>(WSJ 12/31/99: "We were all hamstrung," a NATO official
>says. As the war dragged on, he says, NATO saw a fatigued press corps
>drifting toward the contrarian story: civilians killed by NATO's
>bombs. NATO stepped up its claims about Serb "killing fields.")
>
>And it worked. The front pages of every newspaper carried the 500,000
>figure, along with grim pictures of huddled refugees.
At 4:38 PM -0500 3/28/99, Nathan Newman wrote:
>From: "Nathan Newman" <nathan.newman at yale.edu>
>To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>, <pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu>
>Subject: 500,000 Kosovans now refugees
>Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 16:38:37 -0500
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>
>See attached article.
>
>At what level of atrocities will the NATO bombings and intervention be
>justified?
>
>Or do we just get to play the ex post game of blaming NATO for "forcing"
>Milosevic to speed up his timetable of cultural genocide and ethnic
>clensing? Refugees have been streaming out of Kosovo for weeks, even months,
>so even the argument that this is was internal conflict was made a hash of
>when Serbs began driving refugees across the border. Note that 500,000
>Kosovans is over one-third of the ethnic Albania population of Kosovo.
>
>Brett Knowlton raised the idea that a diplomatic or negotiated settlement
>was possible with a regime involved in this kind of murder and cultural
>destruction. The idea that Milosevic was emotionally torn between granting
>autonomy to Kosovo and committing mass evictions and murder is just not
>credible. As to whether the motives of NATO are humanitarian, I don't know
>or care, but the ends being fought for are moral and humanitarian regardless
>of motives. And given the level of atrocities in Kosovo, it is hard to
>argue bombing could conceivably make things worse.
>
>If anything, Milosevic's acceleration of ethnic clensing just shows that any
>agreement would have just been an excuse to buy time for his atrocities; it
>appears that NATO should have stuck to its timelines for bombing weeks ago,
>since Milosevic obviously used the time to deploy his army to be in a
>position to clense the country. One-third of a country are not made
>refugees this quickly without planning and preparation. It is all just
>more evidence of Milosevic's lack of good faith in all bargaining up to this
>point.
>
>--Nathan Newman
>
>
>NATO: 500,000 ethnic Albanians Displaced by Serbs
>
>CNN
>28 March
>
>BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) -- More than half a million ethnic Albanian refugees
>have fled what NATO calls Yugoslavia's "scorched-earth policy" in Kosovo,
>creating the beginnings of a humanitarian crisis, an alliance spokesman said
>Sunday.
>
>"This is now a systematic campaign against the Kosovo population at large,"
>said NATO spokesman Jamie Shea. "We are seeing reports of ethnic cleansing
>operations going on in a number of areas.
>
>"Even more alarming," Shea said of the refugees now streaming across the
>border into Albania and Macedonia, "is that the majority of these people are
>women and children. What has happened to the males between the ages of 16
>and 60?"
>
>Refugees were reporting that the men in their families were being separated
>from them as they were forced from their homes.
>
>"Fortunately, I thank God, I saved my 15-year-old son," said Fehmije
>Haxhiolli, who escaped into Albania with an extend family of 30. "I put a
>dress on him and a shawl and the Serbs thought he was a woman."
>
>Haxhiolli said the Serbs told the family they would be shot if they were
>still in Kosovo the following morning.
>
>The Yugoslav army and Serbian special police forces were pursuing ethnic
>Albanians relentlessly, NATO said, chasing them from their homes before
>burning houses to the ground. Ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova was
>reported to be in hiding, his home burned, Shea said.
>
>"Whether we like it or not we have to recognize that we are on the brink of
>a major humanitarian disaster in Kosovo the likes of which have not been
>seen in Europe since the closing stages of World War II," he said, adding
>that more than 500,000 ethnic Albanians have now been displaced from their
>homes in Kosovo.
>
>Bosnian veterans reported in Kosovo
>
>The Serbs' attacks have worsened, NATO said, since the advent of bombing
>earlier this week. NATO's campaign was launched to try to force Yugoslav
>President Slobodan Milosevic to sign a peace agreement that would stop the
>conflict between the Serbs and ethnic Albanians who make up the majority of
>the Kosovo province.
>NATO said its bombing campaign would continue in an effort to stop these
>"genocidal" attacks, and said it was collecting evidence for use in possible
>war crimes prosecutions in the future.
>
>"We're collecting information on Serbian security forces," said British
>Defense Secretary George Robertson. "Those carrying out acts are committing
>war crimes. Those in authority can also be brought to justice."
>
>A paramilitary commander known as Arkan is believed to be among those in
>charge in Kosovo. Arkan's forces were accused of widespread atrocities
>during the Bosnian war.
>
>"He is a notorious and noxious thug," Robertson said. "The fact that
>Milosevic has recruited people such as Arkan and sent them to Kosovo tells
>us all anyone needs to know about his true intentions."
>
>Russian peace mission begins
>
>Meanwhile, three liberal Russian politicians launched a mission calling for
>a resumption of peace talks and an end to the bombings.
>
>"If the situation continues in the direction it is going now, we are
>confronted with a serious danger of the Cold War re-emerging," said former
>Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar after a meeting with U.S. Balkan envoy Richard
>Holbrooke in Budapest, Hungary.
>
>Gaidar was joined by former Finance Minister Boris Fyodorov and former
>Deputy Prime Minster Boris Nemtsov. The three hope to meet with Yugoslav
>officials, U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Pope John Paul II.
>
>Holbrooke said after meeting with the trio that the U.S. position on the
>crisis had not changed.