Talk:War crimes in the Kosovo War/Archive 1

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Archive 1

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Edit warring

G'day all,

I have reported the current edit war at WP:AN3. Please engage in discussion here to resolve whatever it is that you are edit warring about. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 12:32, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Organ isue in Kosovo listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Organ isue in Kosovo. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Reyk YO! 08:47, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Recent attacks (after Kosovo war)

The war crimes are crimes commited during the Kosovo war. Recent attacks on Serbs sholud be put in separate article: 1998–present persecution of Serbs and other non-Albanians in Kosovo.--Mladifilozof (talk) 18:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

The same goes for attacks on Albanians. The aim of this article is not to enumerate all the crimes that have ever occurred in Kosovo. But if someone think that inclusion of recent attacks are matter, maybe we can add section named epilogue? --Mladifilozof (talk) 14:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Explanation of edits

  • 1. People who killed civilians are not viewed as War Heroes
  • 2. A section is referred to as Serbian War Crimes, implying perpetration by entire Serbian nation instead of a few paramilitaries/corrupted military officials, it is NPOV to state the same for the other side
  • 3. Section talks of other attacks on Serbs, keeping titles consistent
  • 4. Again, NPOV consistency
  • 5. Blanked POV quotation
  • 6. Definition includes "allegedly", this is an alleged practice which has not been proven 100% true
  • 7. Book refers to "archival cleansing" in regions other than Kosovo, misuse of reference
  • 8. Prison is non-specific

Any problems, talk to me here. 99.236.221.124 (talk) 06:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Other

And Milošević died in ICTY custody, not in prison. He was never sentenced. And this article is related to the Persecution of Serbs. --Tadija (talk) 22:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

usage of image

Remains of Serbian Orthodox Church of Holy Salvation from XIV century, destroyed in March 2004.

This Church was destroyed 5 years after end of Kosovo War. So, this image is not directly connected with War crimes in the Kosovo War. Only if we make new section named aftermath, epilogue, or something like that, then we can add additional information in the article and this picture also.--Mladifilozof (talk) 15:23, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

You are the one linking all Serbian crimes and wars and everything from the Middle Ages to now, and you don´t find the destruction of this church related to Kosovo War? (Cinism?) If does need, an aftermath section must be donne. FkpCascais (talk) 07:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
There is another similar image of the church destroyed in 1999, that might be suitable for this article: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Intolerance.jpg --Mladifilozof (talk) 03:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but that image you gave the link is already being used in several articles, so we should use more images, so we don´t give the wrong impression of that church being the only one. FkpCascais (talk) 05:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Background section

Background section are to wide. It goes to 1960s. Following this logic, it could goes to Middle age also. But the background section in this article should focus on the Kosovo war. See background section of the Human Right Watch report: http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2001/kosovo/undword-01.htm --Mladifilozof (talk) 21:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

This section is still not improved. Than, maybe it is better to exclude it from the article. Everyone interested in "background" can read articles on Kosovo history and Kosovo War. The subject of this article is war crimes.--Mladifilozof (talk) 23:07, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

KLA before Serbia???

I realize this is a contentious issue and a lot of the editors here are of Albanian or Serbia decent and they all want to twist the articles in their favor, but shouldn't we put the relevant info first? That is, why is the KLA listed first in the introductory post as have committed war crimes, and then in the main body of text KLA comes first again then the Serbian forces do. There Serbian section has a lot more info, and it has been stated and linked that Serbian forces committed most of the war crimes, there's even a citation in the introduction for that. Please spare me the nationalist rants, I'm just trying to work around what may be some POV editing. Lemniwinks (talk) 19:00, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Human Right Watch report first and predominantly deals with the war crimes committed by the Serbian state, and then, with the crimes committed by KLA after retreat of Serbian forces.--Mladifilozof (talk) 23:01, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
But, everyone is forgeting that KLA made its worst crimes before the war... even against its own Kosovo-Albanian population that was reluctant in supporting them, beside terrorizing all Serbs and other non-Albanians and attacking all national institutions. Nobody even dares writting about it. FkpCascais (talk) 19:20, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Civil casualties and war crimes

Civil casualties are not automatically war crimes, there should be a differentiation: On NATO-side of more direct concern are some of the dual-case bombings. Also on-topic is the use of depleted uranium ammunition and cluster bombs. Also there were cases with overly high risk of civilian death. But putting a list of civilian deaths under war crimes is wishy-washy -- Tomdo08 (talk) 05:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

1998

Why is there so little talk of 1998 in the text?

That's what led to the bombing... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.208.199.213 (talk) 15:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit Warring

It has come to my attention that User: Timbouctou has recently been making mass reversions to sourced information without giving a reason. May I suggest semi protection for this page or a block for Timbouctou so that this stops happening? King Of The Moas (talk) 04:47, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I didn´t wanted to drive myself into this, however I couldn´t fail to notece the edit war going on in this article. King, you did well by initiating the discussion here on the talk page, however by WP:BRD it should be actually you who after being reverted should stop edit warring and initiate the discussion. However, I do disagree with the consideration of your edit as entirely POV, and without entering into edit details, I cannot miss this chance to say that the article was indeed needing to be updated regarding the non-Serb war crimes (many revealed in this past few months) and I agree with you about the minor fixes such as the correction of the armed forces adjective of Serbian to Yugoslav, since it was the FR Yugoslav Army in action with Serbia, by the time of the events, being one of the two constituing units. Other users have expressed their concern about the reliability of the information and POV pushing. Perhaps it would be good that all intevenients express their views so a solution could be found since I beleave it is in everyones interess to have the article expanded but following the WP:NPOV policy. FkpCascais (talk) 05:47, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
There's little to discuss here. King Of The Moas is a WP:SPA, his only purpose here is WP:SOAPBOX. I have already asked two administrators for help, they both ignored me, so I guess I'll have to take this straight to WP:ANI. Here's a short summary of his edits:
  1. First he removed sourced content, including a statement from the investigator of the Interior ministry of Serbia because he read somewhere that some of it is not true [1]. By "somewhere" I mean the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) and The Comment Factory.
  2. In his very next edit he replaced "Račak masacre" with "Račak incident", replaced "murdered" with "killed" and added that the whole thing is "subject of much controvery due to forensic reports".[2] No source was introduced to back this up.
  3. Next, he added four "massacres" to the section titled "incomplete list of crimes". His sources are a Serbian news website [3] (which did not actually call it a "massacre" as the Gnjilane thing allegedly was going on for three months between June and September 1999), a Google Books hit which talks about the grave site in Glodjane, again, without calling it a "massacre" simply because we don't know where and when these were killed. The third entry is supported by a questionable source [4] which peppers its articles with propagandistic labels - and the fourth one has no reference at all.
  4. Next up, he added another "source" about the Klecka massacre [5] - again, a Google Books search result which does not even mention Klecka [6]. In he same edit, and using the same source, he added something called "Ugljare massacre", again, referring to the discovery of 15 bodies of Serb civilians in Ugljare. The only useful edit here is the mention of "Staro Gradsko".
  5. He then added a statement that "many scholars dimiss operation horsehoshoe as propaganda", used WSWS as a source for the statement, and inserted the whole thing before an earlier reference, implying that both refs say this.[7]
  6. In his next edit [8] he added a reference to the above, consisting of what looks like an essay from a professor at Oklahome State University, which talks about what he thinks is NATO propaganda. In the essay the author says that "at the present moment though, there is credible doubt that Operation Horseshoe was in action prior to NATO’s attack" and lists a number of conflicting writings on the subject.
  7. In the same edit he inserted the word "allegedly" in the referenced sentence which talks about how the withdrawal of OSCE monitors encouraged Milosevic. He also added a dubious description in the following sentence, which is also followed by a reference, thus implying that the reference itself says so (and it doesn't). Also, "organized manner" became "alleged organized manner [sic]", "significant use of state resources" became "supposed significant use of state resources" and "conducted a wide campaign of violence" became "were accused of conducting a wide campaign of violence". This was all changed in front of a pre-existing reference, and another, German-language, offline source was appended to the sentence.
  8. In that same edit, he changed the referenced sentence saying that "Montenegro hosted around 70,000 refugees" with a statement that "a key point in the arguments against the existance of Operation horseshoe is that Yugoslavia itself hosted around 70,000 Albanian refugees". Unsourced of course.
  9. In his next edit [9] Serbian police's "systematic attacks on Albanian villages" became "alleged systematic attacks" (we're talkin about the legally binding verdict of the ICTY); The text of th verdict also described a "campaig of violence", which King Of The Moas changed into "claims by Nemanja Stjepanović". Again, no ref was added.
  10. In this edit [10] he saw it necessary that the report of the Physicians for Human Rights which talks about 155 destroyed mosques was "based on claims from refugees".
  11. In this edit [11] he dabbled with reorganising the entire Crimes section. Again, he decided to call it all "massacres", and added a section on the destruction of churches, supported by a "Russia documentary", a website of the Serbian Orthodox parish and a Serbian news website, with sentences such as "many Serbian gravesites have been desecrated by ethnic Albanians. No one has since recieved any punishment for these crimes." (If nobody was ever caught for it how do we know it's the Albanians who did it? What does "many" mean?)
  12. In this edit [12] he added a quotation box citing a Council of Europe report on organ trafficking. The media secribed the report as saying that "elements of the Kosovo Liberation Army traded the organs of prisoners during the 1999 conflict".[13] This reminds me of FkpCascais claiming that "elements of the Chetnik movement" collaborated. So which is it?
  13. In this edit [14] King of the Moas played with lists of crimes again, essentially pasting in a section of the standalone article Organ theft in Kosovo (which is btw already mentioned in this article in the "Aftermath" section)
  14. In this edit [15] he re-wrote the entire "NATO war crimes". Too many issues here to list here, one just needs to compare the versions.
  15. In this edit [16] he dabbled with Račak again.
  16. In this edit [17] he was again concerned with Trepča mines, and used WSWS as source to claim these are false allegations.
  17. In this edit [18] he replaced "Serbian" with "Yugoslav" quite dubiously, disregarding the fact that there are virtually no sources speaking of the conflict as one between Yugoslavia or Yugoslavs and Albanians. Perhaps this implies that we would need another section to exlain the apparent disappearance of "Yugoslavs" from Kosovo?
  18. This edit [19] is just lovely. Tagged as "cleanup", it consists of him re-ordering the lists of crimes so that KLA comes before Serbian ones (renamed "Yugoslav" in the meantime).

