The story of the war in Kosovo can be told massacre by massacre – a numbing parade of Balkan atrocities. But if you get down to the specific places, homes, and families, and all the horror of arson, rape, and murder – numbness returns to outrage.
The journalists Stephen Smith and Michael Montgomery uncovered a massacre in a small Kosovo town called Cuska, where Serbs killed 41 men.
The militias who’d done the killing had been uncharacteristically sloppy. They left behind photographs of themselves and survirors to interview. Eyewitnesses identified perpetrators by face and in some cases by name, and Smith and Montgomery traced the orders for the massacre up the chain of Serbian command all the way to one of Slobodan Milosevic’s generals.
What makes Cuska’s story most remarkable, though, is the testimony of the killers. The anatomy of a massacre – in this hour.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Stephen Smith, managing editor and correspondent for American RadioWorks and Michael Montgomery, correspondent for American RadioWorks.