August 24, 1999
Volume 1/ Number 15
Dear Friend and Colleague:
Since launching its “reproductive health” campaign in the Kosovo region, the UNFPA’s press office has disguised its “stealth” ethnic cleansing campaign behind a mask of “humanitarianism.” PRI’s investigations of UNFPA operations in the region reveal that the UNFPA is distributing dangerous “reproductive health” supplies to Kosovar women, including abortion inducing “morning after” pills; crude IUD devices, and manual vacuum aspirators for abortion. The UNFPA has a history of targeting vulnerable women without respect to their human rights, often in collaboration with the “policies” of rogue governments, such as UNFPA’s collaboration with China’s one-child policy. In light of recent revelations that UNFPA was invited by the Milosevic government to target only ethnic Albanians, as reported in the New York Post, PRI asks the UNFPA to withdraw from Kosovo immediately.
Steven W. Mosher
President
New York Post Faults UN Agency for Ethnic Cleansing of Albanians
Kosovars Fear ‘White Plague’ of UNFPA’s ‘Reproductive Health’ Campaign
NEW YORK —The New York Post has denounced the UN Populations Fund’s (UNFPA) “reproductive health” campaign against the Albanians in Kosovo which began at the behest of Yugoslavian President and indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic.
“Now that NATO troops have ended ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, there’s reason to fear that the United Nations Population Fund will do what the Serbs failed to: pacify the region by reducing the Albanian population. … UNFPA’s activities in Kosovo dovetail ominously with Milosevic’s longstanding determination to slash the ethnic-Albanian birth rate….” (New York Post, 22 August 1999. For a complete copy of the column, visit www.nypostonline.com/commentary/1565.htm)
That UNFPA is aggressively promoting population control in Kosovo has been confirmed by PRI researcher Josipa Gasparic, who spent last week in the war-torn province. Reporting from the capital city of Pristina, she writes that the UNFPA’s “reproductive health” campaign has so alarmed Kosovars that they are referring to it as a “white plague.”
Ms. Gasparic visited UNFPA’s Pristina office, where lying in plain sight was a document titled, “How to change the mentality of Kosovar women.” The lack of interest or demand among Kosovar women for the contraceptive devices and sterilization techniques that the UNFPA is peddling has been confirmed by two previous PRI reports, which are based on interviews with over six dozen Kosovar refugee women. The UNFPA office also promotes the work of UK abortion provider Marie Stopes.
When challenged on UNFPA’s distribution of the “morning after” pill, a UNFPA official in Pristina, Olivier Brasseur, contended that the pills were not abortion inducing but “only prevent women from ovulating.” This position is contradictory to informed medical opinion on the subject, which confirms that the “morning after” pill leads to early-term abortions. UNFPA’s denial of this medical fact is not only disturbing in itself, but raises the question of whether Kosovar recipients of the “morning after” pill have been denied informed consent.
Brasseur also maintained that UNFPA delivered manual vacuum aspirators (MVAs) to the region “for safe delivery, but if someone else wanted to use it for abortion, they cannot help it.” The MVA, of course, cannot be used in a normal delivery at all, but only in case of a miscarriage, either spontaneous or induced. PRI confirmed that local midwives are being trained to perform abortions with MVAs.
Brasseur attempted to distance UNFPA from the Milosevic invitation by contending that UNFPA was mainly concerned with attending Kosovar births. PRI pointed out that medical personnel in Serbian hospitals often refuse to attend Albanian births because of ethnic prejudice, and have in the past engaged in forced sterilization of non-Serbian minorities.
In countries like Serbia, “the state often runs roughshod over the rights of the people, especially poor people,” Steven Mosher, President of PRI, told the New York Post.
PRI has confirmed that the UNFPA’s “reproductive health” campaign against the Kosovars began in refugee settings in Albania, and that UNFPA’s “reproductive health” kits include abortion inducing “morning after” pills; outdated IUD devices without notification for removal procedures, and manual vacuum aspirators (MVAs) which the Albanian Planned Parenthood affiliate maintained could be used only for abortion.
“Our continuing well-documented investigation of UNFPA operations in the region has led to more concerns about human rights violations, including lack of informed consent and medical malpractice,” Mosher said. “UNFPA’s principal concern is not attending births, reducing abortion rates or maternal health. Let us not forget that this organization goes by the title of the UN Population Fund, not the UN maternal health fund.”
UNFPA officials have sought to hide its “stealth” ethnic cleansing campaign against the Kosovars beneath a UN mandate; but its involvement with the Milosevic regime has weakened its claim to “humanitarian” efforts.
On 6 June 1999 UNFPA head of external communications, Stirling Scruggs, told PRI that UNFPA was invited into Kosovo by the Milosevic government to conduct a routine assessment which would be followed by regular programs (PRI Review, June / July 1999, 4). Scruggs would not provide specific information on the date of the invitation. Last week, UNFPA Spokesman Alex Marshall confirmed that the invitation for UNFPA to enter Kosovo was issued by the Milosevic government last December 1998. The New York Post also reports that “UNFPA confirms that … Milosevic invited the agency into Kosovo and, tellingly, nowhere else in Serbia — to assess the situation.”
