2 KNOWLEDGE COULD HAVE PREVENTED THE
BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA
FACTS WHICH, IF THEY HAD BEEN KNOWN BY POLITICIANS AND THE
PUBLIC IN MARCH 1999, WOULD HAVE PREVENTED THE BOMBING OF
YUGOSLAVIA
(Figures in brackets refer to notes containing supporting evidence, found at the end of this
document.)
1 The war had been planned in the United States by the summer of 1998.
"Planning for a U.S.-led NATO intervention in Kosovo is now largely in place.... The only
missing element seems to be an event - with suitably vivid media coverage - that would make
the intervention politically saleable. . . the Clinton Administration is drifting toward Kosovo
intervention as it did in Bosnia, with a great deal of planning with our NATO allies on the
mechanics of the operation but little attention to how the operation serves U.S. interests." -
U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, August 12, 1998.
2 It was never made clear to the British public that the main aggressor in Kosovo,
before mid January 1999, was the KLA, rather than the Serbs. The opposite impression
was given. (1) "The Kosovo Liberation Army has committed more breaches of the ceasefire,
and until this weekend was responsible for more deaths than the [Serb] security forces."
Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, in Parliament on 18 January 1999.
3 The United States and the UK did not act as neutral mediators or genuine seekers
of peace in the disputes between Kosovo Albanians and the Serb authorities. In order to
bring about an excuse for bombing, the Americans, Germans and British had secretly
supported the terrorists in their violence, training and equipping them, and, in the so-called
Rambouillet negotiations, were backing an unelected, unrepresentative tiny minority of Kosovo
Albanians, the terrorist KLA. They supported the violence that provoked the Serbian
counter-measures that "necessitated" the NATO bombing and the political, economic, and
military occupation and control of Kosovo (which were the aims of the exercise). (2)
4 The Americans worked to make sure that the Serbs could not sign the Rambouillet
document. This has been explicitly explained by James Rubin, Madeleine Albright’s right
hand man and the US State Department spokesman who took part in the talks at Rambouillet.
In a Financial Times article published on 7 October 2000 he said, "Albright had given the
Serbs a take it or leave it proposal they could never accept." The proposal was the
non-negotiable demand that NATO forces be allowed to occupy the whole of Yugoslavia
without restriction or time limit. (3)
5 Vital information kept secret. So that no-one had any idea why Mr Milosevic was so
"intransigent" about signing the Rambouillet document its contents were kept secret even from
Members of Parliament. When the bombing of Yugoslavia was announced in Parliament only
Tony Blair, George Robertson and Robin Cook knew the full truth. Other MPs, newspapers,
TV and radio stations, and members of the British public, did not know that the document
Slobodan Milosevic was asked to sign could never have been signed by any Yugoslav leader.
(4)
6 Wide agreement achieved The British public and Members of Parliament did not know
that the Yugoslav government had agreed most of the Rambouillet document and had explicitly
said that they were prepared to discuss the remaining elements. (5)They were prepared to
carry on negotiating. They had suggested revisions in Paris, but rather than take Yugoslav
concerns seriously their ideas were dismissed by Robin Cook as “acting in bad faith.” The
decision, on 19 March 1999, to end the talking, and therefore start the bombing, was made by
Robin Cook and Hubert Vedrine. It was NATO that refused to continue negotiating, not the
Yugoslavs. The determination and readiness to bomb is clear. British nationals had been
moved out of Yugoslavia in mid February, ready for the bombing.
7 New NATO Treaty without democratic approval There had been nothing in the
government’s election manifesto to suggest that it had plans to overturn the NATO treaty,
reversing a 50 year commitment to fight only in defence and then only with the express
agreement of the UN. The government took to itself new, unauthorised executive powers.
There was no debate in Parliament on this momentous change in foreign policy. This is a
dangerous step towards dictatorship and its seriousness should not be underestimated.
8 Waging a war of aggression is the most serious of all war crimes. The bombing
contravened the United Nations Charter and procedures for the settlement of disputes, the
Geneva Convention, and the NATO treaty which, when the bombing was announced, allowed
war only in self-defence. A few MPs raised these issues in Parliament, but their complaints
were dismissed.
9 The mode of "negotiating" at Rambouillet was illegal under international law. The
threat of bombing if a party does not sign a document contravened the Vienna Convention on
the Law of Treaties, article 52. Logically an agreement signed under threat of violence is not
an agreement. The United States sought submission, not agreement.
Democracy by-passed There was no democratic vote to sanction the declaration of war.
Even if there had been a vote the information given to Members of Parliament was so
incomplete and misleading that they would have been unable to make a proper assessment of
the situation. |