"Where Are Kosovo's Killing Fields?"

[Jim heartfield]

In message <3.0.2.32.19991019232800.00a188f0 at pop.gn.apc.org>, Chris
Burford <cburford at gn.apc.org> writes

>>>Yet that was not the original justification of the NATO attack, which was
>>>based on the population of Kosovo being deprived of its right to self
>>>determination (within Yugoslavia - interestingly).

The one thing that stands out more obviously than any other is that
Kosovo's 'self-determination' is the one thing that Nato is not
interested in.

They have appointed a Frenchman Bernard Kouchner as the head of the
"civilian" administration, and a German as head of the military. Such
expressions of national will that are expressed in Kosovo - such as the
attacks on Serbs, or the formation of an army are an embarrassment to
Nato.

There was a fascinating article in yesterday's Guardian newspaper built
on a press release of Medicins San Frontiers, the Nobel stamped NGO
founded by Kouchner and now running much of Kosovo's health service. MSF
were complaining that Kosovan women were 'in denial' about there
emotional trauma after the war, and would insist on asking for sleeping
pills for sleeplessness and aspirin for headaches. Those wise MSF people
of course understood that the Kosovans did not know there own minds and
insisted that the women have counselling. Not surprisingly the women
were all horrified at the suggestion that they were mentally disturbed
and told them to get lost. Sadly, shaking their heads at the inability
of Balkan women to adopt the values of urban West Europe's middle
classes, MSF concluded that they were 'in denial' and would have to be
treated anyway.

The whole assessment assumed ludicrous proportions when MSF insisted
that the tiny number of women who had come forward with stories of
having been raped was evidence, too, of being 'in denial', and of shame.
Obviously the MSF started from the assumption that Kosovars were victims
first and if they chose not to act that part, their own choices were of
no account.

Self-determination? Hardly
-- 
Jim heartfield