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PDF FormatIn the second Chechen war, the Russians dropped all pretense of restraint. After issuing a warning to Grozny’s inhabitants and ordering them to leave, the army unleashed infantry, tanks, helicopters, artillery, and even “more-than-lethal” weapons, including surface-to-surface missiles and fuel-air munitions fired from multiple rocket launchers. According to Russian claims, one salvo from a “Buratino” fuel-air rocket launcher, which the Russians used extensively during the battle, can lay waste to an area of 400 by 200 yards.25
The city was effectively destroyed. It is difficult to estimate the number of casualties among those who remained in the town, but it was surely quite large, considering the extent of the destruction: Entire neighborhoods were razed to the ground, and the Chechen capital was reduced to a wasteland.
While the Russian campaign in Chechnya cost both sides dearly, NATO forces considering an attack on Serb forces in Kosovo in 1999 went for a “cleaner” approach. The central aim of the operation was to stop Serbian war crimes in Kosovo with the least possible cost to NATO troops. Fearful of becoming mired in heavy fighting on the ground, the allied forces mounted a massive aerial-bombing campaign. The bombers, for the most part, maintained an altitude high enough to avoid anti-aircraft fire—which meant a notable decrease in accuracy and a commensurate increase in the likelihood of collateral damage. During the eleven-week spring air offensive, NATO bombers deployed 23,000 bombs and air-to-ground missiles in the Kosovo region. Though few of the Serbian army’s tanks and armored personnel carriers—the main targets of the attack—were destroyed in the operation,26 the civilian death toll was at least 460, and some even put the number as high as 1,500 or 2,000—the unfortunate result of bombs that missed their mark.27
Responding to critics, NATO placed the blame squarely on Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, claiming that he had deliberately placed military targets close to residential areas. Under the circumstances, NATO spokesmen insisted, civilian losses were unavoidable; the bombings were “legitimate” and would continue until the Serbs surrendered.28 NATO similarly justified its air assault on the Serbian village of Korisa, which claimed the lives of about 100 civilians, by declaring the village “a legitimate military target” because of the presence of Serbian troops and “an armored personnel carrier and more than ten pieces of artillery.”29 In response to another incident in which ten civilians were killed in a bombing of the bridge on which their train was traveling, General Wesley Clark, commander of NATO forces in Europe, blamed the debacle on “how suddenly that train appeared” and described the accident’s grim consequences as “really unfortunate.”30 Finally, after a civilian convoy was bombed by mistake, a NATO spokesman explained, “Sometimes one has to risk the lives of the few to save the lives of the many.” Government officials in NATO countries supported this position. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, for example, expressed his outrage at the Yugoslavs: “How dare they now produce crocodile tears for people killed in the conflict for which they are responsible?”31
There were other such incidents, as well. When cluster bombs landed in residential neighborhoods in the Serbian city of Nis, they killed 14 people and injured twice as many. According to a Serbian source, “the bombs fell on a busy part of town at a time when people were out in the streets and at the market, not protecting themselves in the bomb shelters where they had spent the night.” In a NATO press briefing, Major-General Walter Jertz asserted merely that “cluster bombs are used in aerial targets where we know that collateral damage could not occur.”32 In Surdulica, 16 civilians, including 11 children, were killed when NATO jets attacked military barracks in the village. NATO sources acknowledged that a laser-guided bomb had gone astray and missed its target by 500 yards. The NATO statement noted that the organization “does not target civilians, but we cannot exclude harm to civilians or to civilian property during our air operations over Yugoslavia.”33 In another incident in Surdulica about a month later, some 17 people died when missiles hit a hospital—which, according to Amnesty International, was “reported to have been marked on all maps of the area.” Colonel Konrad Freytag explained that “NATO aircraft attacked the military barracks and an ammunition storage area in the vicinity of that city. Both these targets were legitimate military targets…. All munitions hit the planned aiming points.” NATO officials failed to explain how a hospital was struck during bombing of “legitimate military targets.”34
In response to criticism from Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, a NATO spokesman retorted that “I have great respect for Amnesty, but their usual business is conducting inquiries into prisoners of conscience, and I think they have strayed a little bit beyond their turf in investigating military actions by NATO.”35 Military experts also defended NATO’s claim that the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians were a reasonable price to pay in a campaign against a war criminal. Philip Meilinger, a retired U.S. Army colonel, did not hesitate to assert that the civilian casualties in Kosovo and Yugoslavia were extraordinarily light considering the number of missions and bombings.36
Like the Russians, NATO members considered injury to the civilian population unavoidable given the scope of the operations in the region. The United Nations intervention in Somalia, however, was supposed to be different. No doubt, the road to Mogadishu was paved with good intentions: In April 1992, Security Council Resolution 751 charged the international task force with providing humanitarian aid to the Somali population and facilitating an end to the civil war that had begun in 1988. It soon became clear, however, that delivering the aid would require the protection of an increasingly large military presence: More than 38,000 troops from 21 countries were deployed in Somalia by UNITAF, the UN Unified Task Force, from December 1992 through May 1993.37 In time, this force engaged not only in providing and safeguarding humanitarian aid, but in actual fighting—which inevitably involved it in conflicts among local groups.38 And even when the number of troops was reduced after May 1993, their mission grew increasingly combat-oriented: Instead of an honest broker in disputes between local factions, the UN quickly became, in the eyes of many Somalis, yet another warring party.39
The clashes multiplied. On June 5, during an operation to confiscate weapons, 24 Pakistani soldiers in the UN force were killed in an ambush led by members of the Somali National Front, one of the largest of the region’s militias. Women and children took part in the ambush as well, placing themselves between Pakistani soldiers and militiamen, and making it difficult for the Pakistanis to open fire on their attackers.40 The day after the incident, the UN Security Council passed a draft resolution calling on member states to “contribute, on an emergency basis… armored personnel carriers, tanks and attack helicopters… to confront and deter armed attacks” directed against UN forces in Somalia. In effect, the Security Council sanctioned the use of heavy weaponry against gangs armed with RPGs, machine guns, and light artillery. The international force’s retaliation was harsh and swift: For three nights, American Hercules gunships shelled a neighborhood close to the home of Farah Aidid, the commander of the Somali National Front, despite the fact that the area was populated by civilians. Fourteen civilians were killed and 30 injured in the attack.41
On June 12, in response to the murder of local UN workers by the Somali National Front, the UN commanders decided to launch an attack on a building where a meeting of the Habar Gidir clan, to which Aidid belonged, was taking place. The Americans suggested sending in a force to take the meeting’s participants captive, but this idea was rejected out of fear that the soldiers would be exposed to unnecessary risks.42 It was therefore decided to use helicopter gunships to attack the building. In what has been dubbed “the UN’s first-ever officially authorized assassination,”43 American gunships fired a total of 16 rockets and 2,000 shells at the building. Although the UN reported fewer than 20 deaths, all of them men, video footage of the area clearly showed women’s bodies in the rubble. The Red Cross gave completely different figures: According to its estimate, there were 215 Somali casualties, among them 54 dead. Aidid supporters also issued a list with the names of 73 victims, including women and children.44 Fortunately for the UN, the attack received very little media coverage: Soon afterward an angry mob killed four Western journalists, turning public opinion in the West decisively against the Somalis.45
As the UN force came under increased pressure, its responses claimed a growing number of victims. On June 13, for example, Pakistani soldiers opened fire on demonstrators, killing 20 and injuring dozens more. Some witnesses testified that the shooting came in response to sniper fire directed at the soldiers.46 One eyewitness, Paul Watson of the Toronto Star, said that he did “not recall hearing a shot before the Pakistanis opened fire.”47
