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
http://www.jungewelt.de/1999/04-24/011.shtml as well as the commentary at
http://www.jungewelt.de/1999/04-24/001.shtml). 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)