August 16, 1999
Volume 1/ Number 14
Dear Friend and Colleague:
Last week, UNFPA officials confirmed to PRI the connection between the UNFPA’s “reproductive health” campaign in Kosovo and the government of indicted war criminal and Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic, whose previous ethnic cleansing campaign against the same population failed. The UNFPA, which earlier had issued a blanket denial of PRI’s reportage, was unable to disprove a single one of our well-documented charges. Now it has admitted that we were correct in linking its activities to Milosevic. PRI asks that UNFPA withdraw from Kosovo.
Steven W. Mosher
President
Reversing Itself, UNFPA Admits Ties to MilosevicRegime
WASHINGTON, DC — A spokesman of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Alex Marshall, admitted last week that UNFPA was invited to conduct a “reproductive health” program in Kosovo by the Yugoslavian government last December 1998. This invitation came at a time when the Yugoslavian president, indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic, had begun his campaign of ethnic cleansing against Kosovar Albanians, who were fleeing that province in large numbers. (PRI interview with UNFPA Spokesman Alex Marshall, 9 August 1999).
The UNFPA has also admitted that it is operating only in Kosovo, and no where else in Yugoslavia. This heightens Population Research Institute’s (PRI) concerns that the UNFPA is collaborating with Milosevic in a “stealth” ethnic cleansing campaign against the persecuted Kosovar Albanians.
UNFPA described PRI’s report from the region as “false and misleading” but failed to disprove the charges that UNFPA was cooperating with Milosevic to reduce the high birthrate of the ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo. Kosovar Albanians average five to six children per family, one of the highest birthrates in Europe. After initially denying that it was invited into Kosovo by the Milosevic regime, the UNFPA has now reversed the statement and admits that this was in fact the case.
“The UNFPA has now admitted that it was invited into Kosovo—and only Kosovo—by the Milosevic regime,” said PRI President Steven W. Mosher. “The timing of the invitation and the narrow focus of the ‘family planning’ campaign demand that the UNFPA reconsider its actions.”
UNFPA Spokesman Alex Marshall sought to distance UNFPA from Milosevic by saying that UNFPA entered Kosovo under UN auspices, since the Yugoslavian government at the time of the invitation was regarded as “sovereign” over Kosovo. “The UNFPA cannot hide behind claims of Yugoslavian sovereignty over Kosovo,” Mosher said. “Everyone knows Milosevic’s intentions toward the Kosovar population. For the UNFPA to act in concert with a government headed by an indicted war criminal calls into question the entire nature of its campaign against the Kosovars.” The UN draft resolution on Kosovo calls for “meaningful self-administration for Kosovo” (UN draft resolution on Kosovo, Article J, 8 June 1999).
“The UNFPA is simply giving the UN a bad name, and tarnishing the good work that other UN agencies are doing in the region,” Mosher added. “Kosovar women are also being endangered by this rash campaign.”
In reports issued last month, PRI provided first-hand evidence from the region confirming that UNFPA’s “reproductive health” kits contain manual vacuum aspirators which local NGOs use to perform dangerous abortion procedures; crude IUDs no longer used in the West, and “morning after” pills which UNFPA falsely claims are not abortion inducing. The IUDs included in UNFPA’s kits distributed in refugee camps lack notification of removal procedures, necessary to prevent ectopic pregnancy and other serious health risks. The Harvard and American medical communities maintain that “morning after” pills are abortion inducing, since pregnancy is terminated after fertilization. PRI has raised concerns about the likelihood of uninformed consent and medical malpractice implicit with UNFPA’s Kosovo operations.
“This is not ‘choice’ in reproductive health, this is ‘stealth’ ethnic cleansing in conjunction with the intentions of an indicted war criminal,” Mosher concluded.
