May 13, 1999

To give you some idea of how thoroughly propagandized
top UN officials have been regarding this war, it took
a trip to the war zone before UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights Mary Robinson *finally* realized today that:

1. "... the range of targets seems very broad and quite clearly civilian
residences, hospitals, schools have felt the effects of the bombing".

2. "...there are civilian casualties,there are hospitals where there have
been direct hits, I saw the damage to infrastructure, I heard the concerns
yesterday evening about ecological damage."

She only just heard concerns about ecological damage *yesterday* ?!

Chemical plants and oil reinferies have been bombed and
radioactive rounds made of "depleted" uranium have been
used extensively by NATO. The ecological aspect of this
story is, in the scope of events, already very old news.
It even made it to mainstream US papers.

3. "Robinson said she had seen children playing among unexploded cluster
bombs outside their homes on her visit to the southern Serbian town of Nis,
which has suffered civilian casualties in intensive bombing raids by NATO.

'There is no target of any kind in the vicinity and it's happening again
and again. It is very worrying. It is not acceptable that civilians are so
much in the front line.'"

Better late than never, and this last observation is important, but
what in God's name has the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
been occupying herself with for the last 51 days that she is just
learning of these things now?

Note: One payload of cluster bombs costs approx.
$2.8 million. The TOTAL amount the UN has collected
for refugee aid: less than $80 million.

=================================================================

The Germans aren't buying it either (maybe)

"The German government of Chancellor Schroder is not satisfied with the
explanation given by Washington that bombing of the Chinese embassy was
purely a map error and believes that the maps were indeed up-to-date and
did show the embassy." source: http://www.inet.co.yu/

I haven't been able to find confirmation of this story, but the above
source was among the very first, and among the most thorough,
in reporting the details of the bombing of the embassy.

=================================================================

Meanwhile US Apache attack helicopters have been moved 
to the Kosovo border where they engaged in a live fire exercise, 
but it looks like the latest version of the GE powered,
Boeing-manufactured craft doesn't work too well - which is 
the only  explanation for the delay in using them as they
were used to fire the *first* shots in the Gulf War.

According to the AFP two have already crashed:

"The failure of a tail rotor is the likely cause of the
crash of an AH-64 Apache helicopter in Albania that
killed its two crew members, while the loss of a second
Apache was the result of pilot error, a Pentagon official
said."

This is typical of the Pentagon-establishment and their
media friends: they'd sooner admit to the slaughtering
innocents that admit one of their expensive weapon
systems doesn't work.