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Investigating the true numbers of rape victims of Kosovo--are the numbers inflated? And why don’t we talk about the women who were victims of the KLA?
Investigating the true numbers of rape victims of Kosovo--are the numbers inflated? And why don’t we talk about the women who were victims of the KLA?
Human Rights Watch documented 96 credible (yet unproven) cases of rape by Serbian and Yugoslav forces against Kosovar Albanian women immediately before and during the 1999 bombing campaign, and believes that many more incidents of rape have gone unreported.
This is a lengthy document, but page 13 mentions that there were abuses by the KLA as early as 1998 (this is when the US designated the KLA a terrorist organization). Alleged rapes by Serbs are listed on page 130.
https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/Under_Orders_En_Combined.pdf
https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/Under_Orders_En_Combined.pdf
How did we get from 96 cases to 20,000? Could there be an incentive to inflate the numbers? Victims of rape are able to receive 230 Euros per month. https://balkaninsight.com/2019/06/20/kosovos-invisible-children-secret-legacy-of-wartime-rape/
In a country where the average monthly salary was 504 Euros per month in 2018, that is quite a bit of money. These reparations are only available to Albanian women, NOT to Serbs or other minorities.
https://tradingeconomics.com/kosovo/wages
https://tradingeconomics.com/kosovo/wages
UNHCR said it had no evidence of a rape camp at Djakovica and it suggested that NATO could have compiled details only from its spy satellites.
One observer, who wanted to remain anonymous, wondered why Mr Cook had raised the issue only a day after NATO attacked a train in Serbia, killing 10 civilians. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/cook-voices-wide-suspicion-of-rape-camps-run-by-serbs-in-kosovo-1.173513?mode=amp
No one ever talks about sex crimes committed by Albanians. In 1985, Đorđe Martinović was raped with a bottle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%90or%C4%91e_Martinovi%C4%87_incident#:~:text=%C4%90or%C4%91e%20Martinovi%C4%87%20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%90or%C4%91e_Martinovi%C4%87_incident#:~:text=%C4%90or%C4%91e%20Martinovi%C4%87%20
"She also did not manage to gain the status of victim of sexual violence, a Kosovo government scheme that allows survivors of to claim a monthly pension of 230 euros after they pass a verification process." https://balkaninsight.com/2019/11/19/kosovo-roma-woman-died-in-despair-after-war-rape-testimony/
Human Rights watch documented many crimes against minorities, after the supposed end of the war in 1999. The article below mentions gang rapes against Serbs, Roma, and Ashkali women.
https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/undword2c.html
https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/undword2c.html
Albanians will claim that crimes against Ramush Haradinaj and Hashim Thaci are unproven, but maybe that’s because the witnesses end up dead? https://adarapress.com/2019/07/19/kosovos-narco-terrorist-prime-minister-ramush-haradinaj-resigns-after-hague-criminal-court-summons/
Carla del Ponte expressed frustration with the witness tampering done by former members of the KLA. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/06/bring-up-the-bodies
A profile of Ramush Haradinaj…. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-14542505
More evidence of KLA crimes including unlawful killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and Albania, sexual violence, and other forms of inhumane treatment. https://www.dw.com/en/compelling-evidence-for-kosovo-liberation-army-crimes/a-17820407
If crimes were committed on all sides, why would you demonize the Serbs? As with any American intervention, a nuanced approach to reporting would negatively impact popular support.
Canadian General Lewis Mackenzie insisted (in Bosnia) that “it was not a black-and-white picture and that ‘bad’ buys had not killed ‘good’ guys. This is the same general who later said in Kosovo that he thought we bombed the wrong side. https://fpif.org/serb_demonization_as_propaganda_coup/
The source for these stories of atrocities is sometimes NATO politicians with an obvious interest in manipulating the news, many of whose claims – that Pristina stadium was being used as a concentration camp, for example – have been false.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/savich1.html
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/savich1.html
No one ever found a single ‘rape camp’ in Bosnia, and a member of a European Community team sent to find such camps in 1992 resigned because the delegation interviewed only four victims before making its report that 20,000 women had been raped.
Were similar propaganda tactics used in “Kosovo”? Why the same number of victims? https://fair.org/article/natos-propaganda-war/
So why is the United States still in Kosovo? 21 years after the intervention, and 12 years after the unilateral declaration of independence (which is still not recognized by Serbia), it remains a NATO protectorate, only recognized by 97 countries in the world.