But of course, his interests do not stop at editing this article. His recent edits include inventing a "border between ethnic Albania and ethnic Serbia" [20], claiming that 1 million Serbs were killed in WWII [21], inserting contentious material to BLPs [22], [23]; inserting comparisons with Ustaše in a plot description of a Tintin comic [24] [25], and deleting the entire section in Franjo Tuđman article [26] because it is "unreadable". All of these have been reverted in the meantime. Timbouctou (talk) 10:27, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Timbou, you should be familiarised by now about the complexity of this disputes and the differences between what different sides claim. Let´s see what King responds. You confronted him, but seems that you confronted slightly more than just him. I am not involved in this dispute, and I am not sure why you used my name in this. I also don´t remind me ever saying what you claim in your post. While we wait for King´s answer, would you be kind pointing to the exact discussion? About the rest I can´t tell you much as King didn´t responded yet, however I´m not sure why you use this sarcastic tone and I hope that both of you remain civil. FkpCascais (talk) 10:59, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
I used a comparison. If you interpreted my post as saying that these are your opinions then point it out, preferably in the form of a direct quote. As for King, I doubt he will respond in a constructive manner, if at all. In my first revert of 28 May [27] I sad in the edit summary "Feel free to discuss at talk". But he didn't. In fact he reverted my reverts three times since and quite ironically accused me of vandalism. I never edited this article before and I can hardly be proved to have any stake here. I merely stumbled upon some of his edits, looked into his editing history and found this. He is blatantly biased, he is a WP:SPA with the sole intention of WP:SOAPBOX and I intend to take this to WP:ANI if need be. Regards. Timbouctou (talk) 12:19, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
I know, I know, but lets give him a chance at least before asuming what he may do. He may be unfamilirised with some policies, and also about NPOV, but I don´t agree with you that he has disruptive intentions. We have many other users with strong POV´s editing articles all around and receving the right to discuss and to be informed about the policies which they may need to become more familirised with. I am not defending any side here, just assuming good faith. If he becomes disruptive an action should be taken against him, but if he engages in discussion I see no problem. Regards, FkpCascais (talk) 19:29, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


If you have certain problems with parts of the information then I suggest making single edits rather then reverting the entire thing. Note The Sources I have used are just as questionable as those that are Pro Albanian. A solution might be to only publish information that was proven by various trials King Of The Moas (talk) 06:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

But King of The Moas, that same argument can be done by the side against you. Timbouctou is oposing you and he made a point-by-point list of the issues he disagrees with in your edit. Instead of insisting, you should take the oportunity to respond him on the points. FkpCascais (talk) 12:26, 10 June 2011 (UTC)\

Very well

1. There is nothing wrong with using WSWS as a source; it reports what the mainstream media doesnt want reported, If the claim that 2000+ had been burned in those Mines then A. It would be on one of the indictments, B. There would be more then 1100 Missing Albanians. To me it sounds like war propogdanda from 1999 used simply to attempt to justify Nato's actions

2. Regarding Racak, Both The Belurussian and Yugoslav forsenic investigations said there was no massacre at racak, There was also a Finnish one; the head of that investigation; Helena Ranta later admitted that 1. William Walker had pressured her to change the results of the report, 2nd. The Dead were not civilians.

3. If you have a problem with the term 'Massacre' then change it to 'killings' regarding the sources, they're just as reliable as Nato state ones. B92, is possibly the most reliable Balkan news source around. It was and still is known for being the center of Anti-Milosevic actions. It is a reliable source. Look at the Hardinaj indictment for the unsourced massacre or Watch: Kosovo - The Infinite war (Italian documentry)

4. For Kleka, theres a video of a KLA admitting the killings widley avalible on youtube. The source does mention the Killings at Klecka, simply read it.

5. Regarding horseshoe, theres plenty of sources there, if you have a problem with one of them then remove that single source (though it wouldnt really make sense).

7. None of this was proven in Milosevic's trial, what happened to innocent until proven guilty?

8. If Yugoslav forces were forcibly expelling Albanians, then why would they host Albanian refugees in their own country?

9. Alledged is the correct term, as nothing was given in the subsequent trials to prove that the attacks were systematic

10. The number 155 seems a bit unlikely, for that reason I added the extra bit.

11. If the Albanians didnt desecrate the graves, then who did? KFOR? The Serbs themselves? And dont go saying they arent desecrated because theres pictures.

12. The Chetnik Organisations and the KLA are completely different things.

13. I'm not sure about when the first Organ trafficking took place. You reverted the edit to one which claims that EULEX found no evidence, however, EULEX is neither an independent organisation, nor is the source post Marty report and subsequent reinvestigation

14. Nothing wrong with my edits, Civilians were targetted, and depleted uranium and cluster bombs were used, its plain and simple

15. Racak almost certainly didnt happen as it was reported, it was dropped from the Milosevic indictment because of a lack of evidence to substanciate that it was a massacre.

