Scharping's Lies Won't Last
http://www.artel.co.yu/en/izbor/yu_kriza/2003-10-02_2.html
By Thomas Deichmann
Translated from German by Matthias Gockel.
April 1999
Thomas Deichmann is editor of Novo magazine (www.novo-magazin.de) and a
free lance journalist based in Frankfurt. He is co-editor with Klaus
Bittermann of 'Wie Dr. Joseph Fischer lernte, die Bombe zu lieben'
(Edition Tiamat, Berlin 1999) and editor of 'Noch einmal für
Jugoslawien: Peter Handke' (Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt 1999).
Deichmann's article 'The picture that fooled the world' about a
misleading TV image from Trnopolje camp was printed in Ramsey Clark et
al: 'NATO in the Balkans. Voices of Opposition', International Action
Centre, New York 1998. Deichmann's study of Roy Gutman's war reporting
appeared under the title 'The Pulitzer Price and Croatian Propaganda'
in 'War Lies & Videotape. How Media Monopoly stifles truth',
International Action Centre, New York 2000.
Deichmann can be contacted at: Thomas.Deichmann@....
For the German political elite, the war against Yugoslavia signaled an
important break with the past, since moral and political renunciation
of militarism had characterized political culture in Germany for more
than half a century since the end of World War II. Accepting a call to
arms still was no routine occurance, especially since the attack was
directed against a country that had suffered immensely from the brutal
onslaught of German fascism 60 years ago. That this military campaign
took place in violation of international law and the German
constitution, both regulative foundations formulated in response to the
crimes of Nazism, complicated matters even further. Moreover, the first
marching orders for German soldiers came from parties commonly
identified with the liberal traditions of the Federal Republic of
Germany. The Social Democrat Rudolf Scharping and Green Party Foreign
Minister Joschka Fischer took on the task of justifying German
participation in this war of aggression. During the Bosnian war,
Fischer, while still in the opposition, had argued against sending
German troops into the Balkans, precisely by reference to the Holocaust.
The German Socialdemocratic Party (SPD) had fewer problems with
pacifist attitudes in its ranks. It faced a different problem. After
the German general elections in fall 1998, when the SPD and the Green
Party (Buendnis'90/Die Gruenen) were setting out with their new
coalition government, they were under harsh criticism. It became clear
soon that the hype of the election campaign in 1998 had concealed a
rather fumbling bunch of Chancelor Gerhard Schroerder's new government
leaders. The war against Yugoslavia offered the government an ideal
opportunity to leave its domestic problems behind and emerge with a new
image. Certainly, the decision to enter the war was not made just with
this goal in mind, but the disastrous condition of Schroeder's team was
an important underlying consideration during the deliberations about
the deployment of the Bundeswehr.
This background led to overreactions that often not merely bordered
fanaticism. The rhetoric of the Holocaust was deployed in Germany more
than any other western country to endow the NATO attack on Serbia and
German participation in it with moral legitimacy. Scharping followed up
with one horror-story with the next and constructed countless analogies
between Serbia and the Third Reich.
LIE MACHINE
A massive public relations campaign prepared and accompanied the German
armed forces' participation in the NATO campaign. German Defense
Minister Scharping became the tireless prime mover of this German war
propaganda. His book 'Wir duerfen nicht wegsehen. Der Kosovo-Krieg und
Europa' ['We can not look away. The Kosovo War and Europe'] (Berlin
1999), which was published a few months after the conflict, quite
openly discloses the scale of the lies and deception Scharping employed
to justify the military campaign against Yugoslavia. For example, we
find the following account in Scharping's 270-page work:
'Shall we overlook all the slaughter that is happening there? Are all
the stories that people tell us no more than invention and propaganda:
that corpses are destroyed with baseball-bats and that their limbs or
heads are cut off? … it seems that human beings in a frenzy can commit
any bestiality, playing soccer with heads that were cut off, tearing
apart corpses, cutting fetuses out of the womb of women who were
killed.' (p.125)
Many reports Scharping presented in this context even during the war
could not stand up to scrutiny. Many allegations were, sooner or later,
unmasked either as misrepresentation or attempts at manipulation - yet
they are included in his book without the slightest amendment or
qualification.
1. Concentration Camps in Pristina
'Allegedly, Albanians are held in the stadium of Pristina. Parts of the
stadium have a basement. There are several small shops below the
spectator stands, which offer space for several thousand people. The
first Albanians were reportedly brought into the stadium on April 1.'
(Entry of April 19, 1999, p.128)
At the outset of the war, Scharping mentions 'serious evidence of
concentration camps in Kosovo'. He adds: 'I say concentration camp on
purpose'. Scharping believes that the soccer-stadium of Pristina was
converted into a Serb-run concentration camp holding 100,000 people.
This claim originated from the KLA (as did the report that influential
Kosovo-Albanian intellectuals were systematically killed by the Serb
military). Scharping nonetheless treated it as though it were
indisputable fact. Yet some days later, several persons who had
allegedly been killed, reappeared. Pictures taken from German
surveillance planes refute the claim that a concentration camp existed
in the stadium of Pristina. Still, there were no retractions, and
concentration camp stories continued to circulate.
2. Operation Horseshoe
'From Joschka [J. Fischer, German Foreign Minister] I receive a paper
that stems from intelligence sources and proves that 'Operation
Horseshoe' was prepared and executed by the Yugoslav Army... An
evaluation of the operation-plan 'Horseshoe' exists. Now we have proof
that a systematic cleansing of Kosovo and the deportation of the
Kosovo-Albanians were already planned in December 1998.' (Entries of
April 5 and 7, 1999, pp.102 & 107)
While other German politicians showed some restraint in using the term
'genocide' in relation to events in Kosovo, Scharping continues to
repeat his thesis that a genocide in Kosovo was 'not only prepared',
but systematically planned, and 'in fact is already happening' (p.84).
