By: Mary Mostert

The report states "In order to ascertain Slobodan Milosevic’s individual responsibility for war crimes this report… limits itself strictly to legal avenues as set forth in the statute, rules of procedure and evidence, and the previous indictments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Similarly, the study relies upon information that is widely available in the public domain."

In effect, the study concluded, Slobodan Milosevic is individually responsible for what occurred in Bosnia because: "forces and agencies under his control, are responsible for directing and aiding and abetting war crimes on an extensive scale." The study listed "the criminal acts of killing, expulsion, rape, detention in concentration camps, forced labor, torture, mutilation, and the looting and destruction of property. All of these acts were perpetrated on a large scale, and often with severe brutality."

Every since Slobadan Milosevic’s forces withdrew from Kosovo, there has been widespread "criminal acts of killing, expulsion, rape, detention in concentration camps, forced labor, torture, mutilation, and the looting and destruction of property" against all minorities in the province, Serbs, Montenegrins, Gypsies and any Albanians who supported the legal authority, the government of the country in Belgrade. Kosovo STILL IS, under the G-8 agreement, an integral part of Yugoslavia. However, it is NATO and the United Nations that are now the "ultimate authority" over the area of Kosovo. If such behavior continues, who is NOW responsible if Milosevic was responsible when his government was the authority?

According to the signed document known as the G8 agreement, the current authority over Kosovo is NATO and the United nations. In fact, it was NATO that demanded, and got, removal of both the police and the army which were operating under the authority of Slobadan Milosevic and NATO became the controlling authority of Kosovo. Yet, from Day 1 the NATO forces appear to have failed to abide by the G8 agreement. On June 14, 1999, Richard Boudreaux, of the Los Angeles Times reported: "Serbian infantrymen who had guarded the Belacevic open pit mine during 16 months of guerrilla war pulled out at 8 a.m. Saturday. Their army's withdrawal from Kosovo was supposed to be tightly synchronized with the arrival of NATO-led troops to pacify the province.

"Instead, the advancing foot soldiers the mine director saw in his binoculars were from the Kosovo Liberation Army. Much to his alarm, the ethnic Albanian separatists who looked all but defeated several weeks ago had returned in force to seize one of the mine's two giant pits, its administration building and four employees. The swift takeover of a strategic economic target shows the KLA's determination to move into the vacuum between the departing Serbs and a lumbering, 48,000-strong NATO-led force already slowed by scattered Serbian resistance and feuds with Russian peacekeepers. About 350 guerrillas are believed to have participated in the mine takeover six miles northwest of the provincial capital, Pristina."

Almost a month and a half later, in the exact same area, this time 10 miles from Pristina, according to Slavisa Milosavljevic, who lives in the village of Staro Gracko, a group of Serb farmers asked the British forces of KFOR for protection before they went into the fields to harvest their hay. General Jackson refused to give them protection. The Washington Post reported Sunday: "Fourteen Serbian farmers harvesting hay were killed in bursts of automatic gunfire Friday night within earshot of British peacekeeping troops in the worst single attack against Kosovo's beleaguered Serbian civilians since NATO forces entered the province six weeks ago." Serbs note that the 14 farmers were killed in a field "close to an ethnic Albanian village, Bujance, a KLA stronghold."

From the moment that NATO forces took control, there have been numerous "criminal acts of killing, expulsion, rape, detention in concentration camps, forced labor, torture, mutilation, and the looting and destruction of property" against Serbs, Gypsies, Montenegrins, and Albanians who once supported the only elected person among the Albanians, the non-violent Ibrahaim Rusova.

And so, WHO is to blame for Friday night’s massacre of Serb farmers? Who is the war criminal who "by virtue of his formal positions and informal power base, exercised power, influence, and control over" Kosovo in the last 5-6 weeks?