16. Trepca as I showed earlier, almost certainly didnt happen

17. Yugoslavs applies to all members of Yugoslavia and since nearly everyone, (Albanian, Serb, Roma, Bosniak) left the region during the bombing I think its a legitimate term

18. The KLA crimes appear to be greater (organ trafficking for instance), which is why they have been listed first

Regarding my other edits they are completely legitimate, It is true that 1-1.5 Million Serbs died in WW2, And Herge himself noted that his book was based on the WW2 Balkans, as for the Franjo Tudjman bit, simply try and read it, i'm right when I say its unreadable.

If you have any legitimate concerns please bring them up.King Of The Moas (talk) 23:53, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

  • 1. Well I do have doubts about the World Socialist Web Site being used as a source as it is a openly biased website which promotes certain ideas. One of the ideas it promotes is that all US an NATO interventions anywhere in the world are expressions of Western imperialism so it produces lots and lots of articles about alleged conspiracies and sees ulterior motives in everything. However, I may be wrong and I'll take it to WP:RSN to get a second opinion. But regardless - your statement that it "reports what the mainstream media doesn't want reported" is very dubious because it should really read they report what they want to report - just like any other media outlet. Now even if we assume that they have a reputation for fact-checking and reliability as required by WP:SOURCES, the mere fact that what they are publishing may not be reflected in other reputable sources invokes the WP:DUE rule. The WSWS article is about the Trepča mines and constructs a case that the bombing campaign was intended to provide access to vast natural resources on the site, so they would be very happy to claim that the mines were untouched by the bombing and that the allegations that people were burned there are untrue. And indeed the article [28] says that
"A speech delivered on July 26, 1999, by Samuel R. Berger, assistant to the president for national security affairs in the US, claimed that Trepca’s furnaces had been used to burn the bodies of 1,500 missing Kosovo Albanians. But after the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) special investigators from France dismissed the charge of alleged atrocities. Even the Hague Tribunal admitted it found no evidence. The OSCE reported that the Zvecan lead smelter (part of the Trepca complex) had not been working since the commencement of the NATO air war. A US National Public Radio broadcast in January 2001 resurrected the atrocity claim. Once again, it was refuted, but this time Hague Tribunal officials questioned the investigative equipment they had used as “outdated”."
This sounds like it is still up for debate, which could be improved in this article if more sources talking about it were added. How about a statement from the ICTY about it? Also, you added a link to "The Comment Factory", which is hardly a reliable source - and you also removed parts of the text you did not like which were properly sourced. This is not how we do things around here.
  • 2. I cannot find the reports by the Belarus and Yugoslav forensic investigators online, but considering that the Yugoslav one was sponsored by a party involved in the incident and the other one was sponsored by one of its closest allies you should be aware how little credibility that statement has. It seems you also have trouble finding these reports as you did not provide any source to back the statement up - plus, you added your own personal opinion by describing something as "subject of much controversy". Who described it that way? King Of The Moas? Also, Ranta did not "admit" to anything. She "admitted" that she saw scores of dead civilians but that she refused to call it a "massacre" because if determining the circumstances of their deaths is impossible by examining the bodies. The only ones claiming that the dead were not civilians is the Serbian pathologist. But I have left comments about this at Talk:Račak massacre so we can discuss it there.
  • 3-4. I'm well familiar with B92, and I don't question their reliability. The issue is that you used their article to back up a claim which is different from what the article says. Also, you didn't say what makes http://members.fortunecity.com/crnaruka/ a reliable source? Also, you ignored in your reply the fact that you failed to supply a reference for the "Pec massacre" and that that you labeled the grave site at Gnjilane as "Gnjilane massacre". Care to explain? I admit, upon closer inspection the Yearbook of the United Nations 1999 does give a passing mention of Klečka on page 367 and calls it "an incident involving the killing of 22 Serbs at Klečka". So you got a point there. Are videos on YouTube reliable sources? I think not. And even you don't think they are - otherwise you would have inserted it in the article.
  • 5. The thing about Horseshoe is that a) you inserted your opinion which you failed to support by a reliable source (did anyone else say that there are "many scholars dismissing operation horseshoe as propaganda"?) and b) you inserted stuff in the middle of already referenced sentences, implying that the pre-existing references say this too. We don't do that. If there's "plenty of sources" supporting your claim than add new ones, preferably some which have actually been published in some reputable publications.
  • 7. The thing about you inserting words like "allegedly", "accused of" and the like is directly related to the principle described above. Yup, it was not proven - and the article does not say it was. The article directly quotes a report issued by the UK parliament and the Serbian-language verdict of the Hague tribunal. We don't rephrase direct quotes and we don't "correct them" because we think they are mistaken. We either use them to illustrate a point or drop them altogether.
  • 8. About the refugees in Montenegro - the text which is quoted does not even say that Montenegro or Yugoslavia hosted 70,000 refugees - the text says "As the Background chapter of this book demonstrates, the abuses after March 20, 1999, were a continuation and intensification of the attacks on civilians, displacement, and destruction of civilian property carried out by Serbian and Yugoslav security forces during 1998 and the first months of 1999. By March 1999, the combination of fighting and the targeting of civilians had left an estimated 1,500-2,000 civilians and combatants dead. More than 200,000 Albanian civilians were internally displaced, almost 70,000 Albanians had fled the province to neighboring countries and Montenegro, and a further 100,000 Yugoslav nationals, mostly Kosovar Albanians, had sought asylum in Western Europe." (the quoted article itself references this part as coming from a UNHCR Press Briefing Note published on February 2, 1999.) So it is a) a direct quote saying "Montenegro" - not Yugoslavia. and b) it is not 70,000 refugees because the number includes all refugees who crossed the border either towards Montenegro or neighboring countries and c) whoever said anything about "hosting" refugees? Your phrasing is misleading, as if there was a welcome center for Albanians in downtown Podgorica.
  • 9. Your reply is the definition of WP:OR. Again, a court verdict is directly quoted and you take the liberty to pepper it with pretentious adjectives.
  • 10. Seems a bit unlikely? Says who? And btw where else are the Physicians for Human Rights supposed to get their information from? That's just plain redundant. Which brings us to the next point.
  • 11. I have no idea who desecrated anything as I wasn't there and I strongly suspect you weren't either. However, any source which claims it knows who committed a crime and at the same time says that nobody was ever caught for it is hardly reliable. Btw the B92 source you used [29] which talks about vandalism after the war does not even mention the word "Albanian" and contains the following sentence: "The Serbs in Vidanje say they do not know who the vandals are, and have reported the incident to the police." So I guess you know something that neither B92 nor the Serbs in Vidanje know. Here's a tip - in cases like these stating the fact is enough. Saying something like "Serb places of worship are frequently vandalised in Kosovo" is fine. Bloating it which adjectives and saying that "Albanian fascistoid terrorist criminals vandalised churches" is not. Simply because you have no clue whether that's true. The other source you threw in [30] is a website of a Serbian Orthodox parish talking about vandalism during the war. It would be fine if you used the source to support some details on the number of churches destroyed and whatnot (even though it is itself choke-full of propagandistic wording), but it looks like you got tired of reading the article and just went with introducing a sentence which boils down to "lots of stuff was destroyed by the bad guys, it says so here". Also, you didn't explain how all incidents became "massacres" in your interpretation. What is a massacre to you exactly and what makes you qualified to label it as such?
  • 12. Are they? In what way? The point I was making was that implying that "elements of army X committed crimes" and implying that "army X committed crimes" are two different things. Our colleague FkpCascais had invested an enormous amount of time on Wikipedia in explaining this to anyone willing to listen and that's why I mentioned him and Chetniks. I tend to agree and I expect the same standard to be applied everywhere, including here. So don't pull things out of context. Here's a nice article in the Guardian which talks about the inquiry and quotes head investigator who compiled the report as to what he found out. Should you wish to present it in a more informative manner that article is a good place to start. But I suspect you are only interested in snippets you can put in boxes.
  • 13. What you did there was redundant. If there's a standalone article on the topic than it only needs to be concisely summarized here and linked there. As to your opinion on EULEX - not only do I disagree, it is totally irrelevant.
  • 14. Lots of things are contentious there. Phrases like "many international lawyers" are ridiculous and are example of WP:WEASEL. Also, the unnecessary explanation you gave for the Greek judges' opinion is interesting as everything said there can be applied to the ongoing war in Libya, which nobody but Gadaffi (and maybe WSWS) think is a crime. It would have been better if you had just said the Greek judges condemned the attacks for violating the UN charter and left it at that. As for depleted uranium, I don't doubt that it was used, but none of the sources supplied do not say that it is banned and in the first one [www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3715] in fact focuses on Albanians as victims of the uranium use, saying that "the message never got through to hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians, in whose name the Kosovo campaign was fought, and whose DU exposure could be highest.". It does not say that it "has caused a massive increase in cancer rates, still births and genetic deformities" as you claim either. Your other source (a BBC article [31]) talks in detail about where and when it was used and says nothing about the consequences of it. And your third source [32], which you took most of what you wrote from, is a Wordpress blog which reprinted an article from somewhere else in which a Serbian expert on radioactivity gives exact numbers (from 21 children born with deformities in 1998 in Vranje to 73 children in 2008 and number of cancers from 185 in 2000 to 398 in 2006). Stick with the facts and avoid pretentious descriptions. In addition, you added information about how many civilian targets were bombed ("indiscriminately" as you put it), and used as a reference a book of poetry (!?) [33] written by a poet called David Roberts, who made a collection of poems about the Kosovo War and who never bothered to say where he got those numbers from (I checked). In doing all this you created unnecessary subsections titled "Aggressive War", "Use of Cluster Bombs", "Use of Depleted Uranium", "Bombing of Civilian targets" which are all unlikely to get expanded and which could have been added to the already existing header "NATO war crimes". Plus there was the already existing section "Civilian casualties" - which again, links to another standalone article titled Civilian casualties during Operation Allied Force. You also took the liberty to re-write what was already there, replacing "bombing of hospitals, schools, building apartments and power plants" with "bombing civilians". Nobody ever talks about "bombing civilians". You removed sourced text and replaced it with a percentage of civilian casualties as opposed to military personnel, a percentage you calculated using numbers reported by Tanjug and B92. How about stating the numbers instead of manipulating them?
