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INTERNAL
DOCUMENTS FROM GERMANY'S
FOREIGN
OFFICE REGARDING
PRE-BOMBARDMENT
GENOCIDE IN KOSOVO
Collected by International Association
of Lawyers Against
Nuclear Arms
1: Opinion of the Upper Administrative
Court at Mnster,
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)
2: 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."
3: 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."
4: 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."
5. 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."
6. Opinion of the Administrative Court
of
Baden-Wrttemberg, 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 Lneberg 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."
7: Opinion of the Upper Administrative
Court at Mnster,
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."
------ Translator's Notes ------
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.
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