USA Today’s star foreign correspondent, Jack Kelley, landed in hot water over fabricating a story about a journal purporting to “prove” Serbs were “ethnically cleansing” Kosovo. After an internal investigation, Kelley resigned from the paper. Case closed? Hardly. The investigation, and the media coverage thereof, are doing their best to whitewash Kelley’s fabrication, even as they feed him to the sharks.
So, what happened? In July 1999, Kelley reported that the UN had evidence of alleged Serb atrocities against Kosovo Albanians: a journal of a Yugoslav army officer, indicating he was ordered to “cleanse” an Albanian village. He claimed the journal was shown to him by a “human rights activist” (Natasa Kandic, whom he did not name in the article). But Kandic could not recall the interview, and the journal was nowhere to be found. The story seems bogus enough. Even so, Kelley, Kandic, USA Today, and even the media covering the scandal, claim vociferously that, whatever the sordid details of the deception, the journal itself is real.
Another Reuters article, headlined “Discredited USA Today man’s story based on real report,” reveals that Kandic supposedly obtained the journal from KLA leader Agim Ceku, then passed it on to the ICTY investigators. She does not remember telling Kelley about it, but the journal is real.
Or is it?
Consider the source: Agim Ceku, the top commander of the KLA, with a vested interest in “proving” Serb atrocities that his men and NATO have fabricated over the preceding six months or so. Consider the medium: Natasa Kandic, a “human rights” lawyer whose job has largely been to give media statements backing allegations of Serb atrocities, while never actually producing any evidence. Consider that Kandic, a lawyer, did not think to make a copy of the journal, or even the page in question. Consider, too, that the phantom journal has not made an appearance in the Milosevic “trial”, even though the Kosovo phase of it has been over for a year now.
But as long as the media claim the phantom journal still exists, they can avoid eating crow over all the bogus atrocity stories they’ve been feeding to the public.
As a footnote, to “clear the area” (Sr. “ocistiti teren”) is military-speak for securing an objective. Serbian verb “cistiti” means both “clear” and “cleanse.” So if the journal in question actually does exist, the alleged confession would really be just a note of a standard military order. But don’t hold your breath for Reuters or USA Today to keep you informed…