  • 15. That does not exactly mesh with everything stated in the Račak article, and the references you supported have little to do with what you actually wrote (the references you supplied do not say that Račak was dropped). Also, this article [www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1836] is of very questionable reliability - in it one Andy Wilcoxson says that "Forensic science has shown that the people who died in RaČak were definitely killed while participating in armed combat – not massacred". And he got this from a later statement by the Serb pathologist Dobričanin who said there was gunshot residue on their hands which meant they were not civilians (which was btw rejected by the Finnish investigators - btw this is not the statement quoted in the BBC story which you inserted here to support your statement - Dobričanin initially said it was not a massacre because they do not appear to have been executed). The problem with this is that a) Are you/Wilcoxson/Dobričanin saying combatants cannot be massacred? What about rounding up those who surrender, shooting them and throwing them in a ditch? Would that be a crime or is that allowed - and if it is a crime, how did Dobričanin prove that this did not happen? He didn't. Because he can't. b) Wilcoxson bills himself as "Trial Reporter & Researcher for 'Slobodan Milosevic Freedom Center The Hague'", an organisation "established in the Netherlands to support Slobodan Milosevic in his struggle against The Hague Tribunal" whose explanation of the Hague tribunal is that "President Milosevic is fighting against a monstrous machinery that is determined to use any means to punish the Serbian people for their resistance against the destruction of Yugoslavia by terrorist and fascist forces". Wow. That's a beacon of reliability right there.
  • 16. You didn't "show" anything earlier. Provide something other than WSWS or The Comment Factory to "show" that Trepča didn't happen. There are millions of reliable outlets out there - are you telling me you can't find one? The WSWS article itself was written by a columnist who says he is quoting several other sources. Can they not be found directly?
  • 17. Although I disagree with using "Yugoslav military" it's factually correct so okay. But the opening sentence read that the crimes this article is talking about refer to "attacks on Serbian civilians by the Kosovo Liberation Army" and replaced with "attacks on Non-Albanian civilians". Really? I have yet to see a source talking about an "attack" on anyone other than Serbs or Albanians in Kosovo, and I don't know of a source describing KLA attacking anyone other than the Serbs, the Serbian police or as you put it the Yugoslav military. And in your reply you say that "everyone had left the area when the bombing began". Well, that makes sense - people generally tend to leave places in which explosive devices fall from the sky - but who did the bombing? The KLA?
  • 18. The KLA's crimes "appear to be greater"? Are you aware how hopelessly WP:POV this sounds? This is an encyclopedia article, not a tribunal nor a correction of history. The Serbian crimes were probably listed first because there were more sources talking about them. And moving them about like that is so naive. What do you expect to achieve?
This is off topic but you felt the need to reply so I have to as well - regarding your other edits - Yugoslav Front article has three (3) different sources detailing victims of WWII in Yugoslavia and estimates for ethnic Serbs killed in the war range from 346,000 to 530,000. So your figure which you read who knows where is between two to five times greater than what the most reliable sources say. In fact the total number of casualties of all ethnicities was between 600,000 to 1 million. So the only two explanations for your beliefs is that a) you are using a dubious source (likely) or that you consider everyone in Yugoslavia to be a Serb (less likely). The thing with Tintin is a) ridiculous and b) unsupported by any reference. The "unreadable" parts of articles, even the ones about Franjo Tuđman, are supposed to be improved - not deleted, and especially not before discussion in talk pages. Also, you forgot to explain edits to biographies of Madeleine Albright and Joseph J. DioGuardi. Also, I should warn you that your comment saying that the sources you have used are "just as questionable as those that are pro-Albanian" represent an open admission that you are intentionally using biased sources, hoping to somehow counter what you perceive as unbalanced.
I apologize for the length of this post, but I believe everything I said needed to be said. Because of the numerous issues with King's additions (explained above) I expect them to be dealt with, although I'm skeptical that King is able to do it as he demonstrates a lack of understanding of several policies, including but not limited to WP:OR, WP:V, WP:SOURCES, WP:NPOV, WP:DUE, WP:BRD, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:SYNTH. I am prepared to discuss this further in this talk page but I will not let his edits stand indefinitely and if no will is shown to seek consensus here I will be forced to revert his additions wholesale because amost all of his contributions are either conjecture, or dubious, or unsourced. Timbouctou (talk) 02:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
1 - Can we solve this by citing who says what? Exemple: "World Socialist Web claims...". About the Minstry of Interior investigator content removal, I suposed that should be restored as sourced, however the previous version missed the fact that he is a retired inspector, and the entire sentence was not grammatically well constructed and should be more precise with what the source says.
2 - The Račak massacre/incident has its own article and we can see how to present it in most neutral way. King, you should bring sources for your claims and Timbouctou opened a thread at articles talk page, here, where this should be discussed.
3 - I apologise King but you can´t just name "massacres" without having sources that confirm it. I understand your frustration however it is against our policy. Regarding B92, it is considered a reliable source since it is possibly the major Serbian news agency most known for being free of nationalistic bias, however it does loose some credibility for the fact that comes from a nation involved in the dispute in subject. About the third source, it is indeed a source hardly considered reliable, you should King see if that same subject was possibly written in some more reliable one.
4 - Naming them as massacres without a source it is impossible, however including them the way they are described in reliable sources should be done.
5 - Saying many scholars is unprecise and should be avoided by WP:WEASEL, and inserting words changing the meaning of the sentence and leaving the previous sources is wrong. However, there is a group critisizing the operation worth mention, and perhaps a better handled solution can be made which would include it. I beleave it is possible to find a fairly descriptive sentence without too much dispute.
6 - Related to Horseshoe, again, saying who claims oposing views can be a solution for replacing the constant "allegedly", "suposedly", etc.
7 - I beleave it is a same situation as the previous point. Oposing views can be mentioned instead of inserting doubt references to the sourced ones.
8 - Aren´t there precise numbers about how many refuges found fled to each country? I beleave there are and we need to be precise about them. I understand what you King wanted to express however we can´t make unsourced conclusions, only sourced facts. King, seems you find the article content unbalanced, however you can rather see what claims you find unfair are not sourced instead of inserting unsourced ones to balance. Precipitated conclusions or original research can´t be added into the article.
9 - If the court veredict says "systematically" the word can´t be changed because after all, the sentence begins by citing what the ICT said. Same with "Nemanja Stjepanovic", as his testemony was accepted by the Tribunal.
10 - Isn´t there any confirmed account? It does say that it is a "Population-Based Assessment" rather then an actual confirmed acount.
11 - Crimes against Serbs need expansion, however we need to be precise and not to make self-made conclusions.
12 - Please Timbouctou don´t bring other issues into this discussion. I don´t see any advantage or link to this one and it can be interpreted as provocation by unfamiliarised parties. In this case I must agree with King since organ traffiking was a serios crime and the Serbs crime section contains a citation as well, so I see no problem about this edit, just the oposite, updates the article and brings balance. Either I´m missing something, or it is perfectly OK.
13 - Well, the two sections dealing with organ theft should be merged into one, however I beleave they should be changed into the KLA crimes section. Kings edit with some wikifiying can be fixed. (As you can see Timbou, same tactic of using "alleged" was used in the article before, only favouring the KLA side. I supose this kind of editing trigers same response from the other side, so both need to be fixed)
14 - A section dealing with NATO actions is possible to include, and some of the points King added are rightfully there. NATO made mistakes and they admited it, so with some wikifiying is a valid section in my view.
15 - Racak. Would you discuss it on that article talk page together with the previous points dealing with it?
16 - Again, surces, King you need better than WSWS, otherwise the WSWS conclusions can be mentioned as critisizing mainstream ones.
17 - The Army was Yugoslav, the ethnicities are the ones depending on the case. Timbouctou, I see you have some disagreements, however a country named Yugoslavia ceased to exist in 2003. Its military and all governamental institutions were "Yugoslav". The article did tended to forget this, and that was the first thing I had noteced as wrong in it.
18 - OK, this order issue is simply a metter I still don´t know how to solve. King, the argument about "greater" is not valid cause I don´t know how to measure such crimes. I supose a way to deal with it would be alphabetical order, however I am not sure how other articles deal with this.
I have no streanght to make any off-topic comments. King, as you can see despite good intentions this are very disputed subjects so I will really ask you to stop edit warring because you are the one in fault, not because of edit content which has no importance at all, but because you inserted an edit and you were reverted, thus you have to discuss the changes you intend to add in the article. It is all in WP:BRD, and please, as you can see, this disputed subjects have to be dealt stricktly along the wikipedia principles which you can find WP:PG, however you shold really read all the links that Timbuctou privided you at the end of his last comment, and I would recomend you also to make a trip trough WP:MOS. Don´t be in rush, articles stay here for ever, and it is ultimately not so important the version in place right now, but discussing the one you pretend to have defended (with sources so no one can remove them) in the future. Best regards to both. FkpCascais (talk) 05:40, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
OK, more than a month has passed. Absolutely nothing has changed and none of the issues have been dealt with. Unless some feedback occurs I will be reverting this article to the last version before King's arrival within the next few days. Future changes will need to be discussed in the talk page before they are added and edit warring will be reported immediately. I have yet to see proof that King has any intention of behaving constructively and if he does not prove me wrong I will consider him a vandal. Cheers. Timbouctou (talk) 16:51, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Wrong Citition

