
dead. A mockery of the numbers used to justify the war.
In The Hague this week, the war-crimes tribunal reopened with Mr.
Milosevic's calling the genocide charges against him a lie and a
treacherous distortion of history. He may well be the treacherous
distorter. If his Serb armies weren't guilty as charged in Kosovo,
there was his past record of bloodshed to consider. As someone wrote,
Kosovo for Mr. Milosevic was like tax evasion for Al Capone: something
they could nail him on.
But that doesn't excuse going to war on the basis of flim-flam. The
Kosovo story has etchings of Iraq all over it. The United States (the
Democrats this time) and Britain (Tony Blair again) demonize an enemy
with fraudulent accusations. They play the gullible media, Canada's
included, like a violin.
The latest person to debunk the genocide numbers is retired Vancouver
homicide detective Brian Honeybourn, a member of the forensic team. He
told The Ottawa Citizen this week that his nine-member group found
mainly single graves, with a couple of exceptions being one of 20
bodies and another 11. He wonders how genocide charges against Mr.
Milosevic can stand up. "It seems as though The Hague is beginning to
panic."
Garth Pritchard, a Canadian filmmaker, accompanied the forensic team to
Kosovo. "This was a massacre that never happened." He joined mission
leader Brian Strongman in lambasting Canadian Louise Arbour, the
special prosecutor for the tribunal that brought the charges against
Mr. Milosevic. Ms. Arbour, now the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights, was used as a pawn by war-hungry Washington and London,
they said. "I was standing there when the forensic teams were telling
Louise Arbour there were no 200,000 bodies and she didn't want to
know," Mr. Pritchard told the Citizen.
Ms. Arbour's career path lit up after her war-crimes work. She was
appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, then to her UN post.
The findings, or non-findings, of the Canadian forensic team are
consistent with those of other teams of experts sent over since the war
ended. At the time of the conflict, James Bissett, a former Canadian
ambassador to Yugoslavia, and Lewis MacKenzie, a major-general with a
wealth of experience in the Balkan theatre, took issue with the tales
being spun. But they, as well as some voices in the media, were drowned
out by the drumbeat of war.
U.S. defence secretary William Cohen was alleging that as many as
100,000 Albanian Kosovars had gone missing. Mr. Blair, in a preview of
his comportment on Iraq, was crying horror upon horror. President Bill
Clinton wanted to shift the focus off his domestic problems -- Monica
Lewinsky etc. -- and was gung-ho for a NATO invasion.
Looking back a couple of years after the conflict, defence minister Art
Eggleton acknowledged that the propaganda coming out of the Pentagon
was extraordinary. But the Chrétien Liberals, on close terms with the
Clinton Democrats, weren't about to buck the White House on Kosovo, as
they would on Iraq. The allies were all on board for an attack, making
it extremely unlikely that Canada would be the odd one out.
But having everybody in the wagon doesn't excuse what happened. If the
forensic teams' stories are correct, the missing dead in Kosovo is
indeed a scandal comparable to the absence of WMD in Iraq. In a
five-year period, political leaders twice duped their populations into
going to war.
1. WEAK CASE AGAINST MILOSEVIC HAS HAGUE IN 'A PANIC' Massacres in
Kosovo never happened, say Canadians who investigated mass graves
(Bruce Garvey)
2. ANOTHER CASE OF MASS DECEPTION? In Iraq, it's the missing mass
weapons of destruction. In Kosovo, it's the missing mass graves
(Lawrence Martin)
=== 1 ===
The Ottawa Citizen
August 29, 2004
WEAK CASE AGAINST MILOSEVIC HAS HAGUE IN 'A PANIC'
Massacres in Kosovo never happened, say Canadians who investigated mass
graves
Bruce Garvey
The war crimes tribunal in The Hague is "beginning to panic" over its
case against former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic according to a
Vancouver detective sent to unearth mass graves in Kosovo and a
Canadian filmmaker who documented the exhumations.
