Sunday, March 28th, 1999.

The civilians are leaving because of the bombing

    Q: I assume the KLA was attacked immediately after NATO strikes started. When NATO strikes stop there will be no more KLA, nor will there be a large number of their supporters. I may be wrong but my impression is that the goal of NATO strikes is to indirectly eliminate a large number of Albanians from Kosovo (genocide). It sounds monstrous: To make Milosevic solve a problem he was not able to solve for the last 10 years?

    A: That is the relevant detail - if he could not solve the problem for so many years (he did not even manage to crush a mutiny for more than a year), what makes you think that now, in a just a few days, he will manage to do what he has failed so far? Even if he successfully destroys KLA (and destroying a guerilla force is not easy since it can be disformed, and later on reformed very quickly), there are still 1.5 million civilians. That figure will not be affected by a few deaths. For such a number to be seriously threatened a systematic genocide or a large cleansing campaign is required with inevitable question "What to do with all those people?". Not to mention that such an action could not go unnoticed. I have heard stories that the police has been using extensive force, but so far it was not confirmed. The impression is that there is no more than usual fighting between the government forces and the KLA. Although Seselj has promised a Kosovo without Albanians and an attack against the neigh boring countries that support NATO, apparently nothing of this is happening.

    Q: It is unclear why didn't they get UN approval? Because of that they are now losing even the support of the public opinion in their own countries.

    A: Who is officially backing the strikes up is irrelevant (to us), because not a single relevant country has given us a concrete (military) support. As for public opinion, I am sure they have their own Komrakovs and Spomenkas (well known speakers on the government Radio and Television of Serbia).

Darko