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How did the NATO bombing come about?
The United States was determined to create an independent Albanian state in Kosovo. But Kosovo was part of the sovereign nation of Serbia. Since international intervention was clearly illegal, the US strategy was to engineer a pretext for bombing Serbia into submission.
How was this done?
After a crudely faked ‘massacre’ at Racak, the US set up a peace conference at Rambouillet in France. Their aim was to get agreement from Kosovo Albanian leadership and confront the Serbs with terms they could not accept. NATO would then bomb Serbia for ‘humanitarian reasons’.
But wasn’t this illegal?
Yes. But the path was eased by relentless propaganda:
Tony Blair:
“People driven from their homes at the point of a gun. Women raped. Young men taken out and murdered. A whole people displaced and dispossessed simply because of their ethnic identity”.
BBC News analysis:
“In a series of briefings in Brussels, London and Washington NATO has set out what it believes is happening inside Kosovo. It says that a million people are now on the move, forced from their homes and being herded backwards and forwards. But it says the men are missing. 100,000 men of military age cannot be accounted for. And NATO says it has monitored mass executions in which 3,000 people have died. And NATO reports many allegations of organised rape.”
Jamie Shea NATO presser:
“Refugees allege that in Pec Serbian forces have rounded up young Albanian women and taken them to the hotel Karajac where the local commander has apparently organised a roster of his soldiers to allow them all an evening at the hotel. And in addition to these specific accounts numerous refugees claim that during Serb raids in their villages young women have been gang-raped in their homes or at the roadside by Serb soldiers.
What did the ICTY do?
It refused to indict NATO for war crimes despite the illegality of NATO’s actions. It did not even acknowledge that the NATO propaganda was totally untrue.