To support these claims, he presents dubious documents about an
operation-plan allegedly named 'Horseshoe' in early April, claiming
that operation maps would prove that genocidal plans for the ethnic
cleansing of Kosovo already existed in 1998 and were now awaiting final
execution.
Some months later it was revealed that these documents were false.
According to press reports they came from the German and the Austrian
Secret Services. It is striking that Scharping's propaganda experts
used the Croatian translation of the word 'horseshoe', which is
Potkova, instead of its Serbian translation Potkovica.
Yet in spring 2000 Mr. Scharping still insists on the authenticity of
the documents in question and proudly explains to the press that he
passed all evidence in his possession to the United Nations
International War Crimes Tribunal (ICTY) in The Hague for use by the
prosecution. But the ICTY stated in response to media inquiries that it
would not allow Mr. Scharping's 'Operation Horseshoe' documents as
evidence, because of their unclear sources.
3. Killing Fields and Mountains of Corpses
'The brutality escalates, the refugees literally walk along mountains
of corpses. An old fear comes to my mind: This criminal wants a
cease-fire in the graveyard.' (Entry of April 29, 1999, p.141)
The warring NATO-countries justify the ongoing bombing campaign with
the claim that it would stop 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosovo. NATO speaker
Jamie Shea compares Kosovo with the 'Killing Fields' of Cambodia, and
Mr. Scharping speaks of 'mountains of corpses'. Estimates of the
numbers of Kosovo-Albanians allegedly killed and buried in mass graves
by Serbian soldiers increases continuously. In early April, the
US-State Department puts out the figure of 500,000. On April 18, David
Scheffer, US-Ambassador for War Crimes, says that possibly up to
100,000 Albanians were killed. On the next day, Jamie Rubin, the
speaker of the State Department, repeats this speculative number:
'Based on past practice, it is chilling to think where those 100,000
men are.' One month later, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen guesses:
'We've now seen about 100.000 military-aged men missing... They may
have been murdered' (Washington Post, May 17, 1999). At the end of the
war, in early June, the number of alleged Kosovo-Albanian victims
killed is drastically reduced to 10,000.
Immediately after NATO occupied Kosovo, approximately 20 teams with
experts from 15 countries enter Kosovo on the orders of the UN Criminal
Tribunal to search for mass graves. The teams numbered 500 experts
altogether, including some FBI officials. Indeed, hundreds of corpses
are exhumed in a few weeks. This seems to affirm the horrific
expectations of genocide on a mass scale. Yet the 'success stories'
come to an end soon. The FBI investigates in the British sector and
finds no more than 200 corpses.
Finally, in the fall of 1999, a first report from the Chief Prosecutor
of the UN-Tribunal, Carla Del Ponte, reveals that the numbers given by
Western governments were gross exaggerations. The accusation that the
Serb military executed genocide now appears to be sheer war propaganda.
Of the 529 locations, where mass graves were suspected (according to
witnesses), 195 were investigated between June and October 1999. The
inspectors were ordered to start in those where the investigations
promised to be most successful. But by October, only 2108 corpses were
exhumed - they were mainly found in individual graves. The
UN-investigators did not offer any information about age, sex,
nationality, or probable time of death of these persons, among whom one
suspects Kosovo-Albanian and Serb fighters as well as civilians from
both sides. How many of these dead may have been killed by the NATO
bombings was also not addressed. Del Ponte maintains, however, that
many presumed gravesites were tampered with, and she speculates that
there may still be as many as 10,000 victims. Further investigations
during the year 2000 are supposed to prove this. But again this remains
pure propaganda.
4. Mass Graves
'Our inquiry teams had learned that up to 200 persons were killed in
the village of Izbica and buried. Soon afterwards, we had pictures that
clearly showed fresh grave sites in Izbica as well as in the
neighboring village of Krasnika.' (Entry of May 25, 1999, p.182f)
Scharping's claim is based on a report of the US State Department,
published on May 10, 1999, with the title 'Erasing History: Ethnic
Cleansing in Kosovo'. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says during
its presentation that it proves 'without any doubt' the existence of 'a
horrible system of war crimes and crimes against humanity', including
'systematic executions' and 'organized rape'. The report says that
approximately 90 percent of Kosovo-Albanians were driven from their
homes, a claim that was later exposed as a blatant lie. Moreover, it is
said that approximately 150 Albanians were killed in Izbica. Satellite
images, which are designed to prove a change in the surface of the
soil, are presented and put onto the Internet. After the war ended, UN
investigators find no corpses at the presumed grave-site near Izbica
(The Spectator, November 20, 1999). However, they find evidence that
allegedly points to the removal of signs of a mass grave by Serb
security forces.
While it remains unclear whether there ever was a mass grave on the
field near Izbica, other investigations at other sites have shown that
similar claims were pure war propaganda. Immediately after the war,
NATO officials referred to Ljubenic near Pec as the site of one of the
largest mass graves. They state that retreating Serb units had buried
350 corpses there in a hurry. UN investigators go to the place and find
exactly seven corpses (Toronto Sun, November 18, 1999). Moreover, the
KLA also reports a huge mass grave in the Trepca mines, claiming that
in one oven up to 100 persons were buried daily and the ashes thrown
into the mine corridors. Approximately 6,000 Kosovo-Albanians allegedly
lost their lives in the process. After the war ended, investigators
expected to find at least the remains of 700 persons in the mine. In
October, Kelly Moore, a speaker of the UN-Tribunal, reports that the
investigators had 'found absolutely nothing' (New York Times, October
13, 1999).