When Slobodan Milosevic reminded the world, after the massacre, that it was NATO who holds that authority, and blamed NATO for the massacre, British Lieutenant-General Sir Mike Jackson, the KFOR commander, retorted: "It is plainly absurd and it's rather insulting. We are here to maintain public safety.

"Maintain public safety?" Isn’t that statement just a little absurd in light of the massacre, which occurred after the Serbs had ASKED for a patrol to protect them? Why, after the 45 day deadline has passed, do the KLA forces still have in their possession automatic weapons?

If the 19 most powerful nations of the world, representing over 600 million people, are incapable of maintaining order in a province slightly larger than the State of Deleware, which contains 2 million people, why did they insist that the entire Kosovo police force and the Yugoslav army leave in the first place? Why, after the shooting, which the British forces HEARD, did it take 5-6 appeals to KFOR by the families of the victims to get the British forces to come and see what had happened? This is maintaining "public safety?"

Jackson has allowed a wide open border between bandit held Northern Albania and Kosovo and appears to have done very little to halt the KLA "criminal acts of killing, expulsion, rape, detention in concentration camps, forced labor, torture, mutilation, and the looting and destruction of property."

The reason why Slobadan Milosevic moved Yugoslav army forces into Kosovo in the first place was to try to control the infiltration of Albanian terrorists into Kosovo.

Jackson and his troops have made no effort to prevent the wholesale overrunning of Kosovo by Albanian criminal elements and the KLA. The natural result, of course, has been what has apparently been Clinton-Blair’s NATO policy from the beginning - the seizure of Kosovo and its mineral resources and the elimination of its non-Albanian population.

Remember a mere month ago when an arrogant and well-armed NATO, using the threat of more bombing, demanded that the legitimate security forces of Kosovo, both the police and the Yugoslav army, leave the province in a week’s time?

The Yugoslav’s were, understandably, concerned about who would provide police protection for its citizens. NATO said IT would do so.

Let’s compare NATO’s track record with the Yugoslav Army:

According to Sunday’s Washington Post, (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/balkans/balkans.htm) "Since the arrival of NATO peacekeepers, at least 28 Serbs have been killed, a dozen Serbian or Gypsy homes are burned daily, and at least 20 Serbian Orthodox churches have been damaged or destroyed, according to Serbian and NATO reports." NATO peacekeepers are operating under the authority of the leaders of the United States, Bill Clinton, the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, France, Jacques Chirac, Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and Italy, Luigi Scalfaro. These are the individuals who, under the current thinking of the world as expressed in indictments against various individuals by the War Crimes Tribunal, are responsible for those "criminal acts of killing, expulsion, rape, detention in concentration camps, forced labor, torture, mutilation, and the looting and destruction of property" that have taken place in Kosovo in the last month. They are the authority in charge. The world can’t have it both ways. NATO demanded, and got, the opportunity to replace Yugoslav policemen and military in Kosovo. ANY killings, rapes, looting, bombing of homes and churches which have taken place in the last six weeks have happened under NATO’s watch. That makes NATO responsible for not stopping the killings, rapes, looting, bombing of homes and churches, etc.

Then NATO, on March 24, 1999, under the direction of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Jacque Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, and Luigi Scalfaro, the bombing of Yugoslavia began. The deaths shot up from an average of 167 deaths per month in 1998, to 667 deaths per month during the three months of bombing.

And this does not include the millions from all 26 ethnic groups among the 11 million people living in Yugoslavia - not only Serbs, but Albanians, Gypsies, Montenegrins, Jews, Greeks, Hungarians, who have been victims of NATO bombing attacks which violated international law as chemicals spewed forth from destroyed chemical and petroleum plants, and as electrical systems, water treatment plants, heating plants, bridges, schools, churches, and homes were bombed. "Criminal acts of killing, expulsion, rape, detention in concentration camps, forced labor, torture, mutilation, and the looting and destruction of property" have targeted at least a third of those now living in Yugoslavia - over one million Serbs from Bosnia, Croatia and now Kosovo have been driven from their homes.