empty gravesite

[David Horne]

At 10:57 AM 10/13/1999 -0400, you wrote:
>[I'm not passing this along to exonerate the Serbs from the crimes 
>they did commit, only to show that a lot of the war crimes rhetoric 
>was either the product of overstimulation or propaganda.]
>
>New York Times - October 13, 1999
>
>No Bodies at Rumored Grave Site in Kosovo
>By REUTERS
>
>RISTINA, Kosovo -- War crimes investigators have found nothing in a 
>Kosovo mine shaft where hundreds of bodies were rumored to be hidden, 
>the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has 
>said.
>
>"They found absolutely nothing," a tribunal spokeswoman, Kelly Moore, 
>said on Monday.
>
>Rumors that Serbian forces had hidden the bodies of up to 700 ethnic 
>Albanians in the Trebca lead and zinc mine, near the northern city of 
>Mitrovica, had been circulating for months. Tribunal experts had 
>brought in special excavation equipment to investigate the rumors, 
>which had been widely reported in the Kosovo media.
>
>The Hague-based tribunal has indicted President Slobodan Milosevic of 
>Yugoslavia and four other senior Yugoslav and Serbian officials on 
>war crimes charges stemming from the Serbian campaign of violence 
>against Kosovo Albanians earlier this year.
>
>Forensic scientists with the tribunal have investigated more than 150 
>mass grave sites across the Serbian province in the last few months 
>and have hundreds more suspected sites to examine.

To which I respond with a resounding "so what?" There has been enough hard
evidence of Serb atrocities obtained to date. We hardly need more. The
important thing to remember is that the other enthic groups would do
exactly the same kinds of things given the opportunity. It is not so much
that the Serbs have been given a bad rap, but that the other sides have
been let off too lightly.

David H.
>
>