Emilio Perez Pujol, member of a Spanish team of pathologists, already
made the following skeptical comments in September: 'I calculate that
the final figure of dead in Kosovo will be 2,500 at the most. This
includes lots of strange deaths that can't be blamed on anyone in
particular.' The Spanish team was warned that it went into the 'worst
zone of Kosovo', Istok. But at the end of their investigations, the
pathologists had found 187 bodies. They do not find mass graves (El
Pais, September 23, 1999).
5. Systematic Rape
'Satellite images show mass graves; women report to the OSCE about
systematic rape; the UNHCR receives information about young women and
men who are abused as human shields for an ammunition depot in
Prizren.' (Entry of April 27, 1999, p.137).
Scharping and his colleagues repeatedly mention reports of mass rape in
Kosovo. Pictures of refugee convoys and comments by refugees are shown
or presented almost daily, in order to create moral concern among the
population and to drown out discussion about the goals and legitimacy
of the NATO war. Certainly, atrocities occurred during the war, but it
is equally clear that corresponding information and speculation is used
for propaganda purposes. The situation in the camps is also described
with distortions. Reinhard Munz, a German physician who worked in the
Macedonian refugee camp Stenkovac, concludes in an interview: 'The
refugees were used for political reasons.' He points out that 'men of
fighting age were the majority in our camp.' This contradicts
allegations by Scharping and others that children, women, and elderly
lived in the camps, whereas masses of potential male fighters were
victims of Serb soldiers. In reply to a question about the evidence of
rape, Munz says: 'During the whole time, we encountered no single case
of a women who was raped. And we looked at 60,000 persons in Stenkovac
I and II, as well as two smaller camps. Due to the rumors about
systematic rape, we wondered in advance what to do about the raped
women, but this situation did not arise. We have heard of no cases of
rape, which of course does not mean that there were none at all' (Die
Welt, June 18, 1999).
6. Massacre in Rogovo
'I feel sick when I look at these pictures... During the daily press
conference I announce: 'We will present to you pictures of a massacre
that had already occurred on January 29, 1999 ... I advise you,
however, to come well prepared, since these are original photographs
taken by an OSCE observer ... You will clearly see what was going on
already in January'.' (Entry April 25 and 26, 1999, pp.132 and 136)
During a press conference On April 27, Scharping presents photographs
of corpses to substantiate his claim that the Serbs had already
committed massacres of civilians and begun systematic deportations of
Kosovo-Albanians in January 1999. But journalists immediately
recognized the pictures and replied that OSCE inspectors had already
used them to refer, not to a massacre, but to combat between Serb
soldiers and the KLA. When Scharping is confronted with these facts
again during in a TV-broadcast, he takes recourse to further
speculation - allegedly, the skulls of the corpses were demolished with
baseball bats (Bericht aus Berlin, April 30, 1999). Highly indignant,
Scharping rejects all criticism of his behavior.
7. Collateral Damage
The Serb media immediately use these tragic mistakes for their own
propaganda, as proof of wanton destruction and deliberate attacks on
the civilian population. Our media also spread these reports.' (Entry
April 6, 1999, p.192)
This is Scharping's entry, after a rocket had exploded in a residential
neighborhood in the town of Aleksinac on April 5. Seventeen people had
died. Later, 'deliberate attacks' against civilians occur, for example,
when the Radio- and TV-Station RTS, the Chinese Embassy, and the town
of Korisa are attacked: On May 14, NATO airplanes fire 10 bombs into
the village Korisa in Kosovo, killing at least 87 civilians. On the
same day, NATO spokesperson Jamie Shea announces on BBC: 'We have
reports that soldiers died as well, not only civilians.' During a press
conference the following day, the German NATO General Walter Jertz
insists that Korisa was a legitimate target, since there had also been
military installations there.
Western information strategists manipulated so-called 'collateral
damage' evidence for their own propaganda, too. This becomes clear
after a rocket-attack on April 12: During two subsequent sorties, a
NATO fighter fired a rocket against a train, when the latter crossed a
bridge near Grdelica. Two carriages are hit, at least 12 people die,
and many more are wounded. On April 13, General Wesley Clark, the NATO
Supreme Commander in Europe, speaks of a 'freakish coincidence'. At the
end of the conference, he presents the cockpit-video of the plane, in
order to emphasize that the pilot allegedly had no choice: 'Look
carefully at the target, concentrate on it, and you can see, if you
focus like a pilot, that suddenly this train appeared'.
In January 2000, it is revealed in Germany that NATO experts
manipulated the tape before it was shown and thus deceived the
international public: The tape was running five times faster than the
real events, which confirmed the impression that the train raced toward
the bridge and could not be detected by the pilot (Frankfurter
Rundschau, January 20, 2000). NATO-speakers excused this as a
'technical problem'.
8. Rockets Hit Refugees
'A convoy is hit near Djakovica, many people are killed. It remains
uncertain for days whether it was a civilian or a military convoy,
whether the Serb military abused a civilian convoy as a shield, and
whether it was a NATO attack at all ... The probability that NATO
pilots tragically mistook a group of refugees for a military convoy was
another sad example that war without sacrifices among the civilian
population does not exist.' (Entry of April 14, 1999, p.121)
The rocket attack on the refugee convoy near Djakovica occurs on April
14. More than 70 people are killed. For days, Defense Minister
Scharping and NATO speakers cast doubts on the NATO origin of the
attack. Later, the event is excused with the high altitude of the plane
and the pilot's confusion of 'tractor-like vehicles' with Serb military
vehicles. A few weeks later, the U.S.-based International Strategic
Studies Association publishes the voice traffic between the USAF F-16
strike aircraft and his EC-130 Hercules AWACS:
'Pilot: Charlie Bravo to Mother. I am coming out of the clouds, still
nothing in sight.
