The real surprise is the naiveté of the western governments, who seriously The threat of Gulf War s NATO's radio Depleted uranium shells pose a long term threat to the people and environment of the entire Balkans. The A-10 "Warthog" jets in action over Kosovo and Yugoslavia were the anti-tank weapon of choice in the 1991 war against Iraq. The Warthog carries a GAU-8/A Avenger 30 millimetre seven-barrel cannon capable of firing 4,200 rounds per minute. During the gulf war it fired 30mm rounds reinforced with depleted uranium, a radioactive weapon.
There is solid scientific evidence that the depleted uranium residue left in Iraq is responsible for a large increase in stillbirths, children born with defects, and childhood leukemia and other cancers in the area of southern Iraq near Basra, where most of these shells were fired.
Many U.S. veterans groups also say that DU resides contributed to the condition called "Gulf War Syndrome" that has affected close to 100,000 service people in the U.S. and Britain with chronic sickness.
John Catalinotto, a spokesperson from the Depleted Uranium Education Project of the US International Action Centre, a group that campaigns against the use of depleteduranium weapon, and an editor of the 1997 book Metal of Dishonour: Depleted Uranium, said the use of DU weapons in Yugoslavia "adds a new dimension to the crime NATO is perpetrating against the Yugoslav people-including the Kosovars."
КОгОЛО 1 thought that Milosevic would cede to their pressure.
The West is always right
Servile journalists began to "remind"
us that Milosevic had ceded to NATO pressure in Bosnia. This is a bizarre version of what the Bosnian Serbs won at the Dayton negotiations: their separatists "Republika srpska" was recognised as a constituent part of a confederal Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Dayton agreement also marginalised Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, leaving Slobodan Milosevic as the undisputed leader of all the Serbs! Rather than retreating, Milosevic emerged from the Dayton negotiations strengthened in Bosnia and in Serbia. yndrome active shells
Depleted Uranium is a waste product of the uranium enrichment process used for making atomic bombs and nuclear fuel. Because it is extremely dense—1.7 times as dense as lead, "DU is used in alloy form in shells to make them penetrate targets better," explains Catalinotto.
As the shell hits its target, it burns and releases uranium oxide into the air. The poisonous and radioactive uranium is most dangerous when inhaled into the body, where it will release radiation during the life of the person who inhaled it," said Catalinotto.
Sara Flounders, a contributing author of Metal of Dishonour: Depleted Uranium and the Co-Director of the International Action Centre, said, "Warthogs fired roughly 940,000 rounds of DU shells during the Gulf War. More than 600,000 pounds (273,000 kg) of radioactive waste was left in the Gulf Region after the war.
"DU weapons in smaller number were already used by NATO troops during the bombing of Serbian areas of Bosnia in 1995.
"The use of Warthogs with DU shells threatens to make a nuclear wasteland of Kosovo," Flounders said. "The pentagon is laying waste to the very people they claim to be saving." * Source: International Action Centre, 39 West 14th Street, #206, New York, NY 10011, USA. Tel +1-212-633-6646 fax: 633-2889 E-mail: <[email protected]> web site: www.iacenter.org Metal of Dishonour: Depleted Uranium has also been published in Arabic and Japanese. A second English edition will be published soon.
International Viewpoint #311 May 1999 5
* Kosovo
NATO bombs will make the Serbian population even more loyal to Milosevic. Opposition leader Vuk Draskovic and ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj have already rallied to Milosevic in the name of national unity.
And most of the population sees Milosovic's Socialist Party, and his wife Mira Markovic's Yugoslav Left, as more likely to solve their terrible social problems than the more pro-capitalist opposition parties. "National self-defence" has been invoked to justify a new wave of media censorship. Tension in Montenegro
The only dissident voice in Yugoslav politics comes from Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic. His clique of former Communist aparatchiks is seeking US financial and political support for a "democratic" pro-western and modernist project that might mean splitting Montenegro from the Yugoslav federation— thus depriving Serbia of its only sea access and most of its tourist industry.
Djukanovic has not offered to support the Kosovars, though he has opposed the use of Montenegro as a base for Serb attacks into Kosovo.
Until the NATO attacks started, his strategy was to exploit Milosovic's distraction so as to increase the rate of privatisation in Montenegro, and pass legislation that would keep tourism earnings in Montenegro. But now that NATO bombs are falling on Montenegro, he will find it hard to oppose Milosovic's nationalist calls for unity and discipline. If he is not careful, Milosevic will be able to exploit the crisis to replace him with his own "man in Montenegro", expremier Bulatovic. Serbia intensifies attacks
Since bombs are already falling, Serbia seems to be seizing the opportunity to implement a radical plan that was already circulating in the corridors of power: expel as many Kosovars as possible, in preparation of a partition of the province, with Serbia keeping some of the mines, and the orthodox monasteries that are such powerful symbols of Serbian nationalism.
In Serbia and the NATO countries, the media have become servants of the generals. All western and independent journalists have been expelled from Kosovo, making it impossible to confirm the refugee reports of Serb violence. But these are plausible accounts.
Things are likely to get worse. The Serb mercenary leader Arkan is again recruiting "dogs of war" for the butchery that made him famous in Bosnia and Croatia. NATO escalates the conflict
As the NATO attack intensifies, the west will seek more difficult targets, including those located in populated zones. If there is no quick solution, 6 International Viewpoint #310 April 1999
NATO will have to introduce ground troops, or admit stalemate.
But no NATO government is yet ready to risk the death of its own "boys" They are striking Serbia in the name of Kosovo, but refuse to recognise the Kosovars' right to self-determination.
Their "concern" for Kosovars contrasts sharply with their indifference to the plight of the Kurds, butchered and repressed by NATO member Turkey, using the latest technology from its democratic partners Britain, France, Germany and the USA.