by Sarah Standefer, WAMM, and WAMM's Yugoslavia Committee

The propaganda war against the Serbs and Yugoslavia came home to Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) on January 25, 2001. MPR's documentary division, American RadioWorks, broadcast a gruesome account of an alleged Serbian attempt to cover up their war crimes.

Serbian soldiers, using first names only, told a reporter in grisly detail that in the summer of 1999 they dug up 1500 ethnic Albanians massacred by Serbs and in the dead of night transported them to a lead mine in Trepca, a mine complex near Mitrovica in northern Kosovo. There the soldiers ground up the bodies and incinerated them in furnaces so hot there is no trace left except for, amazingly, a pile of women's and children's clothing. The piece, "The Promise of Justice: Burning the Evidence," by reporters Michael Montgomery and Stephen Smith for American RadioWorks, was widely publicized, run nationally several times, and reported in many newspapers.

Hardly reported was the statement the next day by OSCE (Organization for European Cooperation and Security) spokeswoman Claire Trevena refuting the RadioWorks report. She said they had heard the stories in 1999 during the bombing (including the one circulated by the U.S. government that 700 bodies had been burned--notice the inflation of numbers in the MPR report) and investigated the site at that time. A French forensic team with sophisticated equipment found no evidence of remains, nor evidence to substantiate the story. Smith and Montgomery did not interview anyone from the OSCE.

Another glaring and important problem with the report is that the mines and furnaces at Trepca shut down two weeks after the bombing began in March 1999, well before the alleged coverup occurred in the summer of 1999. The report can be discredited on this fact alone.

It withers even more under a little scrutiny. The "eye witnesses" who said they committed the crime claimed to be members of an elite division of the Serbian army. They indicated no remorse. Why would they give information so devastating that would lead to indictment of themselves and their colleagues?

How could such a large operation have gone unimpeded by the U.S./NATO forces, which had Kosovo under total surveillance at the time? For that matter, why would anyone take the time and trouble to strip decomposing bodies only to leave a pile of clothes as evidence?

Furthermore, the numbers do not add up. In July 1999, the International Red Cross (ICRC) produced a comprehensive list of 3300 Kosovo residents including Albanians, Serbs, and Roma missing and unaccounted for between September 1998 and July 1999. They determined most had been missing before the beginning of the bombing. The ICRC estimated that several hundred Serbs had been kidnapped by the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) and are presumed dead. KLA suspects put into Yugoslav jails in an effort to suppress the Albanian independence movement numbered 2200. Subtract the several dozen KLA members killed off by their own leaders as reported by NY Times reporter Chris Hedges. The number is well below 1000, and certainly below the 1500 claimed in the report.

The impartiality of Smith and Montgomery is questionable. Could they have been influenced by their positions as consultants to the Independent International Commission on Kosovo? The commission was set up by the governments of NATO at the instigation of George Soros (well known KLA supporter) and Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the UN. It is also noteworthy that Kevin Close, president of NPR, came to the network from Radio Free Europe/America, a propaganda arm of the State Department.

\This piece of journalism is the latest example in a long list used to demonize the Serbs and Yugoslavia. Often official investigations prove such reports untrue, but once a story is broadcast, the damage is done and the correction is underreported.

This was the case with the release of another report the same week. A Finnish forensic team found there was no evidence that 42 ethnic Albanians had been massacred in the village of Racak, Kosovo, in March 1999. This was the allegation by William Walker, then head of the OSCE (and infamous for his protection of death squads in El Salvador). The massacre was reported worldwide at the time and was utilized by the U.S. as an excuse to begin the bombing--the Tonkin Bay of the war against Yugoslavia. The investigation was completed two years ago, but the results were kept secret by the UN and the EU (European Union) until now.

"Promise of Justice: Burning the Evidence" served to distract the U.S. public from growing European concerns over the use of depleted uranium munitions in Bosnia and Kosovo. MPR must be held accountable for their unethical reporting of the news and their lack of accurate coverage of what is happening in Yugoslavia.