AWACS: Mother to Charlie Bravo. Continue to the north, course 280.
Pilot: Charlie Bravo to Mother. I am keeping 3,000 feet. Under me
columns of cars, some kind of tractors. What is it? Requesting
instructions.
AWACS: Mother to Charlie Bravo. Do you see tanks? Repeat, where are the
tanks?
Pilot: Charlie Bravo to Mother. I see tractors. I suppose the Reds did
not camouflage tanks as tractors.
AWACS: Mother to Charlie Bravo. What kind of strange convoy is this?
What, civilians? Damn, this is all the Serb's doing. Destroy the target.
Pilot: Charlie Bravo to Mother. What should I destroy? Tractors?
Ordinary cars? Repeat, I don't see any tanks. Request additional
instructions.
AWACS: Mother to Charlie Bravo. This is a military target, a completely
legitimate military target. Destroy the target. Repeat, destroy the
target.
Pilot: Charlie Bravo to Mother. OK, copy. Launching.'
(Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, 3/1999)
The authenticity of this transcript of the mission radio traffic
remains a matter of debate. But the statement of a Spanish F-18 pilot
after he returned from the war at the end of May is clear proof that
civilians were targeted deliberately. The pilot claims that he and his
colleagues repeatedly received orders to attack civilian installations:
'Our colonel went to his NATO heads several times and protested against
the choice of targets that were not of a military nature ... Once we
received an encoded order from U.S. military officials to drop
anti-personnel bombs over the towns of Pristina and Nis. Our colonel
refused the order, and a few days later he was deposed' (Articulo 20,
June 14, 1999).
The facts speak for themselves. During the war, thousands of
anti-personnel bombs - so-called cluster-bombs against 'soft targets' -
were dropped on military as well as civilian installations in Serbia.
For example, on May 7, two of them explode in Nis, killing 13 civilians
and wounding 29, some of them critically.
9. The bombing of RTS in Belgrad
'I am not satisfied with NATO's information policy. The information
itself is reliable, but it comes much too late and allows too much time
in between for speculation and disinformation. Why is it not possible
to disseminate information in Brussels early in the morning, in order
to counter images of Yugoslav TV?' (Entry of April 4, 1999, p.99)
Evidently, other NATO officials shared Scharping's displeasure and did
something about it. In the early morning hours of April 23, the central
station of the Serb TV station RTS, located in the city center of
Belgrad, is attacked. Sixteen journalists and technicians are torn to
pieces, many more are wounded. At the same time, bombing raids on
antennas and transmitter stations in the whole of Serbia increase from
mid-April onwards, and in May satellite broadcasting by Yugoslav
stations to Western Europe is interrupted. After the war, it is
revealed that the attack on RTS was planned long in advance. During the
'NewsWorld' media-conference in Barcelona in October 1999, the head of
CNN International, Easton Jordan, explains that he was informed about
the imminent attack. He protested, and the NATO jets hence veered away
during their first sortie (Daily Telegraph, November 7, 1999). Two days
later, the attack is carried out, at a time when there were no foreign
journalists in the RTS building and the CNN crew had removed its
equipment to safety. Before the attack, the Serbian minister of
information, Aleksandar Vucic, is invited into the RTS building for an
interview during the live broadcast of a U.S. station. According to his
own remarks, he escaped the attack only because he was late (Le Monde
Diplomatique, August 13, 1999).
10. The Targeting of the Chinese Embassy
'What a terrible disaster ... It will create great political
difficulties, not only in terms of public opinion and growing
impatience and uncertainties; this terrible mistake also threatens to
ruin our political efforts.' (Entry of May 8, 1999, p.154)
Mr. Scharping is worried after three rockets had hit the Chinese
Embassy in the center of Belgrad on May 7. Three Chinese journalists
are killed, and many officials are wounded severely. Scharping talks
about 'imprecise target coordination' and 'deficiencies of the
information provided by intelligence services'. Months later, it is
revealed that the CIA was responsible for the targeting process and
that the building was not mistakenly hit. It is presumed that the
embassy building was used to communicate intelligence information to
the Serb military and that this was the reason for NATO's attack (Der
Spiegel, 2/2000).
11. Defense of Human Rights
'Finally, we are not the aggressors, as we were so often before 1945,
but we defend human rights. For the first time, the Germans are acting
in cooperation with all Europeans, instead of against them. For the
first time, the goal is not subjugation but human rights and their
enforcement.' (Entry of April 11, 1999, p.114)
Scharping's heroic justification of the German military campaign
between March and June 1999 reiterates the delusion that motivated him
before and during the war. On the eve of March 24, 1999, the opposite
of Scharping's promise becomes reality within hours. With the start of
the bombing campaign, the situation dramatically worsens - also for
Kosovo-Albanian civilians. Members of aid organizations note that the
NATO bombings led to the massive exodus from Kosovo. In the wake of the
bombings, the conflict between Serb soldiers and the KLA escalates.
Moreover, thousands of people from all ethnic groups flee their homes,
because the on-going air-strikes make them fear for their life. An
OSCE-report entitled 'Kosovo/Kosova: As Seen, As told', published on
December 6, 1999, indicates that attacks against Kosovo-Albanians do
occur, but the vast majority of them took place only after the NATO war
began. Thanks to the NATO war, the basis for a peaceful life of the
different groups in Kosovo, which was weak and previously damaged
anyway, is destroyed for years, if not decades.
http://www.artel.co.yu/en/izbor/yu_kriza/2003-10-02_2.html
By Thomas Deichmann
Translated from German by Matthias Gockel.