"The Yugoslav Army, Serbian police and Serb paramilitary in spring 1999, in an alleged organized manner, with supposed significant use of state resources were accused of conducting a broad campaign of violence against Albanian civilians to expel them from Kosovo and thus maintain political control of Belgrade over the province. S[39][46][47]"

I wonder if anybody did read "Heinz Loquai: Der Kosovo-Konflikt. Wege in einen vermeidbaren Krieg. Die Zeit von Ende November 1997 bis März 1999" because this book and several statements of General Heinz Loquai are directly opposed to the lies of Rudolf Scharping's propaganda. According to him there was no Hufeisenplan but a military conflict between UCK and Serbian army. -- 77.23.144.154 (talk) 03:37, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Serbian or Albanian crimes first?

Rochass is removing text that is referenced by the New York Times, but also EuroHeritage. As for Tim Judah's book, I did not add that reference, and I agree that it's not quite the reliable reference, but I'm sure that everyone can agree that the State Department considered the KLA a terrorist organization up until 1998. The KLA were the first to start attacking Serbian civilians and security forces, which caused the Serbian brutal reaction and attacks on the KLA and Albanian civilians. Why would the Serbian crimes go before the Albanian ones? If we're doing it in order, I think it should be the other way around. --Cinéma C 21:01, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Serbian war crimes should go first, because Serbs committed much more war crimes than Albanians. And Serbs started ethnic cleansing which led to NATO intervention. Rochass (talk) 21:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
This so called source "Book: Tim Judah, Kosovo, War and Revenge" is just the name of the book, without quote to verify saying within the article. Rochass (talk) 21:57, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
The comment "Serbs committed much more war crimes than Albanians" is purely a POV statement. The Kosovo war didn't start with the Serbian ethnic cleansing, it started with KLA actions against Serbian civilians, security forces and Albanians loyal to the Yugoslav government. It's not about who did more crimes or whose crimes were much worse, because that can be argued from both angles - we're tying to keep a chronological order on Wikipedia. As for Tim Judah's book, you don't need a "quote to verify saying", but the page number would be nice. --Cinéma C 22:05, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Obviously the whole world is wrong when it's saying that Kosovo war started with the Serbian ethnic cleansing. Regarding "purely POV statement", I put the tag. Rochass (talk) 20:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
The whole world? OK, when you prove that the whole world thinks the Kosovo war started with Serbian ethnic cleansing, we will put it in your order. --Cinéma C 21:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
And who are YOU?! Rochass (talk) 20:30, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Rochass, your edits are not NPOV. Please, stay cool, and don't raise you digital voice. :) Both of you stay cool, and write solution here. I reverted to pre-edit warring state, so please, dont revrt it until dispute is resolved. --Tadija (talk) 20:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Rochas provided good sources and has used Tim Judah who is as good as the great Noel Malcolm, not Serb, not Albanian, knows what he is talking about. Serbs comited greater crimes, Albanians only did in the name of liberation so they don't count. The whole world knows that the Kosova war started after Milosevic's program ti exterminate all Albanians off the face of the Earth. Mex Ray Trex (talk) 20:29, 3 February 2010 (UTC) Sourced everywhere Mex Ray Trex (talk) 20:29, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Rochass is now blocked for vandalism. Apparently he was not quite right. --Tadija (talk) 20:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't get something here, how comes when users use good reputable relaible and truthful sources like Tim Judah, Michael Ansocome and Noel Malcolm they get reverted and end up victims of blocks and vandalism and you and your friend Cinema C can edit all day and night and use whatever Serb propaganda you want??? Nor right. Something will have to be done about this. You've got admins on your side at the moment but it won't last forever, soon they'll see through you. If Albanians comited 1% of the crimes Serbs did, there would ne no Serbs in Kosova because there were never very many in the first place. Mex Ray Trex (talk) 21:36, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Mex Ray Trex is blocked indef as a sock of User:Human Rights Believer. --Tadija (talk) 22:02, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The comment "Serbs committed much more war crimes than Albanians" could be a POV statement but also could be a fact.

