IMPORTANT INTERNAL DOCUMENTS FROM GERMANY'S FOREIGN OFFICE REGARDING PRE-BOMBARDMENT GENOCIDE IN KOSOVO
As in the case of the Clinton Administration, the present regime in Germany, specifically Joschka
Fischer's Foreign Office, has justified its intervention in Kosovo by pointing to a "humanitarian
catastrophe," "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" occurring there, especially in the months immediately
preceding the NATO attack. The following internal documents from Fischer's ministry and from various
regional Administrative Courts in Germany spanning the year before the start of NATO's air attacks,
attest that criteria of ethnic cleansing and genocide were not met. The Foreign Office documents were
responses to the courts' needs in deciding the status of Kosovo-Albanian refugees in Germany.
Although one might in these cases suppose a bias in favor of downplaying a humanitarian catastrophe
in order to limit refugees, it nevertheless remains highly significant that the Foreign Office, in contrast to
its public assertion of ethnic cleansing and genocide in justifying NATO intervention, privately continued
to deny their existence as Yugoslav policy in this crucial period. And this continued to be their
assessment even in March of this year. Thus these documents tend to show that stopping genocide
was not the reason the German government, and by implication NATO, intervened in Kosovo, and that
genocide (as understood in German and international law) in Kosovo did not precede NATO
bombardment, at least not from early 1998 through March, 1999, but is a product of it.
Excerpts from the these official documents were obtained by IALANA (International Association of
Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms) which sent them to various media. The texts used here were published
in the German daily junge welt on April 24, 1999. (See jungewelt.de as
well as the commentary at jungewelt.de. According to my sources,
this is as complete a reproduction of the documents as exists in the German media at the time of this
writing. What follows is my translation of these published excerpts.
Eric Canepa Brecht Forum, New York April 28, 1999
I: Intelligence report from the Foreign Office January 6, 1999 to the Bavarian Administrative Court,
Ansbach:
"At this time, an increasing tendency is observable inside the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia of refugees returning to their dwellings. ... Regardless of the desolate
economic situation in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (according to official
information of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 700,000 refugees from Croatia,
Bosnia and Herzogovina have found lodging since 1991), no cases of chronic
malnutrition or insufficient medical treatment among the refugees are known and
significant homelessness has not been observed. ... According to the Foreign Office's
assessment, individual Kosovo-Albanians (and their immediate families) still have
limited possibilities of settling in those parts of Yugoslavia in which their countrymen or
friends already live and who are ready to take them in and support them."
II. Intelligence report from the Foreign Office, January 12, 1999 to the Administrative Court of Trier
(Az: 514-516.80/32 426):
"Even in Kosovo an explicit political persecution linked to Albanian ethnicity is not
verifiable. The East of Kosovo is still not involved in armed conflict. Public life in cities
like Pristina, Urosevac, Gnjilan, etc. has, in the entire conflict period, continued on a
relatively normal basis." The "actions of the security forces (were) not directed against
the Kosovo-Albanians as an ethnically defined group, but against the military opponent
and its actual or alleged supporters."
III. Report of the Foreign Office March 15, 1999 (Az: 514-516,80/33841) to the Administrative
Court, Mainz:
"As laid out in the status report of November 18, 1998, the KLA has resumed its
positions after the partial withdrawal of the (Serbian) security forces in October 1998,
so it once again controls broad areas in the zone of conflict. Before the beginning of
spring 1999 there were still clashes between the KLA and security forces, although
these have not until now reached the intensity of the battles of spring and summer
1998."
IV: Opinion of the Bavarian Administrative Court, October 29, 1998 (Az: 22 BA 94.34252):
"The Foreign Office's status reports of May 6, June 8 and July 13, 1998, given to the
plaintiffs in the summons to a verbal deliberation, do not allow the conclusion that there
is group persecution of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. Not even regional group
persecution, applied to all ethnic Albanians from a specific part of Kosovo, can be
observed with sufficient certainty. The violent actions of the Yugoslav military and police
since February 1998 were aimed at separatist activities and are no proof of a
persecution of the whole Albanian ethnic group in Kosovo or in a part of it. What was
involved in the Yugoslav violent actions and excesses since February 1998 was a
selective forcible action against the military underground movement (especially the
KLA) and people in immediate contact with it in its areas of operation. ...A state
program or persecution aimed at the whole ethnic group of Albanians exists neither
now nor earlier."
V. Opinion of the Administrative Court of Baden-Württemberg, February 4, 1999 (Az: A 14 S
22276/98):
"The various reports presented to the senate all agree that the often feared
humanitarian catastrophe threatening the Albanian civil population has been averted. ...
This appears to be the case since the winding down of combat in connection with an
agreement made with the Serbian leadership at the end of 1998 (Status Report of the
Foreign Office, November 18, 1998). Since that time both the security situation and the
conditions of life of the Albanian-derived population have noticeably improved. ...
Specifically in the larger cities public life has since returned to relative normality (cf. on
this Foreign Office, January 12, 1999 to the Administrative Court of Trier; December
28, 1998 to the Upper Administrative Court of Lüneberg and December 23, 1998 to the
Administrative Court at Kassel), even though tensions between the population groups
have meanwhile increased due to individual acts of violence... Single instances of
excessive acts of violence against the civil population, e.g. in Racak, have, in world
opinion, been laid at the feet of the Serbian side and have aroused great indignation.
But the number and frequency of such excesses do not warrant the conclusion that
every Albanian living in Kosovo is exposed to extreme danger to life and limb nor is
everyone who returns there threatened with death and severe injury."
VI: Opinion of the Upper Administrative Court at Münster, February 24, 1999 (Az: 14 A 3840/94,A):
"There is no sufficient actual proof of a secret program, or an unspoken consensus on
the Serbian side, to liquidate the Albanian people, to drive it out or otherwise to
persecute it in the extreme manner presently described. ... If Serbian state power
carries out its laws and in so doing necessarily puts pressure on an Albanian ethnic
group which turns its back on the state and is for supporting a boycott, then the
objective direction of these measures is not that of a programmatic persecution of this
population group ...Even if the Serbian state were benevolently to accept or even to
intend that a part of the citizenry which sees itself in a hopeless situation or opposes
compulsory measures, should emigrate, this still does not represent a program of
persecution aimed at the whole of the Albanian majority (in Kosovo)."
"If moreover the (Yugoslav) state reacts to separatist strivings with consistent and harsh
execution of its laws and with anti-separatist measures, and if some of those involved
decide to go abroad as a result, this is still not a deliberate policy of the (Yugoslav)
state aiming at ostracizing and expelling the minority; on the contrary it is directed
toward keeping this people within the state federation."
"Events since February and March 1998 do not evidence a persecution program based
on Albanian ethnicity. The measures taken by the armed Serbian forces are in the first
instance directed toward combatting the KLA and its supposed adherents and
supporters."
VII: Opinion of the Upper Administrative Court at Münster, March 11, 1999 (Az: 13A 3894/94.A):
"Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have neither been nor are now exposed to regional or
countrywide group persecution in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." (Thesis 1)
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