The Observer (London) - May 16, 1999
WAS SHE A HUMAN SHIELD OR JUST A NATO MISTAKE?
By Patrick Wintour and Ed Vulliamy in Washington
Severe doubt was cast last night on Nato claims that it had attacked a legitimate military target when it dropped 10 bombs on the village of Korisa, killing 87 civilians and injuring a hundred more in the worst blunder of the air campaign.
In an attempt to deflect political damage, Nato implied yesterday that Serb forces had either coerced or tricked a 500-strong refugee convoy, travelling through southern Kosovo, to park in a military compound turning them into a form of human shield.
Expressing regret for the deaths, the Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said one death is one too many but insisted: 'There were real clear military targets on this site. There were 10 pieces of artillery, armoured personnel carriers, dug-in positions and a command post.
'The Serbs have to explain why so many civilians were so close to what was plainly a Serb military position.'
But journalists taken to the area by Serb officals 24 hours after the attack - including The Observer's Lindsey Hilsum - said the site was an open field in which it seemed unlikely that Serb troops would have placed artillery. There was no sign of military activity around the targeted buildings. The only vehicles visible were tractors, and there was nowhere obvious in the vicinity to hide military equipment.
One of the survivors told The Observer that the only Serbian officials present before the attack were police who guarded them after ordering them into the building.
The villagers had been attempting to flee to Albania during a Serb military attack on supposed KLA supporters, when they were forced to return to their village, and herded into the buildings where many of them were to die. The eyewitness accounts will lend support to critics of the bombing campaign, much of which has been conducted from the relative safety of altitudes above 15,000 feet.
A Nato spokesman, General Walter Jertz, said that as the site had been already confirmed as a legitimate military target, the pilot, operating just before midnight last Thursday, did not need to identify individual vehicles. He said: 'When the pilot attacked the target he had to visually identify it through the attack systems in the aircraft. It was night. He did see the silhouettes of vehicles on the ground, and as it was - by prior intelligence - a valid target, he launched the attack.'
The furore over the deaths came as an attempt by President Slobodan Milosevic to negotiate himself immunity from prosecution by the International War Crimes Tribunal was summarily rebuffed by the West yesterday.
Cook said: 'We cannot give such immunity. Who the War Crimes Tribunal indicts is a matter for the War Crimes Tribunal, and we cannot get into any bargaining that compromises its integrity or authority.
Nato reinforced its message of resolve yesterday by announcing an extra 2,300 British infantry, gunners and engineers were being put on standby to reinforce the troops already in the Balkans. In the first sign that Nato may be considering a parachute drop as part of a Kosovo invasion, the Ministry of Defence said 680 of the troops would come from from the Parachute Regiment based at Aldershot.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, interviewed by The Observer, yesterday refused to rule out the use of ground troops. 'Nato is busy updating planning for all contingencies,' he said. Asked if Nato soon faced a deadline by which it would have to make a decision on ground troops, he said:'We are all well aware of the harshness of the Balkan winter and the impact it has.'
Blair, who is to visit refugee camps in Albania this week, denied he was the hawk within Nato or that he was laying his whole political reputation on the war's successful outcome. He said: 'The whole of Nato and Europe has staked its reputation on this. I believe politicians should do and say what they believes, regardless of consequences.'
The latest bombing blunder is bound to increase Russian pressure on the G7 group of industrialised countries to agree a pause in the air campaign in order to open negotiations with Belgrade over a full withdrawal of Serb troops from Kosovo.