"I would think they'll have a tough time with the charge of genocide
with only 5,000 bodies," said retired Vancouver detective sergeant
Brian Honeybourn. "It seems as though The Hague is beginning to panic."
Mr. Milosevic's trial is to resume next week with the former Serbian
dictator defending himself against charges of genocide and crimes
against humanity. Former Canadian Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour
made history when she laid the charges -- the first against a head of
state -- as the tribunal's special prosecutor.
Calgary filmmaker Garth Pritchard and Sgt. Honeybourn are critical of
Ms. Arbour, now UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and her claims
that the Serbs, directed by Mr. Milosevic, murdered as many as 200,000
civilians during its ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.
The alleged massacres were used by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright and Western leaders as justification for their bombing
campaign and intervention in Kosovo, and were regularly and routinely
reported as fact on television networks such as the CBC and CNN, as the
West backed the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) against the Serbs.
"This was a massacre that never happened," Mr. Pritchard maintains.
"I was standing there when the forensic teams were telling Louise
Arbour there were no 200,000 bodies and she didn't want to know."
Mr. Pritchard, who has produced more than a dozen documentaries on the
Balkan and Afghan wars, said yesterday he has been approached by Hague
prosecutors to testify in their case against Mr. Milosevic after
turning down a request to appear as a defence witness for the former
president.
"I was telephoned by an RCMP officer seconded to the Hague tribunal's
investigative unit, a corporal named Tom Steenvoorden, who told me the
total number of bodies they have recovered amounts to 5,080, which is a
far cry from 200,000," he told the Citizen.
"I want someone like Peter Mansbridge or Ms. Arbour to tell me where
the other 195,000 bodies are. This is a massacre that never happened."
Mr. Pritchard said he refused to co-operate with the Hague prosecutors,
just as he had with representatives of Mr. Milosevic.
Other Canadians who have been named as potential defence witnesses
include Citizen reporter David Pugliese and retired Maj.-Gen Lewis
MacKenzie, who have both said they will refuse, and war correspondent
and magazine publisher Scott Taylor, who has agreed to defend articles
he wrote for the Citizen from Kosovo.
Sgt. Honeybourn and forensic team leader Brian Strongman echoed Mr.
Pritchard's doubts that the genocidal massacre by the Serbs ever took
place.
"I can't say that there weren't 200,000 bodies because I wasn't
covering the entire country," said Sgt. Honeybourn.
"But I never saw any sign of anything like 200,000. If there were that
many, then why did they have us exhuming single graves? The biggest
mass grave we examined contained about 20 and there was another one of
11. But mostly our nine-member team worked on single graves."
Mr. Strongman said he recalls that exhumations by the Canadian group
and 11 other international teams never matched the "rumours" of mass
graves holding the bodies of many thousands.
"We only spent 45 days there," he said, "but I believe the largest mass
grave we investigated held 20 bodies. I was in Bosnia and remember one
mass grave that held 200 -- certainly we never saw anything like that
in Kosovo. Of course, Louise Arbour and people had to talk about
figures like 200,000 to justify bringing in NATO."
Sgt. Honeybourn, a veteran of more than 30 years of police work, was a
member of the first Canadian forensic specialist team that joined units
from several western countries in the search for the alleged 200,000
buried victims.
Now he maintains that the Hague staff under Ms. Arbour was confused and
incompetent.
"Our resources were not maximized, simple as that," he said. "There
seemed to be a pronounced lack of co-ordination, which was extremely
frustrating. I don't think we were deployed properly."
In the six weeks Sgt. Honeybourn spent digging up fetid graves in
Kosovo during the sweltering summer of 1999, the Canadian team exhumed
86 bodies.
Outside of being able to give information to family members of bodies
they exhumed and identified, he regarded the mission, which cost Canada
more than $1.2 million, as an investigative failure and "a waste of
time."