Below is a chronology of the major war crimes Human Rights Watch has documented from January 1998 to April 1999. ... It is meant only to provide a context for the serious abuses now being committed by Serbian and Yugoslav government forces. The list also includes abuses committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army, such as kidnappings and summary executions, although the vast majority of the violations over the past year are attributable to the Serbian police or Yugoslav Army.[1]

— Human Rights Watch

Lets do not judge each others opinion, but concentrate to make this article better.--Mladifilozof (talk) 14:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

"Vast majority" is POV weasel wording 99.236.221.124 (talk) 06:56, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
"Human Rights Watch as a reference is one of the most legitimate references available, due to the statistics according to HRV showing that Serb forces committed by far the majority of atrocities in the Kosovo War, it is not wiesel wording to use a adjective to accurately describe a set of statistics if correct, or cited by a legitamite source.: — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.223.12.203 (talk) 19:07, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Apart from all this, my Kosovar Albanian friend told me some time ago, about the violence that was perpetrated by the UÇK against their own people that didn´t supported their cause. Many Kosovar Albanians were forced to abandon their jobs if they worked in the Serbian Kosovar governamental, or other, institutions, or even smaller or other bussiness. From what I herd, they used to consider their own people that lived happily with Serbs, as equal enemies. There hesn´t been donne any effort by nobody to edit anything about that... FkpCascais (talk) 07:40, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

References

terminology

  • KLA war crimes is correct paragraph title, because crimes was committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army.
  • Albanian war crimes is wrong title, because crimes was not committed by the Albania.
  • Serbian war crimes is correct title, because crimes was committed by the Serbian state.

--Mladifilozof (talk) 21:32, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Serbian war crimes

It was not committed by Serbian state, as Serbian state was part of Yugoslavia. It may be committed by some people of the Serbian nationality, but it should not be merged.--Tadija (talk) 22:06, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It was committed predominantly by the Serbian police which means by the Serbian state.--Mladifilozof (talk) 03:27, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Serbian army during Yugoslavia ≠ modern day Serbia.

--Tadija (talk) 22:06, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Serbian army during FR Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) is precursor of modern day Serbian army. Montenegrin government refused to sent troops to Kosovo, so Serbia is the only responsible. Also, all of the accused leaders are from Serbia.--Mladifilozof (talk) 03:27, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
They were from Serbia as part of Yugoslavia. You simply cannot merge modern day Serbia, with different army, government, territory and almost all other with FR Yugoslavia. Those two are NOT the same. Also, please, don't touch my comments, that is regarded as bad wiki behavior. :) --Tadija (talk) 12:03, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
the use of tehe word "Serbian" is correct because war crimes were committed not only by the FRY forces, (primarily Serbian) but also by Serbian Police force inside Kosovo, working exclusively for the country of Serbia, as were paramilitary groups embeddedid the Serbian military and police units.: — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.223.12.203 (talk) 19:11, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

KLA war crimes

And some of those "KLA" crimes were committed by ordinary Kosovo Albanians, not KLA members. --Tadija (talk) 22:06, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any reliable source for this claim? --Mladifilozof (talk) 03:27, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

File:Brazda-Stenkovac refugee camp.jpg Nominated for Deletion

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Citation Does Not Support Statement

"A key point in the arguments against the existence of Operation Horseshoe is that Serbia-proper itself hosted around 70,000 Albanian refugees[53]"

Upon investigating the citation given, I did not see a point on the page that stated that Serbia hosted around 70,000 Albanian refugees, and instead found that Montenegro was said to have done this. As Montenegro was not specifically mentioned in this statement, it may be invalid. --ILikeAcorns (talk) 21:15, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. It had other problems too, so I removed it. bobrayner (talk) 21:36, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Whitewashing

FkpCascais, why did you remove this well-sourced content? Apart from the fact that it describes war crimes by Serbs, of course. Do you have some better reason? bobrayner (talk) 22:38, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

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Missing citations and questionable sources.

In the 'Massacres' section in the 'Kosovo Albanian war crimes' section, there are 4 particular massacres listed which I have to call into question. The 4 are the Volujak massacre, Peć massacre, Orahovac massacre, and Gnjilane massacre. The Pec Massacre lacks a citation at all, and I can't find any reliable sources when I search for them. The other three all use what appears to be a Serbian news site called B92, and given the bias of the site, I have to call into question the reliability of the site as a source. I especially have to do so when site also has disputed information on it. The citation given for the Gnjilane massacre is an article on B92 titled "Ex-KLAs sent to prison for 101 years". The final paragraph of the article says "To conceal their crimes, the killers dismembered the bodies and threw them into nearby dumpsters, and in Lake Livočko.", however this is disputed by this report from the Humanitarian Law Center. The last paragraph on the 64th page of that report states "The court did not give credence to any part of the testimony of cooperating witness ‘Božur 50’ 143, because he only stated facts that were common knowledge and he was not a member of the KLA, something confirmed by VBA, BIA and EULEX reports. The court was not even convinced whether this witness had ever been in the high school dormitory in Gnjilane/Gjilan. On the basis of the evidence presented, it was established that the bodies of the victims had not been postmortem mutilated, incinerated or thrown into the Lake Livočko, as was claimed by this witness. According to an EULEX report on the search of Lake Livočko, no human remains were found in the lake. That the bodies of victims were not mutilated and incinerated after death was corroborated by expert witness testimony."

I will be removing the massacres listed with bad sources/no sources unless I or anybody can find more reliable sources for them. Nick3111997 (talk) 06:50, 5 October 2016 (UTC)Nick3111997

Removal of sources

User Amanaparts is again removing sourced info from this article. I hope we will finaly have some explanation why is this happening, and i am warning him to stop reverting consensus version without any agreement. --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 17:59, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I only removed passages with missing sources. And there are more mistakes and wrong citations.
1. Wording "Ethnic cleansing" on "Kosovo Albanian war crimes" seems exaggerated since the linked sources to the article do not speak of ethnic cleansing. In addition to that the whole section is a mix of the events in 98, 99 and 2004 which makes no sense since there is a section "Aftermath". On the other side "Yugoslav war crimes" has a section called "Persecution and deportations" even thou the UNHCR Report Under Orders does actually speak of ethnic cleansing.
2. Wording "Concentration Camps" on "Kosovo Albanian war crimes" is obviously wrong. The sources to this section speak of Prison Camps. Concentration Camps is no where mentioned.
3. Pec massacre: The source is worng. As long as there is no reliable source to it, it should be removed.
4. Ugljare massacre. Source missing. As long as there is no reliable source to it, it should be removed.
5. Volujak massacre. Source missing. As long as there is no reliable source to it, it should be removed.
6. Prison Camp Jablancia: Now in section Massacres?! Should be moved to "Prison Camps" form. Concentration Camps.
Wont edit without talk anymore but those errors need correction. Amanaparts (talk) 19:27, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
@Anastan: I havent gotten any response proving me wrong. Please provide sources or I`ll update the article within the next few days unless I or anybody can find more reliable sources for them.Amanaparts (talk) 20:33, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Ok, i ave not seen your message. I have solved everything. Added source about Albanian ethnic cleansing of Serbs, moved camp to correct section, added or fixed sources for all massacres, added more sources, and i am preparing to add more, so now everything is fixed. Thank you! --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 21:40, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
@Anastan: Your source about ethnic cleansing uses the word only in the titel and not as a conclusion. In addition to that it describs the events after the war thus it belongs to aftermath. On the other hand you still have Concentration Camps even thou the sources say Prison camps and there is still the section "persecution and deportation" although UNHC: Under Orders clearly describes it as ethnic cleansing [1] Please use reliable sources and correct citing. Please correct or I will be making edits. thx.


