today’s ” AR-online” again AR-Online recent issues: July 1999 June 1999 May 1999 April 1999 March 1999 February 1999 January 1999 December 1998 November 1998 October 1998 September 1998 August 1998 July 1998 Alphabetical index (text) “Forced repatriation was a humanitarian and political abomination – a war crime every bit as much as the ethnic cleansing by Serbs of Albanians.”
Peter Worthington , onetime editor of the Toronto Sun The Toronto Sun July 11, 1999 LETTERS Britain’s dirty little secret By PETER WORTHINGTON Ethnic cleansing was called “forced repatriation” after World War II HE chilling phrase of our times – ethnic cleansing – has different meanings to different people, but at its most benign it is forcing people to become refugees, as happened in Kosovo and, before that, in Bosnia.
Britain and Nato have said it was Yugoslav President Slobo Milosevic ‘s alleged plan to “ethnically cleanse” Kosovo of its Albanian population that ostensibly caused the Nato/U.S. air strikes. Nato’s daily press briefings during the 78 days of air strikes, via the ubiquitous working-class accent of Britain’s Jamie Shea , seldom failed to mention the horrors of “ethnic cleansing.”
A cynic might have noted that it was Britain itself, after World War II, which escalated “ethnic cleansing” into state policy – only in those days it was called “forced repatriation.” Immediately after World War II, tens of thousands of refugees, possibly hundreds of thousands – prisoners of war, escapers from communism – were forcibly sent