Tuesday, May 18, 1999<\/p>\n
Acts of murder:\u00a0 <\/span>Up to 38 aircraft have been shot down or crashed.\u00a0This is suppressed, of course<\/strong><\/p>\n By John Pilger<\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/span>THE room is filled with the bodies of children killed by Nato in\u00a0Surdulica in Serbia. Several are recognisable only by their sneakers. A\u00a0dead infant is cradled in the arms of his father. These pictures and\u00a0many others have not been shown in Britain; it will be said they are too\u00a0horrific. But minimising the culpability of the British state when it is\u00a0engaged in criminal action is normal; censorship is by omission and\u00a0misuse of language. The media impression of a series of Nato ‘blunders’\u00a0is false. Anyone scrutinising the unpublished list of targets hit by\u00a0Nato is left in little doubt that a deliberate terror campaign is being\u00a0waged against the civilian population of Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/span>Eighteen hospitals and clinics and at least 200 nurseries, schools,\u00a0colleges and students’ dormitories have been destroyed or damaged,\u00a0together with housing estates, hotels, libraries, youth centres,\u00a0theatres, museums, churches and 14th-century monasteries on the World\u00a0Heritage list. Farms have been bombed, their crops set on fire. As\u00a0Friday’s bombing of the Kosovo town of Korisa shows, there is no\u00a0discrimination between Serbs and those being ‘saved’. Every day, three\u00a0times more civilians are killed by Nato than the daily estimate of\u00a0deaths of Kosovans in the months prior to the bombing.<\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/span>The British people are not being told about a policy designed largely\u00a0by their government to cause such criminal carnage. The dissembling of\u00a0politicians and the lies of ‘spokesmen’ set much of the news agenda.\u00a0There is no sense of the revulsion felt throughout most of the world for\u00a0this wholly illegal action, for the punishment of Milosevic’s crime with\u00a0a greater crime and for the bellicose antics of Blair, Cook and\u00a0Robertson, who have made themselves into international caricatures.<\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/span>‘There was no need of censorship of our dispatches. We were our own\u00a0censors,’ wrote Philip Gibbs, the Times correspondent in 1914-18. The\u00a0silence is different now; there is the illusion of saturation coverage,\u00a0but the reality is a sameness and repetition and, above all, political\u00a0safety for the perpetrators.<\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/span>A few days before the killing of make-up ladies and camera operators\u00a0in the Yugoslav television building, Jamie Shea, Nato’s man, wrote to\u00a0the International Federation of Journalists: ‘There is no policy to\u00a0attack television and radio transmitters.’ Where were the cries of\u00a0disgust from among the famous names at the BBC, John Simpson apart? Who\u00a0interrupted the mutual back-slapping at last week’s Royal Television\u00a0Society awards? Silence. The news from Shepherd’s Bush is that BBC\u00a0presenters are to wear pinks, lavender and blues which ‘will allow us to\u00a0be a bit more conversational in the way we discuss stories’.<\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/span>Here is some of the news they leave out. The appendix pages of the\u00a0Rambouillet ‘accords’, which have not been published in Britain, show\u00a0Nato’s agenda was to occupy not just Kosovo, but all of Yugoslavia. This\u00a0was rejected, not just by Milosevic, but by the elected Yugoslav\u00a0parliament, which proposed a UN force to monitor a peace settlement: a\u00a0genuine alternative to bombing. Clinton and Blair ignored it.<\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/span>Britain is attacking simultaneously two countries which offer no\u00a0threat. Every day Iraq is bombed and almost none of it is news. Last\u00a0week, 20 civilians were killed in Mosul, and a shepherd and his family\u00a0were bombed. The sheep were bombed. In the last 18 months, the Blair\u00a0government has dropped more bombs than the Tories dropped in 18 years.<\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/span>Nato is suffering significant losses. Reliable alternative sources inWashington have counted up to 38 aircraft crashed or shot down, and an\u00a0undisclosed number of American and British special forces killed. This\u00a0is suppressed, of course.<\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/span>Anti-bombing protests reverberate around the world: 100,000 people in\u00a0the streets of Rome (including 182 members of the Italian parliament),\u00a0thousands in Greece and Germany, protests taking place every night in\u00a0colleges and town halls across Britain. Almost none of it is reported.\u00a0Is it not extraordinary that no national opinion poll on the war has\u00a0been published since April 30?<\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/span>‘Normalisation,’ wrote the American essayist Edward Herman, depends on\u00a0‘a division of labour in doing and rationalising the unthinkable, with\u00a0the direct brutalising and killing done by one set of individuals . . .others working on improved technology (a better crematory gas, a longer\u00a0burning and more adhesive Napalm). It is the function of experts and the\u00a0mainstream media to normalise the unthinkable for the general public.’<\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/span>This week, the unthinkable will again be normalised when Nato triples\u00a0the bombing raids to 700 a day. This includes blanket bombing by B-52s.\u00a0Blair and Clinton and the opaque-eyed General Clark, apologist for the\u00a0My Lai massacre in Vietnam, are killing and maiming hundreds, perhaps\u00a0thousands, of innocent people in the Balkans. No contortion of intellect\u00a0and morality, nor silence, will diminish the truth that these are acts\u00a0of murder. And until there is a revolt by journalists and broadcasters,\u00a0they will continue to get away with it. That is the news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tuesday, May 18, 1999 Acts of murder:\u00a0 Up to 38 aircraft have been shot down or crashed.\u00a0This is suppressed, of course By John Pilger \u00a0 THE room is filled with the bodies of children killed by Nato in\u00a0Surdulica in Serbia. Several are recognisable only by their sneakers. A\u00a0dead infant is cradled in the arms of … <\/p>\n