Byzantine Blog

Whoever Dares to Say NATO is Inhumane?!

British Independent reports that eight years after the three-month bombardment, NATO has finally assented to tell the Serbian government where they dropped thousands of cluster bombs, with at least 20,000 of them believed to be unexploded.

The actual numbers that are not mentioned by the Independent are indeed much higher, since it is known that NATO has dropped at least 3,500 cluster bombs on the town of Gracanica alone and it is estimated that the bombs have a failure rate anywhere from 5 to 30 per cent, while the Independent’s report, naturally, sticks to the most conservative, hygienic 5 per cent rate only, citing merely 2,000 cluster bombs total dropped on the whole state in three months.

The United States, Britain and Holland, the primary death-contributors to the “Merciful Angel” humanitarian bombardment of FR Yugoslavia in 1999, have dropped thousands of cluster bombs containing, according to the Independent, some 380,000 sub-munitions all over Serbia, including its southern Kosovo province towns and villages. The so-called sub-munitions are actually smaller bombs (bomblets) which burst upon the impact “over an area the size of several football pitches,” aimed exclusively at living targets.

According to the Lt. General Thomas McInerney, quoted by the PBS, “A cluster bomb is a bomb that’s about the size of a baseball, and then there may be 500 to a thousand [bomblets] in one large bomb, and then they spread out; they’re dropped about whatever altitude — they open up at about a thousand feet — so they’ll cover an area one to two thousand feet and it’s like a thousand hand grenades being dropped.”

The cluster bombs are elegantly referred to as the “anti-personnel” weapon in the official lingo, meaning they are supposed to kill and maim military personnel only, except that the deadly shrapnels and bullet-fast explosive chards are not exactly distinguishing between the strong grown men wearing uniform and children, elderly, civilians in general or the livestock and household pets — blow one of those anywhere near the populated area, and you have a bloodcurdling carnage right there and then.

Over the years there have been many attempts to ban the use of this monstrous weapon, but all have failed due to the staunch U.S./British opposition to the ban.

Since the end of NATO aggression at least eleven people, including eight children, have been killed by exploding cluster munitions in Serbia, while 12 people, six of them children, were mutilated. According to the Independent, Serbian officials report that up to 23 square kilometers in six areas suffer cluster contamination, with agriculture and development being banned in several rural areas because of it.

And yet, despite repeated Serbian requests, the coordinates of these bombing raids had not been given to Belgrade during the past eight years. For the British side, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon was quoted by the Independent as saying Britain had given the information to NATO, which failed to pass it on to Serbian government.

A leading British campaigner against the bombs Lord Elton commented the statement by the ministers who had apparently confirmed in mid-May this year that the coordinates had been supplied to NATO and NATO “would in due course hand them to Serbia,” saying: “That’s eight years for children to blow their feet off. Why can’t we send our co-ordinates direct and get others to do the same?”

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