Removal of quote

I just removed the quote about organ theft from the start of the section on KLA war crimes. The allegations themselves need better sources, so starting the whole section off with unverified subject matter is not a good idea. Battleofalma (talk) 11:48, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Orphaned references in War crimes in the Kosovo War

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of War crimes in the Kosovo War's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "spiegel":

  • From Organ theft in Kosovo: Flottau, Renate (22 September 2008). "Albania's House at the End of the World: Family Denies Organ Harvesting Allegations". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 4 August 2012.
  • From Google Books: Malte Herwig, "Google's Total Library", Spiegel Online International, Mar. 28, 2007.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT 07:46, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

POV editing

Recent addition to this article is disputed. Its highly POV, most (almost all) sources are in Albanian and disputed non confirmed origin, section is full of fringe and pov pushing. I propose deletion of the entire section, as it does not look like it is possible to fix it, as it was written. --Ąnαșταη (ταlκ) 10:23, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Totally agree. I even found the editor missinterpreting the first source and purpously inflating numbers. FkpCascais (talk) 10:50, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
OK, the inflated numbers are actually found in the second source in Albanian. FkpCascais (talk) 12:02, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Ktrimi991 removed the tags with edit summary saying "Rv. Birn, the Swiss source, the international org. are very reliable". The problem is that most sources are Albanian-language media, and not Swiss or international organisations.
Look, I am certainly not condoning rape. But the problem here is that the issue is all about politics, and not really victims. A well known journalist in a Western European country was fired after his publisher receved tremendous pressure on behalve of the American embassy because they published an article where he told how journalists were taken in group in Bosnia and Kosovo as in a Safari and were directed what to write and say. He also wrote how locals were paid to tell as horrific stories as they could against Serbs. That was during 1990s. Not sure if Hakuli and Ktrimi were already adults at that time, but pretty much we all remember those CNN and Reuters stories in which woman said how their house were burned by Serbs, animals killed, and then suddently remembered that they were gang-rapped along their daughters, for many days, continuously, day and night... all that said by a golden-teeth lady in its 50s which was not attractive even in total dark. The Yugoslav wars were full of ugly propaganda. The problem is that it is extremelly unconfortable to undiscover that most of it were lies because much of the same people that supported policies based on those stories still hold power positions. So the lies must be kept on.
Like the CNN sensationalistic story of a Bosnian woman interviewed on the road holding a baby in her arms. The reporter asking her where she was going and she saying that was going to the camp. Then the reporter goes on saying how those are death camps, full of colective rape and ethnic extermination. But you just need to have a little brain to understand that a woman with a baby would certainly not walk on her own will to such a camp if that was the truth. She even said she was going to the camp for food and medic care for her baby. So what clearly seems to be a case where a Bosnian woman was going on her own will to a Serbian camp to receve food and medical attention, was transmited to the world as evil Serbs killing and rapping children and old people.
I am not deniying any crimes. Crimes certainly happened in that mess. But we must be very cautious because propaganda was extremelly strong from all sides. Gathering Albanian sources to cover this aspect of the war is as neutral as Putin being the referee in a sports game between Russia and someone else.
The best thing is really to avoid local sources. This sensitive issues must be extremelly well sourced with the findings of the highest istitutions... and even so... FkpCascais (talk) 16:56, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
@FkpCascais: While you were writting the comment I was replacing the Albanian sources. I agree that Albanian/Serbian sources tend to be unreliable in these cases. Ktrimi991 (talk) 17:01, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. Well, you changed one source by now. I am not going to edit war certainly, take your time and do your best. But I challenge you to cover that section in a neutral way. Still, you should have done first the changes and then removing the tags as you work on it. FkpCascais (talk) 17:10, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
When editing on the phone, it is easier to delete recent additions than make other changes. As far as I can see, all the current sources are non-Albanian. Ktrimi991 (talk) 17:16, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Looking at just one of the sources, why don´t you wrote how this source actually says that just more then 530 applications were receved despite the state benefits granted, and 200 were rewied with 70 being rejected? Look, I think that even one rape is horribly wrong. But playing with this numbers to demonise one side and victimize the other, is not OK. Also, I don´t know how reliable that source is for covering such an important issue, but I will leave room for others to express themselves. FkpCascais (talk) 17:42, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Look, I have not shown any concern about the numbers present or not present on the article (they were not added by me, after all). If you wish to add sth to the article, add that. Re the source, it is BIRN, a symbol of neutrality in the messy journalism of the Balkans. You might feel a need to take it to the RSN for evaluation, anyway. Ktrimi991 (talk) 17:55, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
I find this bewildering. FkpCascais claims all the sources he tagged were Albanian. Well aside from the fact that plenty of diffs for parallel usage of Serbian local media can be found (pot meet kettle), is this true?
One tagged source was National Public Radio -- American [[https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/06/598832041/in-kosovo-war-rape-survivors-can-now-receive-reparations-but-shame-endures-for-m

]]. The other is an ethnic Greek. Well if anything if we're doing the stupid Balkan tribal shit you'd think she'd be biased in favor of Serbs. I prefer not to engage in that lunacy, thank you.

