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her wrist while her husband told her [Gillan] how all the women had been robbed of their jewellery and other possessions. A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees talked of mass rapes and what sounded like hundreds of killings in three villages, but when Gillan pressed him for more precise informa- tion he reduced it drastically to five or six teenage rape victims. But he had not spoken to any witnesses and admitted, "We have no way of verifying these reports".'* Gillan notes that some refugees had seen killings and other atrocities, but there was little to suggest that they had seen them on the scale that was being reported. One afternoon, officials in charge said there were refugees arriving who talked of 60 or more being killed in one village and 50 in another, but Gillan "could not find one eyewitness who actually saw these things happening". Yet, every day, Western journalists reported "hundreds" of rapes and murders. Sometimes they noted in passing that the reports had yet to be substantiated, but then why were such unverified stories being so eagerly reported in the first place? many liberals who supported NATO's "humanitarian rescue operation". Among these latter were some supposedly progressive members of Congress who seemed to believe they were witnessing another Nazi Holocaust. On June 17, just before the end of the war, British Foreign Office Minister Geoff Hoon said that "in more than 100 mas- sacres" some 10,000 ethnic Albanians had been killed '"—down from the 500,000 and 100,000 bandied about by US officials. A day or two after the bombings stopped, Associated Press an other news agencies, echoing Hoon, reported that 10,000 Albanians had been killed by the Serbs.’ No explanation was given as to how this figure was arrived at, especially since not a single war site had yet been investigated and NATO forces ha barely begun to move into Kosovo. On August 2, Bernard Kouchner, the United Nations' chief administrator in Kosovo (and Doctors Without Borders organis- er), asserted that about 11,000 bodies had been found in common graves throughout Kosovo. He cited as his source the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Republic o Yugoslavia (ICTY). But the ICTY denied providing any such information. To this day, it is not clear how Kouchner came uj with his estimate.” THE DISAPPEARING "MASS GRAVES" Yugoslavia (ICTY). But the ICTY denied providing any such After NATO forces occupied Kosovo, the stories about mass information. To this day, it is not clear how Kouchner came up atrocities continued fortissimo. The Washington Post reported with his estimate.” that 350 ethnic Albanians "might be As with the Croatian and Bosnian buried in mass graves" around a conflicts, the image of mass killings mountain village in western Kosovo. was hyped once again. Repeatedly They "might be" or they might not It was repeatedly announced unsubstantiated references to "mass be. These estimates were based on graves", each allegedly containing sources that NATO officials refused in the first days of the NATO hundreds or even thousands of to identify. Getting down to occupation that 10,000 Albanians Albanian victims, were publicised specifics, the article mentions "four in daily media reports. In decomposing bodies" discovered had been killed—down from the September 1999, Jared Israel did an peta ane. viine dei | 490,000 and even 500,000 firsts fr ncuron: a died." Albanian men supposedly three months and included the It was repeatedly announced in H words "Kosovo" and "mass grave". the first days of the NATO occupa- executed during the war. The report came back: "More than tion that 10,000 Albanians had been 1,000—too many to list". Limiting killed—down from the 100,000 and his search to articles in the New even 500,000 Albanian men suppos- York Times, he came up with 80, edly executed during the war. No evidence was ever offered to _ nearly one a day. Yet when it came down to hard evidence, the support the 10,000 figure, nor even to explain how it was arrived mass graves seemed to disappear. at so swiftly and surely while NATO troops were still moving into Thus, in mid-June, the FBI sent a team to investigate two of the place and occupied but small portions of the province. sites listed in the war-crimes indictment against Slobodan Likewise, repeatedly unsubstantiated references were made to Milosevic, one purportedly containing six victims and the other "mass graves", each purportedly filled with hundreds or even twenty. The team lugged 107,000 pounds of equipment into thousands of Albanian victims, but such graves also failed to Kosovo to handle what was called the "largest crime scene in the materialise. FBI's forensic history", but it came up with no reports about mass Through the [northern] summer of 1999, the media hype about graves. Not long after, on July 1, the FBI team returned home, mass graves devolved into an occasional unspecified reference. oddly with not a word to say about its investigation.” The few sites actually unearthed offered up as many as a dozen Forensic experts from other NATO countries had similar expe- bodies or sometimes twice that number, but with no certain evi- riences. For instance, a Spanish forensic team was told to prepare dence regarding causes of death or even the nationality of victims. for at least 2,000 autopsies but found only 187 bodies, usually In some cases, there was reason to believe the victims were buried in individual graves and showing no signs of massacre or Serbs." torture. Most seemed to have been killed by mortar shells and On April 19, 1999, while the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia _ firearms. One Spanish forensic expert, Emilio Perez Puhola, were going on, the State Department announced that up to acknowledged that his team did not find one mass grave. He dis- 500,000 Kosovar Albanians were missing and feared dead. On missed the widely publicised references about mass graves as May 16, US Secretary of Defense William Cohen, a former being part of the "machinery of war propaganda". Republican senator from Maine and now serving in President In late August 1999, the Los Angeles Times tried to salvage the Clinton's Democratic Administration, stated that 100,000 military- genocide theme with a story about how the wells of Kosovo might aged ethnic Albanian men had vanished and might have been be "mass graves in their own right". The Times claimed that: killed by the Serbs.'’ Such widely varying but horrendous figures "...many corpses have been dumped into wells in Kosovo... from official sources went unchallenged by the media and by the Serbian forces apparently stuffed...many bodies of ethnic 100,000 and even 500,000 Albanian men supposedly executed during the war. NEXUS - 23 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2000