Peacekeepers of Kosovo
From Mr Simon Haselock Sir: Andrew Sutton (The black hole of Europe', 9 November) accomplishes the seemingly impossible: firing a wild fusillade of criticism at the political equivalent of a barn the UN mission in Kosovo — without a single one of his missiles hitting its target.
What makes this piece especially absurd is that his scurrilous charges are completely unsupported either by quotes from the three people he managed to speak with in Kosovo or by the horrific landscapes he conjures up.
A brief sample of Sutton v. Reality.
Sutton: Unmik police act with impunity, including killing people through reckless driving. Reality: One of the nearly 4,500 police from 49 countries currently serving in Kosovo recently hit two pedestrians with his police car. The officer has been indicted on charges of negligent homicide and will be tried in the Pristina district court. This past week another officer whom Kosovo courts had convicted of murder was sentenced to 13 years in prison. There is an international warrant for a third officer who fled from Kosovo after being charged with abusing a suspect in custody.
Sutton: A parking lot full of wrecked UN vehicles exemplifies what he terms 'one of the many dirty secrets created by Unmik's love of policy that is made for show'. Reality: Far from being a secret, when Unmik employees apply for a licence to drive UN vehicles, they are taken to gaze on the junkyard as a reminder of the importance of defensive driving.
Sutton: On 31 December 2001, the UN declared Kosovo free of mines. Reality: The UN announced that all marked Yugoslav army minefields had been cleared. Seven emergency ordnance disposal teams under the Kosovo Protection Corps, supported by a team of experts from Handicap International, continue to clear unmarked minefields when found, as well as unexploded cluster bombs dropped by Nato.
Sutton appears to believe that, with enough bile, a reporter can get by without bothering about the facts. We are sorry that The Spectator would reinforce such a delusion by publishing him.
Simon Haselock
Director, Unmik Division of Public Information, Kosovo
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