yugoslavias implosion

defeatism and false information, be they top politicians or ordinary citizens.
He who says we are losing the war spreads defeatism and kills
the morale of the soldiers. Everybody who has been called up must
present himself. 430
THE EFFECTS OF NATO’S NEW ROLE
Every Western diplomatic effort proved futile. Fighting on the
ground continued. The massacre of forty-five unarmed Kosovo
Albanians in the village of Račak on January 15, 1999, furnished
the West with further proof that negotiations stood no chance. A
Human Rights Watch report indicated that the massacre was a wellplanned
and well-executed attack by government forces on civilians
in an area where the kla had a sizeable presence and had conducted
ambushes on police patrols. 431 The Serbs asserted that the victims
were kla fighters who had either been killed in combat or shot
while fleeing. Koštunica said that u.s. diplomat William Walker, in
denouncing the “alleged massacre of Albanian civilians in the village
of Račak,” had “taken the liberty of judging the incident at Račak
rashly and superficially.” 432 But the West was now weary of Serbian
denials and excuses, and as the exodus of refugees continued, the
massacre persuaded the West to adopt a tougher line on Serbs.
Holbrooke made one final attempt to persuade Milošević to
accept and implement the Rambouillet agreement, visiting Belgrade
on March 22 to tell the Serbian leader explicitly that nato would
launch a swift, severe, and sustained aerial assault on Serbian forces.
433 When the assault began two days later with selective air raids,
the regime in Belgrade thought initially it was just another nato
bluff. Many Serbians expected Russia to enter the fray on their side
430 Glas javnosti, March 24, 1999 .
431 www .hrw .org, Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo, 2001 .
432 Danas, January 19, 1999 .
433 Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge, Samizdat Freeb92, Belgrade,2000, p .247 .
243
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