April 1999
Thomas Deichmann is editor of Novo magazine (www.novo-magazin.de) and a
free lance journalist based in Frankfurt. He is co-editor with Klaus
Bittermann of 'Wie Dr. Joseph Fischer lernte, die Bombe zu lieben'
(Edition Tiamat, Berlin 1999) and editor of 'Noch einmal für
Jugoslawien: Peter Handke' (Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt 1999).
Deichmann's article 'The picture that fooled the world' about a
misleading TV image from Trnopolje camp was printed in Ramsey Clark et
al: 'NATO in the Balkans. Voices of Opposition', International Action
Centre, New York 1998. Deichmann's study of Roy Gutman's war reporting
appeared under the title 'The Pulitzer Price and Croatian Propaganda'
in 'War Lies & Videotape. How Media Monopoly stifles truth',
International Action Centre, New York 2000.
Deichmann can be contacted at: Thomas.Deichmann@....
For the German political elite, the war against Yugoslavia signaled an
important break with the past, since moral and political renunciation
of militarism had characterized political culture in Germany for more
than half a century since the end of World War II. Accepting a call to
arms still was no routine occurance, especially since the attack was
directed against a country that had suffered immensely from the brutal
onslaught of German fascism 60 years ago. That this military campaign
took place in violation of international law and the German
constitution, both regulative foundations formulated in response to the
crimes of Nazism, complicated matters even further. Moreover, the first
marching orders for German soldiers came from parties commonly
identified with the liberal traditions of the Federal Republic of
Germany. The Social Democrat Rudolf Scharping and Green Party Foreign
Minister Joschka Fischer took on the task of justifying German
participation in this war of aggression. During the Bosnian war,
Fischer, while still in the opposition, had argued against sending
German troops into the Balkans, precisely by reference to the Holocaust.
The German Socialdemocratic Party (SPD) had fewer problems with
pacifist attitudes in its ranks. It faced a different problem. After
the German general elections in fall 1998, when the SPD and the Green
Party (Buendnis'90/Die Gruenen) were setting out with their new
coalition government, they were under harsh criticism. It became clear
soon that the hype of the election campaign in 1998 had concealed a
rather fumbling bunch of Chancelor Gerhard Schroerder's new government
leaders. The war against Yugoslavia offered the government an ideal
opportunity to leave its domestic problems behind and emerge with a new
image. Certainly, the decision to enter the war was not made just with
this goal in mind, but the disastrous condition of Schroeder's team was
an important underlying consideration during the deliberations about
the deployment of the Bundeswehr.
This background led to overreactions that often not merely bordered
fanaticism. The rhetoric of the Holocaust was deployed in Germany more
than any other western country to endow the NATO attack on Serbia and
German participation in it with moral legitimacy. Scharping followed up
with one horror-story with the next and constructed countless analogies
between Serbia and the Third Reich.
LIE MACHINE
A massive public relations campaign prepared and accompanied the German
armed forces' participation in the NATO campaign. German Defense
Minister Scharping became the tireless prime mover of this German war
propaganda. His book 'Wir duerfen nicht wegsehen. Der Kosovo-Krieg und
Europa' ['We can not look away. The Kosovo War and Europe'] (Berlin
1999), which was published a few months after the conflict, quite
openly discloses the scale of the lies and deception Scharping employed
to justify the military campaign against Yugoslavia. For example, we
find the following account in Scharping's 270-page work:
'Shall we overlook all the slaughter that is happening there? Are all
the stories that people tell us no more than invention and propaganda:
that corpses are destroyed with baseball-bats and that their limbs or
heads are cut off? … it seems that human beings in a frenzy can commit
any bestiality, playing soccer with heads that were cut off, tearing
apart corpses, cutting fetuses out of the womb of women who were
killed.' (p.125)
Many reports Scharping presented in this context even during the war
could not stand up to scrutiny. Many allegations were, sooner or later,
unmasked either as misrepresentation or attempts at manipulation - yet
they are included in his book without the slightest amendment or
qualification.
1. Concentration Camps in Pristina
'Allegedly, Albanians are held in the stadium of Pristina. Parts of the
stadium have a basement. There are several small shops below the
spectator stands, which offer space for several thousand people. The
first Albanians were reportedly brought into the stadium on April 1.'
(Entry of April 19, 1999, p.128)
At the outset of the war, Scharping mentions 'serious evidence of
concentration camps in Kosovo'. He adds: 'I say concentration camp on
purpose'. Scharping believes that the soccer-stadium of Pristina was
converted into a Serb-run concentration camp holding 100,000 people.
This claim originated from the KLA (as did the report that influential
Kosovo-Albanian intellectuals were systematically killed by the Serb
military). Scharping nonetheless treated it as though it were
indisputable fact. Yet some days later, several persons who had
allegedly been killed, reappeared. Pictures taken from German
surveillance planes refute the claim that a concentration camp existed
in the stadium of Pristina. Still, there were no retractions, and
concentration camp stories continued to circulate.
2. Operation Horseshoe
'From Joschka [J. Fischer, German Foreign Minister] I receive a paper
that stems from intelligence sources and proves that 'Operation
Horseshoe' was prepared and executed by the Yugoslav Army... An
evaluation of the operation-plan 'Horseshoe' exists. Now we have proof
that a systematic cleansing of Kosovo and the deportation of the
Kosovo-Albanians were already planned in December 1998.' (Entries of
April 5 and 7, 1999, pp.102 & 107)
While other German politicians showed some restraint in using the term
'genocide' in relation to events in Kosovo, Scharping continues to
repeat his thesis that a genocide in Kosovo was 'not only prepared',
but systematically planned, and 'in fact is already happening' (p.84).
