Now in their 16th night of air raids, NATO warplanes bombed eastern Belgrade early today, blowing up a fuel depot and lighting up the sky over the city. Hundreds of Belgrade residents formed a human shield on the central Brankov Bridge, saying that their presence would stop NATO from bombing it.

Albanian television reported that tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians are now trapped by Serb forces in central Kosovo and could face mass starvation. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe also said that the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Serb army are exchanging gunfire in Albanian territory.

NATO said today it is sending an extra 8,000 ground troops to Albania to deal with the worsening refugee crisis. This comes as the United States suspended plans to airlift thousands of Kosovar refugees to the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, a decision that is widely seen as having been precipitated by mounting grass roots pressure from refugee organizations. Guantanamo housed over 50,000 Haitian and Cuban refugees in sub-human conditions in the mid-1990’s -many have likened the conditions there to conditions in a concentration camp. In response, the U.S said that it would build barracks for the refugees in Albania.

Today we air a recent speech by Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General between 1967 and 1969 under president Lyndon Johnson, an administration that escalated the war in Vietnam, and that pursued FBI investigations of civil rights activists under the Counter Intelligence Program. A fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy and domestic human rights policies, Ramsey Clarke recently returned from Yugoslavia and gave this speech on the NATO bombings.

Guest:

• Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General under the Johnson administration from 1967 to 1969. Speaking at a recent event in New York City.

Related link:

• InFocus — Pacifica’s Coverage of Kosovo