Another is Balkan Insight -- another non-Albanian source. [[34]]. Well the author's surname is Albanian, although her forename is "Serbeze" (not exactly the most Albanian nationalist given name if you haven't noticed they don't like names that could be analyzed to mean "Serbish" i.e. Serb + ez + e ), so really not sure where Balkan tribalism leads us on this one...
A third is [Swiss]. Only one was actually Albanian it seems....--Calthinus (talk) 19:18, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Technically, it was not me who tagged anything, but OK, lets suppose it was me...
Second, this is a way too serious matter to be sourced with just journalists and sort-of-bloggers. It´s horrible crimes which are alleged to have been perpetrated and people charged with them. It is not a sort of thing like sourcing if Dalmatian dog when adult has more or less black spots than their white coat with which they are born with.
Third, its clearly vissible here a pattern of pyramidal escalation of numbers favourable to one side. Someone may have started with an estimation of some houndreds, someone else may have felt like rounding it up to thousand, once we are in the territory of the thousands why no speculate may have been as far as 20 thousands, and then an Albanian journalist claims it was 20.000 but probably even more... If the tendency goes on, it will not take long until we reach someone claiming all woman were rapped 24h/7 days a week and even others were rapped, man, animals, things, who knows what some journalist somewhere may think it may have happened. This needs proper sourcing from the instiutions in charge of it or at least by respected authors in the field.
Fourth, Serbian sources are scarse and usually not about contorversial matters. Also, remind that not all sources in Serbo-Croatian are Serbian. You will never find me using a local source to source highly controversial matters. Its a fact locals cannot be indifferent towards these events. Locals inevitably have an agenda when analizing the events. Even the autocritical sources are not reliable, cause people tend to use them to make a point either against the governament, local political tendency, and so. In such serious matters as rape, I would really rely on independent qualified sources.
Fifth and last, but not least, I repeat, it was not me who tagged and questioned the sources first, and I said in my last comment I was wishing to hear other editors opinion first, so in that sense, I thank you Calthinus for participating and expressing your view on this matter. FkpCascais (talk) 20:18, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
FkpCascais sorry I think I may have confused you with Anastan. Sure locals can have agendas but the fact I'm sure you know is also that there is also a bias not to report rape as traditionally the woman is tainted and no longer marriageable and sources have described this issue in the specific case of Kosovo Albanians too -- see these [[35]][[36]][[37]][[38]]. Btw Ktrimi991 all of these could be added as sources of the organized "gang raping". FkpCascais I do actually agree with a lot of your analysis of the issues here but I don't think the solution is deletion. This section is not overly reliant on Albanian sourcing at all. The best way forward I think is just following wikis rules. If we can find RS reporting what happened to Serbs those can be reported too. I think Human Rights Watch, New York Times, Foreign Policy (these three I linked above), Balkan Insinght and NPR are all possibly the best we can get, really. If we can get the reports of (non-partisan) NGOs, that would also help. --Calthinus (talk) 22:04, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Regarding the number of rapes I have set references that I believe are sufficient. I live in Kosovo and I have certain information that the rapes were not only in women, but there was homo-sexual Serbs who committed rape in Albanian males but did not find safe references in English! --Hakuli (talk) 22:47, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
OK, I see your point. There seems to be enough coverage of the issue to deserve a section of their own.
Second, I took a while and saw with attention all links you provided. The first one, HRW, from March 2000, suggests it was "an instrument used by Serbs". Says how they have 96 documented cases (far from 20.000 claimed) suggesting there "may" have be much more unreported. It suggests uncofirmed allegtions that there may have been "rape camps" (so convenient unverified suspicions just as Saddams weaponds of mass destruction) but goes on to say that, "Since the end of the war, rapes of Serbian, Albanian, and Roma women by ethnic Albanians - sometimes by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) - have also been documented. " but how conveniently, they "are beyond the scope of this report"...
Second source, its from June 1999, meaning still during the war... Having in mind that USA lead the bombings and it is an American source....
Third source is from 2016 and repeats that 96 cases were documente... BTW, it insists in "Pristina, Serbia" would you consider this same source as evidence that there are countries and media that still consider Kosovo as part of Serbia as this source does?
Fourth source writen by an Albanian woman, clearly simpathethic towards Albanian cause... FkpCascais (talk) 00:16, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
All in all, seems there are 96 cases documentes with suspicion that there may be more, and reports from the time of the war of alleged "rape camps" which after almost 20 years were not confirmed.
PS: Hakuli, dont shoot yourself in the foot please. FkpCascais (talk) 00:22, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
1) Criticizing sources is not our job description on a page like this. If you have an issue with Human Rights Watch, take it to WP:RSN
2) Yes, in 2001, Pristina was a city in what was internationally recognized as Serbia. In 2008, that changed. Speaking about 2001, yes, "Pristina, Serbia" is correct. Speaking about a period post February 2008, it is "Prishtina, Kosovo" in all major Anglophone countries, all of which recognize Kosovo. --Calthinus (talk) 17:02, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
As a matter of fact this just came out on Balkan Insight -- relevant for later prosecution or lack thereof of rape both by the JNA and by the KLA [39]--Calthinus (talk) 02:21, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Concentration Camp Word Usage and Wrong Sources

The following sources used under the heading, "3.5 Concentration Camps" are being used improperly.

Sources 103 and 104 are from the same site, "http://tenc.net/"

First of all, for source 103, the comments are made by Jared Israel however, the article that is being used as the source are by Vanja Mekterovic and Vladimir Radomirovic.

Both sources 103 and 104 are made by a Serbian propaganda site with no credibility whatsoever. We cannot use these sources to state there were concentration camps.

Source 109, from BBC, talks of prison camps in Albania, not concentration camps. The difference between concentration camps and prison camps are a big deal, especially within the Jewish community and thus we should not have the liberty to make them synonymous when they are not. We need to stick with what the source has to say (prison camps).

As well, this statement: "Several investigations into these camps have led to evidence detailing that several prisoners had their organs removed" is not found anywhere in the BBC article nor is anything about organs being talked about in the article, so I am not sure why it is being cited as if it were.

I propose to delete the propaganda sources and to change the talk about the concentration camp and the organ theft. Tophane (talk) 19:52, 28 April 2020 (UTC)Tophane

Why are attacks by civilians after the war classified as "war crimes during the kosovo war".

How can a crime committed by angry civilian mobs after the war be under war crimes committed during the Kosovo war? Durraz0 (talk) 23:45, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Operation Horseshoe

This page says that Operation Horseshoe was (allegedly) enacted in 1998, yet the page for the operation says it happened in 1999. Which is it? Kelvinnkat (talk) 07:54, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

WikiProject banners

I notice that an attempt to add the WikiProject Terrorism banner by editor Parham wiki was reverted by editor Durraz0, before being added a second time. The argument used by Parham wiki, both times, was that "The Kosovo Liberation Army was listed as a terrorist organization by several countries. KLA is still present in the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base list of terrorist groups, and is listed as an inactive terrorist organisation by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism."

@Parham wiki: Sorry, that editing behaviour just doesn't cut it for me. What editors are supposed to do after being reverted is to discuss the issue on the talk page. This process is sometimes known as the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. While editors can be bold a first time, repeating the process a second time without discussion is not the way to achieve consensus. Please realize that the way Wikipedia obtains consensus is not by having your edit over-ride the edits of all the editors who came before you, but by having your edit be accepted by the next editor who edits the page after you, and to then have it continue being accepted by all subsequent editors.

At the moment, that editor is me, and I do not accept that the WikiProject Terrorism banner should be added to this article's talk page because this article is about War crimes, not Terrorism. While both might involve terrorizing the general populace, terrorism is carried out in a generally peaceful and law-abiding context, while war crimes occur in the context of a war. Exactly where you draw the line is a bit of a grey area, but just because the KLA is designated an [inactive] terrorist organisation does not mean everything they do is terrorism. You have to look at the acts in the context these occurred in, and what this article is saying is that these are war crimes, not terrorism, otherwise the International Criminal Court would not be involved, and the local law enforcement and judicial authorities would be pursuing these matters as terrorism type crimes.

Because I disagree with this article being included in WikiProject Terrorism, and after having assessed several thousand articles for that project, I think adding that project's banner to this article is unnecessary because the article is pretty much outside the scope of the project. Please remember the purpose of adding this WikiProject's banner is to improve article quality; it is not stamp collecting. That means I feel I need to remove the banner, too. If you think I am wrong or mistaken, please discuss this and convince me why the banner should be reinstated, before adding the banner a third time. Please remember that behaving the same way, repeatedly, without making changes to one's behaviour is like walking down the road to insanity. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 22:21, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

I would suggest to Parham wiki to focus on other things to gain more experience. They created their account 5 months ago, so focusing on writing content, adding sources, giving opinions in Afds, RMs or RfCs would help them a lot. Assessing articles for WikiProjects might look like an easy job, but it might get complicated and needs a very good understanding of content issues and some policies. It is better if editors with more experience do that. Ktrimi991 (talk) 22:40, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Thank you Parham wiki (talk) 22:50, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, you're right, I deleted it. Parham wiki (talk) 22:43, 11 August 2023 (UTC)