To support these claims, he presents dubious documents about an
operation-plan allegedly named 'Horseshoe' in early April, claiming
that operation maps would prove that genocidal plans for the ethnic
cleansing of Kosovo already existed in 1998 and were now awaiting final
execution.
Some months later it was revealed that these documents were false.
According to press reports they came from the German and the Austrian
Secret Services. It is striking that Scharping's propaganda experts
used the Croatian translation of the word 'horseshoe', which is
Potkova, instead of its Serbian translation Potkovica.
Yet in spring 2000 Mr. Scharping still insists on the authenticity of
the documents in question and proudly explains to the press that he
passed all evidence in his possession to the United Nations
International War Crimes Tribunal (ICTY) in The Hague for use by the
prosecution. But the ICTY stated in response to media inquiries that it
would not allow Mr. Scharping's 'Operation Horseshoe' documents as
evidence, because of their unclear sources.
3. Killing Fields and Mountains of Corpses
'The brutality escalates, the refugees literally walk along mountains
of corpses. An old fear comes to my mind: This criminal wants a
cease-fire in the graveyard.' (Entry of April 29, 1999, p.141)
The warring NATO-countries justify the ongoing bombing campaign with
the claim that it would stop 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosovo. NATO speaker
Jamie Shea compares Kosovo with the 'Killing Fields' of Cambodia, and
Mr. Scharping speaks of 'mountains of corpses'. Estimates of the
numbers of Kosovo-Albanians allegedly killed and buried in mass graves
by Serbian soldiers increases continuously. In early April, the
US-State Department puts out the figure of 500,000. On April 18, David
Scheffer, US-Ambassador for War Crimes, says that possibly up to
100,000 Albanians were killed. On the next day, Jamie Rubin, the
speaker of the State Department, repeats this speculative number:
'Based on past practice, it is chilling to think where those 100,000
men are.' One month later, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen guesses:
'We've now seen about 100.000 military-aged men missing... They may
have been murdered' (Washington Post, May 17, 1999). At the end of the
war, in early June, the number of alleged Kosovo-Albanian victims
killed is drastically reduced to 10,000.
Immediately after NATO occupied Kosovo, approximately 20 teams with
experts from 15 countries enter Kosovo on the orders of the UN Criminal
Tribunal to search for mass graves. The teams numbered 500 experts
altogether, including some FBI officials. Indeed, hundreds of corpses
are exhumed in a few weeks. This seems to affirm the horrific
expectations of genocide on a mass scale. Yet the 'success stories'
come to an end soon. The FBI investigates in the British sector and
finds no more than 200 corpses.
Finally, in the fall of 1999, a first report from the Chief Prosecutor
of the UN-Tribunal, Carla Del Ponte, reveals that the numbers given by
Western governments were gross exaggerations. The accusation that the
Serb military executed genocide now appears to be sheer war propaganda.
Of the 529 locations, where mass graves were suspected (according to
witnesses), 195 were investigated between June and October 1999. The
inspectors were ordered to start in those where the investigations
promised to be most successful. But by October, only 2108 corpses were
exhumed - they were mainly found in individual graves. The
UN-investigators did not offer any information about age, sex,
nationality, or probable time of death of these persons, among whom one
suspects Kosovo-Albanian and Serb fighters as well as civilians from
both sides. How many of these dead may have been killed by the NATO
bombings was also not addressed. Del Ponte maintains, however, that
many presumed gravesites were tampered with, and she speculates that
there may still be as many as 10,000 victims. Further investigations
during the year 2000 are supposed to prove this. But again this remains
pure propaganda.
4. Mass Graves
'Our inquiry teams had learned that up to 200 persons were killed in
the village of Izbica and buried. Soon afterwards, we had pictures that
clearly showed fresh grave sites in Izbica as well as in the
neighboring village of Krasnika.' (Entry of May 25, 1999, p.182f)
Scharping's claim is based on a report of the US State Department,
published on May 10, 1999, with the title 'Erasing History: Ethnic
Cleansing in Kosovo'. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says during
its presentation that it proves 'without any doubt' the existence of 'a
horrible system of war crimes and crimes against humanity', including
'systematic executions' and 'organized rape'. The report says that
approximately 90 percent of Kosovo-Albanians were driven from their
homes, a claim that was later exposed as a blatant lie. Moreover, it is
said that approximately 150 Albanians were killed in Izbica. Satellite
images, which are designed to prove a change in the surface of the
soil, are presented and put onto the Internet. After the war ended, UN
investigators find no corpses at the presumed grave-site near Izbica
(The Spectator, November 20, 1999). However, they find evidence that
allegedly points to the removal of signs of a mass grave by Serb
security forces.
While it remains unclear whether there ever was a mass grave on the
field near Izbica, other investigations at other sites have shown that
similar claims were pure war propaganda. Immediately after the war,
NATO officials referred to Ljubenic near Pec as the site of one of the
largest mass graves. They state that retreating Serb units had buried
350 corpses there in a hurry. UN investigators go to the place and find
exactly seven corpses (Toronto Sun, November 18, 1999). Moreover, the
KLA also reports a huge mass grave in the Trepca mines, claiming that
in one oven up to 100 persons were buried daily and the ashes thrown
into the mine corridors. Approximately 6,000 Kosovo-Albanians allegedly
lost their lives in the process. After the war ended, investigators
expected to find at least the remains of 700 persons in the mine. In
October, Kelly Moore, a speaker of the UN-Tribunal, reports that the
investigators had 'found absolutely nothing' (New York Times, October
13, 1999).