=== 2 ===
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0902-02.htm
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/
20040902/COMA
RTIN02/TPComment/TopStories
Globe&Mail
TODAY'S PAPER
Another case of mass deception?
By LAWRENCE MARTIN
Thursday, September 2, 2004 - Page A17
Where are the bodies? Was the other big war of the last decade, Kosovo
in 1999, triggered by bogus allegations as well? Another case of mass
deception?
In Iraq, it's the missing mass weapons of destruction. In Kosovo, it's
the missing mass graves.
In alleged ethnic cleansing exercises by Serbian leader Slobodan
Milosevic, as many as 100,000 to 200,000 civilians were said to have
gone missing or been killed in Kosovo, many of them buried in mass
graves. Members of a Canadian forensic team to the Serbian province
have come forward to label the numbers nonsense. No mass graves, they
say, and, on both the Albanian and Serb sides, only a few thousand
dead. A mockery of the numbers used to justify the war.
In The Hague this week, the war-crimes tribunal reopened with Mr.
Milosevic's calling the genocide charges against him a lie and a
treacherous distortion of history. He may well be the treacherous
distorter. If his Serb armies weren't guilty as charged in Kosovo,
there was his past record of bloodshed to consider. As someone wrote,
Kosovo for Mr. Milosevic was like tax evasion for Al Capone: something
they could nail him on.
But that doesn't excuse going to war on the basis of flim-flam. The
Kosovo story has etchings of Iraq all over it. The United States (the
Democrats this time) and Britain (Tony Blair again) demonize an enemy
with fraudulent accusations. They play the gullible media, Canada's
included, like a violin.
The latest person to debunk the genocide numbers is retired Vancouver
homicide detective Brian Honeybourn, a member of the forensic team. He
told The Ottawa Citizen this week that his nine-member group found
mainly single graves, with a couple of exceptions being one of 20
bodies and another 11. He wonders how genocide charges against Mr.
Milosevic can stand up. "It seems as though The Hague is beginning to
panic."
Garth Pritchard, a Canadian filmmaker, accompanied the forensic team to
Kosovo. "This was a massacre that never happened." He joined mission
leader Brian Strongman in lambasting Canadian Louise Arbour, the
special prosecutor for the tribunal that brought the charges against
Mr. Milosevic. Ms. Arbour, now the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights, was used as a pawn by war-hungry Washington and London,
they said. "I was standing there when the forensic teams were telling
Louise Arbour there were no 200,000 bodies and she didn't want to
know," Mr. Pritchard told the Citizen.
Ms. Arbour's career path lit up after her war-crimes work. She was
appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, then to her UN post.
The findings, or non-findings, of the Canadian forensic team are
consistent with those of other teams of experts sent over since the war
ended. At the time of the conflict, James Bissett, a former Canadian
ambassador to Yugoslavia, and Lewis MacKenzie, a major-general with a
wealth of experience in the Balkan theatre, took issue with the tales
being spun. But they, as well as some voices in the media, were drowned
out by the drumbeat of war.
U.S. defence secretary William Cohen was alleging that as many as
100,000 Albanian Kosovars had gone missing. Mr. Blair, in a preview of
his comportment on Iraq, was crying horror upon horror. President Bill
Clinton wanted to shift the focus off his domestic problems -- Monica
Lewinsky etc. -- and was gung-ho for a NATO invasion.
Looking back a couple of years after the conflict, defence minister Art
Eggleton acknowledged that the propaganda coming out of the Pentagon
was extraordinary. But the Chrétien Liberals, on close terms with the
Clinton Democrats, weren't about to buck the White House on Kosovo, as
they would on Iraq. The allies were all on board for an attack, making
it extremely unlikely that Canada would be the odd one out.
But having everybody in the wagon doesn't excuse what happened. If the
forensic teams' stories are correct, the missing dead in Kosovo is
indeed a scandal comparable to the absence of WMD in Iraq. In a
five-year period, political leaders twice duped their populations into
going to war.