No to NATO

----- Original Message -----
From: "Barry Stoller" <bstoller@utopia2000.org>
To: <anti-nato@yahoogroups.com>; <ANTINATO@topica.com>;
<rad-green@lists.econ.utah.edu>;
<leninist-international@lists.econ.utah.edu>;
<communist-internet@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 10:23 PM
Subject: [R-G] NATO war crimes in Kosovo

Pravda. 1 November 2001. NATO war crimes in Kosovo, the evidence.

20,000 explosive devices from unexploded NATO cluster bombs were
scattered over Kosovo.

Criticism is raised that cluster bombs kill more civilians in Kosovo
than anti-personnel mines.

Cluster bombs explode over their target, spreading hundreds of explosive
fragments over a wide area. These are activated by human contact, such
as a tank's caterpillar, a soldier's boot or the hand of a child at
play, mistaking the device for a Coca-Cola bottle.

Shocking data has surfaced about the use of cluster bombs by NATO in the
campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, in which
1,392 cluster bombs were dropped by the USAF and Royal Air Force, under
the command of NATO.

Two and a half years later, most of these have been removed from the
more frequented areas, but at a high cost for the civilian population:
47 dead and 97 wounded, according to the UN mine-clearing operation,
MACC.

The leader of this operation, John Flanagan, said that "We found cluster
bombs in incredible places."

The TMK (Kosovo Civil Protection Force, ex-KLA) will disactivate the
remainder of the unexploded cluster bombs which fell in remote, but
accessible, areas.

Apart from not exploding, many of these weapons were off-target,
sometimes by as much as two or three kilometres. This raises the issue
of how imprecise "precision weapons" are and also the legality of their
deployment in modern warfare. The fact that the NATO aircraft flew at
such high altitudes, to avoid strikes by anti-aircraft weaponry,
compounded the problem.

Worse of all was the practice of "dumping." Basically, this means
dropping unused bombs after a raid on a target, such as after being
chased by enemy aircraft or forced to abandon the mission due to missile
activity. The bombs are dropped at random, nowhere near the target,
totally against the rules of engagement.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is in favour of a
moratorium being imposed on cluster bombs because they cause so many
civilian casualties. The ICRC also refutes the figures issued by MACC
and claims that ìhundredsî of civilians in Kosovo were th victims of
cluster bombs.

Richard Lloyd, the director of a British anti-personnel mine campaign,
declared that the bombing in Kosovo was against international law
because it was "blind."

Under the Geneva Convention, equipment deployed in the battlefield must
not be lethally effective after a Peace Treaty has been signed.

This is not the case and as such, NATO is guilty of war crimes.

Other incidents which involved illegal activity by NATO aircraft was the
incident in Nis, Serbia, in 1999, in which cluster bombs were dropped on
a residential area, leaving 20 civilians dead.

In Kosovo, in May 1999, a bus carrying Albanian and Serb passengers was
strafed by a NATO military aircraft. When the ambulances had arrived and
first aid teams were working on the victims, another NATO aircraft
dropped a cluster bomb on them. The result was 19 civilians killed.

Towards the end of the same month, at Urosevac, 5 Albanian children were
killed by an unexploded cluster bomb particle.

War is not an excuse to unleash wanton violence without rules of combat,
rules of deployment and rules of engagement. That is what the Geneva
Convention is for.

NATO disrespected it, and broke the Convention.

The difference is that Slobodan Milosevic is in court, albeit held
illegally after an act of international kidnapping.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Barry Stoller
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews
with continuing coverage of WWIII

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No to NATO

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