Emilio Perez Pujol, member of a Spanish team of pathologists, already
made the following skeptical comments in September: 'I calculate that
the final figure of dead in Kosovo will be 2,500 at the most. This
includes lots of strange deaths that can't be blamed on anyone in
particular.' The Spanish team was warned that it went into the 'worst
zone of Kosovo', Istok. But at the end of their investigations, the
pathologists had found 187 bodies. They do not find mass graves (El
Pais, September 23, 1999).
5. Systematic Rape
'Satellite images show mass graves; women report to the OSCE about
systematic rape; the UNHCR receives information about young women and
men who are abused as human shields for an ammunition depot in
Prizren.' (Entry of April 27, 1999, p.137).
Scharping and his colleagues repeatedly mention reports of mass rape in
Kosovo. Pictures of refugee convoys and comments by refugees are shown
or presented almost daily, in order to create moral concern among the
population and to drown out discussion about the goals and legitimacy
of the NATO war. Certainly, atrocities occurred during the war, but it
is equally clear that corresponding information and speculation is used
for propaganda purposes. The situation in the camps is also described
with distortions. Reinhard Munz, a German physician who worked in the
Macedonian refugee camp Stenkovac, concludes in an interview: 'The
refugees were used for political reasons.' He points out that 'men of
fighting age were the majority in our camp.' This contradicts
allegations by Scharping and others that children, women, and elderly
lived in the camps, whereas masses of potential male fighters were
victims of Serb soldiers. In reply to a question about the evidence of
rape, Munz says: 'During the whole time, we encountered no single case
of a women who was raped. And we looked at 60,000 persons in Stenkovac
I and II, as well as two smaller camps. Due to the rumors about
systematic rape, we wondered in advance what to do about the raped
women, but this situation did not arise. We have heard of no cases of
rape, which of course does not mean that there were none at all' (Die
Welt, June 18, 1999).
6. Massacre in Rogovo
'I feel sick when I look at these pictures... During the daily press
conference I announce: 'We will present to you pictures of a massacre
that had already occurred on January 29, 1999 ... I advise you,
however, to come well prepared, since these are original photographs
taken by an OSCE observer ... You will clearly see what was going on
already in January'.' (Entry April 25 and 26, 1999, pp.132 and 136)
During a press conference On April 27, Scharping presents photographs
of corpses to substantiate his claim that the Serbs had already
committed massacres of civilians and begun systematic deportations of
Kosovo-Albanians in January 1999. But journalists immediately
recognized the pictures and replied that OSCE inspectors had already
used them to refer, not to a massacre, but to combat between Serb
soldiers and the KLA. When Scharping is confronted with these facts
again during in a TV-broadcast, he takes recourse to further
speculation - allegedly, the skulls of the corpses were demolished with
baseball bats (Bericht aus Berlin, April 30, 1999). Highly indignant,
Scharping rejects all criticism of his behavior.
7. Collateral Damage
The Serb media immediately use these tragic mistakes for their own
propaganda, as proof of wanton destruction and deliberate attacks on
the civilian population. Our media also spread these reports.' (Entry
April 6, 1999, p.192)
This is Scharping's entry, after a rocket had exploded in a residential
neighborhood in the town of Aleksinac on April 5. Seventeen people had
died. Later, 'deliberate attacks' against civilians occur, for example,
when the Radio- and TV-Station RTS, the Chinese Embassy, and the town
of Korisa are attacked: On May 14, NATO airplanes fire 10 bombs into
the village Korisa in Kosovo, killing at least 87 civilians. On the
same day, NATO spokesperson Jamie Shea announces on BBC: 'We have
reports that soldiers died as well, not only civilians.' During a press
conference the following day, the German NATO General Walter Jertz
insists that Korisa was a legitimate target, since there had also been
military installations there.
Western information strategists manipulated so-called 'collateral
damage' evidence for their own propaganda, too. This becomes clear
after a rocket-attack on April 12: During two subsequent sorties, a
NATO fighter fired a rocket against a train, when the latter crossed a
bridge near Grdelica. Two carriages are hit, at least 12 people die,
and many more are wounded. On April 13, General Wesley Clark, the NATO
Supreme Commander in Europe, speaks of a 'freakish coincidence'. At the
end of the conference, he presents the cockpit-video of the plane, in
order to emphasize that the pilot allegedly had no choice: 'Look
carefully at the target, concentrate on it, and you can see, if you
focus like a pilot, that suddenly this train appeared'.
In January 2000, it is revealed in Germany that NATO experts
manipulated the tape before it was shown and thus deceived the
international public: The tape was running five times faster than the
real events, which confirmed the impression that the train raced toward
the bridge and could not be detected by the pilot (Frankfurter
Rundschau, January 20, 2000). NATO-speakers excused this as a
'technical problem'.
8. Rockets Hit Refugees
'A convoy is hit near Djakovica, many people are killed. It remains
uncertain for days whether it was a civilian or a military convoy,
whether the Serb military abused a civilian convoy as a shield, and
whether it was a NATO attack at all ... The probability that NATO
pilots tragically mistook a group of refugees for a military convoy was
another sad example that war without sacrifices among the civilian
population does not exist.' (Entry of April 14, 1999, p.121)
The rocket attack on the refugee convoy near Djakovica occurs on April
14. More than 70 people are killed. For days, Defense Minister
Scharping and NATO speakers cast doubts on the NATO origin of the
attack. Later, the event is excused with the high altitude of the plane
and the pilot's confusion of 'tractor-like vehicles' with Serb military
vehicles. A few weeks later, the U.S.-based International Strategic
Studies Association publishes the voice traffic between the USAF F-16
strike aircraft and his EC-130 Hercules AWACS:
'Pilot: Charlie Bravo to Mother. I am coming out of the clouds, still
nothing in sight.
