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To: ABrit
You've convinced me that you're hopless. I asked you one specific question so as not to over burden you and you couldn't even answer that.

Did you even read the article? You don't consider Michel Chossudovsky's sources to be credible? Which of his sources don't you feel are credible?

The OSCE report?
The Kosovo Albanian sources?
The UNHCR sources?
Yugoslavia's 1991 census?

On second thought, nevermind. If you're not bright enough consider the sources that are named in the article when you're asked one specific question, there's no way you'll be able to make intelligent commentary on the nature of the sources.

Now get back to picking out a dress for your goat. Prom is coming up.

105 posted on 04/03/2002 1:36:15 PM PST by getoffmylawn
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To: getoffmylawn;Kate22;vooch;gael;great dane;leonora;JMS;getoffmylawn;saundraduffy

I would like to ask you one very specific question and I'd like a very specific answer.

Why did a higher percentage of Serbs flee Kosovo during NATO's "bombing for humanity" than Albanians?

You've convinced me that you're hopless. I asked you one specific question so as not to over burden you and you couldn't even answer that.

Did you even read the article? You don't consider Michel Chossudovsky's sources to be credible? Which of his sources don't you feel are credible?

The OSCE report?

The Kosovo Albanian sources?

The UNHCR sources?

Yugoslavia's 1991 census?

On second thought, nevermind. If you're not bright enough consider the sources that are named in the article when you're asked one specific question, there's no way you'll be able to make intelligent commentary on the nature of the sources.

The whole of the article you quote is a bad joke. I’ll just start with his first paragraph:

"NATO's justification for bombing Yugoslavia on humanitarian grounds has been refuted by the Western alliance's own official figures and documentary evidence. The recently released OSCE report entitled "As Seen, As Told: Analysis of the Human Rights Findings of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission" suggests that the allegation of mass deportations is a fabrication."1

His cited reference for this is:

1. OSCE, Kosovo/ Kosova, As Seen, As Told, An analysis of the human rights findings of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission, October 1998 to June 1999, Warsaw, 1999.

Now read what the OSCE Report actually said:OSCE

I’ll quote some in case you’re too idle to use the link:

862,000 Kosovo Moslems were expelled, men, women and children. Internally displaced, 200,000-260,000.

Kosovo Albanians were clearly targeted for expulsion because of their ethnicity. Other ethnic and religious groups, such as Turks, Gorani and Muslim Slavs, were excluded from the expulsions. Serb houses were marked with the Serbian cross so that they would not be targeted.7 Those expelled by the Serbian forces included not only able-bodied Kosovo Albanian men and women, but also children and those elderly people who were too infirm to be mobile.

It might be possible to argue that the Serbian forces were essentially looking for UCK arms or supporters, a legitimate aim for a government seeking to bring a rebel movement under control. However, the way in which these operations were carried out indicates that the intention was clearly expulsion. Villagers were given minutes to leave and told that they should go and never come back and that Kosovo was Serbian land.8 Acts of brutality and violence were used to heighten the climate of fear, create chaos and a pervading fear for life. They formed part of a policy of terror designed to trigger "spontaneous" departure.

It might also be possible to maintain that the forced movement of Kosovo Albanians by Serbian forces was to prevent civilians from becoming caught in crossfire and fighting. Serbian forces which accompanied convoys or buses to the border could arguably be seen as providing protection (for instance, from paramilitaries or air attack) for those leaving.9

Indeed, this does appear on occasion to have been the case. However, the brutality and violence with which the IDPs were generally treated - with killings and beatings - and the failure to provide food or water - indeed, the systematic destruction of food supplies - suggest that the opposite of protection was intended.

The morning after NATO bombing, Serb forces (VJ, police, paramilitaries), heavily armed and with tanks and armoured vehicles, completely surrounded the city. They started shooting into the houses at 07:00 hours. We had to wake up our children and flee but we did not know where to go. All went very fast. We did not dare to go to the main street, we just had to climb from house to house. We could not take anything but the clothes we wore. The children had only pyjamas. We could hear shots in other houses and the crying of women and children and the shouting of paramilitaries. On the way out of the city we got to the cemetery via some side lanes and we could hear shooting, so we went down in a ditch and bullets were going over our heads. One 18-year-old girl was killed. One man was hit on the shoulder by a paramilitary with the back of a rifle and we heard that he was later executed. On that day they also started to burn the houses. We could see our own house on fire as we were leaving. The whole neighbourhood was on fire.10

Frequently a Kosovo Albanian would be intimidated, injured or killed in full public view to enforce the departure of the other villagers. Houses were also looted and set alight. Those who refused to leave were often killed. The combination of shelling, shooting, burning, intimidation and killing created chaos and panic, with villagers running in fear of their lives. As one refugee expelled from Vranic/Vraniq (Suva Reka) in early April explained, the "police threatened the population and killed some to encourage others to leave".11

One interviewee described seeing a child, aged two or three, who had been impaled on a wooden pole on the road between Pristina/Prishtina and Kolic/Koliq. Written on the pole were the words, "This is Serbia. This is what we are going to do to all Albanians, because I am God and NATO means nothing to me."10 A 22-year-old man described how he saw a woman being stabbed by a Serbian police officer first in one arm and then in the other, so that the two-month-old baby that she held in her arms fell to the ground. As the baby fell the police officer shot it on the spot.11 As the Serb forces surrounded the village of Padaliste/Padalishte (Istok), they went into the house of a teacher, took three young children and told the teacher to cut off their heads. When he refused, the police cut their throats; they also killed the teacher.12 As police, VJ and paramilitaries expelled inhabitants from their homes in Kosovska Mitrovica in mid-April, an interviewee reported seeing one of them hit a six-month-old child with a hammer (the fate of the child is not reported).13 Another interviewee described how, in an IDP convoy outside Pec on the morning of 16 April 1999, Serb forces took a five-month-old baby from the arms of its mother and asked: "Do you want to come back to Kosovo?" As the baby - of course - did not answer, they told the mother: "This baby will never go back to Kosovo!" and they threw it on the ground and killed it.14

 

 

The reason lots of Serbs decided to go to Serbia is clear. They knew what was coming to them. It’s called retribution. And who could blame the Kosovo Muslims.

110 posted on 04/03/2002 8:49:07 PM PST by ABrit
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