Stopping genocide, what genocide?????????
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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