AWACS: Mother to Charlie Bravo. Continue to the north, course 280.
Pilot: Charlie Bravo to Mother. I am keeping 3,000 feet. Under me
columns of cars, some kind of tractors. What is it? Requesting
instructions.
AWACS: Mother to Charlie Bravo. Do you see tanks? Repeat, where are the
tanks?
Pilot: Charlie Bravo to Mother. I see tractors. I suppose the Reds did
not camouflage tanks as tractors.
AWACS: Mother to Charlie Bravo. What kind of strange convoy is this?
What, civilians? Damn, this is all the Serb's doing. Destroy the target.
Pilot: Charlie Bravo to Mother. What should I destroy? Tractors?
Ordinary cars? Repeat, I don't see any tanks. Request additional
instructions.
AWACS: Mother to Charlie Bravo. This is a military target, a completely
legitimate military target. Destroy the target. Repeat, destroy the
target.
Pilot: Charlie Bravo to Mother. OK, copy. Launching.'
(Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, 3/1999)
The authenticity of this transcript of the mission radio traffic
remains a matter of debate. But the statement of a Spanish F-18 pilot
after he returned from the war at the end of May is clear proof that
civilians were targeted deliberately. The pilot claims that he and his
colleagues repeatedly received orders to attack civilian installations:
'Our colonel went to his NATO heads several times and protested against
the choice of targets that were not of a military nature ... Once we
received an encoded order from U.S. military officials to drop
anti-personnel bombs over the towns of Pristina and Nis. Our colonel
refused the order, and a few days later he was deposed' (Articulo 20,
June 14, 1999).
The facts speak for themselves. During the war, thousands of
anti-personnel bombs - so-called cluster-bombs against 'soft targets' -
were dropped on military as well as civilian installations in Serbia.
For example, on May 7, two of them explode in Nis, killing 13 civilians
and wounding 29, some of them critically.
9. The bombing of RTS in Belgrad
'I am not satisfied with NATO's information policy. The information
itself is reliable, but it comes much too late and allows too much time
in between for speculation and disinformation. Why is it not possible
to disseminate information in Brussels early in the morning, in order
to counter images of Yugoslav TV?' (Entry of April 4, 1999, p.99)
Evidently, other NATO officials shared Scharping's displeasure and did
something about it. In the early morning hours of April 23, the central
station of the Serb TV station RTS, located in the city center of
Belgrad, is attacked. Sixteen journalists and technicians are torn to
pieces, many more are wounded. At the same time, bombing raids on
antennas and transmitter stations in the whole of Serbia increase from
mid-April onwards, and in May satellite broadcasting by Yugoslav
stations to Western Europe is interrupted. After the war, it is
revealed that the attack on RTS was planned long in advance. During the
'NewsWorld' media-conference in Barcelona in October 1999, the head of
CNN International, Easton Jordan, explains that he was informed about
the imminent attack. He protested, and the NATO jets hence veered away
during their first sortie (Daily Telegraph, November 7, 1999). Two days
later, the attack is carried out, at a time when there were no foreign
journalists in the RTS building and the CNN crew had removed its
equipment to safety. Before the attack, the Serbian minister of
information, Aleksandar Vucic, is invited into the RTS building for an
interview during the live broadcast of a U.S. station. According to his
own remarks, he escaped the attack only because he was late (Le Monde
Diplomatique, August 13, 1999).
10. The Targeting of the Chinese Embassy
'What a terrible disaster ... It will create great political
difficulties, not only in terms of public opinion and growing
impatience and uncertainties; this terrible mistake also threatens to
ruin our political efforts.' (Entry of May 8, 1999, p.154)
Mr. Scharping is worried after three rockets had hit the Chinese
Embassy in the center of Belgrad on May 7. Three Chinese journalists
are killed, and many officials are wounded severely. Scharping talks
about 'imprecise target coordination' and 'deficiencies of the
information provided by intelligence services'. Months later, it is
revealed that the CIA was responsible for the targeting process and
that the building was not mistakenly hit. It is presumed that the
embassy building was used to communicate intelligence information to
the Serb military and that this was the reason for NATO's attack (Der
Spiegel, 2/2000).
11. Defense of Human Rights
'Finally, we are not the aggressors, as we were so often before 1945,
but we defend human rights. For the first time, the Germans are acting
in cooperation with all Europeans, instead of against them. For the
first time, the goal is not subjugation but human rights and their
enforcement.' (Entry of April 11, 1999, p.114)
Scharping's heroic justification of the German military campaign
between March and June 1999 reiterates the delusion that motivated him
before and during the war. On the eve of March 24, 1999, the opposite
of Scharping's promise becomes reality within hours. With the start of
the bombing campaign, the situation dramatically worsens - also for
Kosovo-Albanian civilians. Members of aid organizations note that the
NATO bombings led to the massive exodus from Kosovo. In the wake of the
bombings, the conflict between Serb soldiers and the KLA escalates.
Moreover, thousands of people from all ethnic groups flee their homes,
because the on-going air-strikes make them fear for their life. An
OSCE-report entitled 'Kosovo/Kosova: As Seen, As told', published on
December 6, 1999, indicates that attacks against Kosovo-Albanians do
occur, but the vast majority of them took place only after the NATO war
began. Thanks to the NATO war, the basis for a peaceful life of the
different groups in Kosovo, which was weak and previously damaged
anyway, is destroyed for years, if not decades.