Balkanalysis.com

Inat: Images of Serbia and the Kosovo Conflict, Esprit de Corps Books, 2000

By Scott Taylor

Reviewed by Nebojsa Malic

Inat is the story of a seasoned correspondent’s experiences “…on the other side of the battle line,” as Scott Taylor sums up his work in his brief introduction. The book lives up well to this concise mission statement, providing a vivid account of the Kosovo war refreshingly bereft of propaganda and politics. A former soldier and currently military analyst, publisher and war reporter, Taylor covered Canadian peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia beginning in 1992, documenting their gallant conduct in face of atrocities and crass propaganda manipulations executed by both the local belligerents and outside powers. In 1998, he published Tested Mettle, which documented the Canadian peacekeepers’ bitter 1993 firefight with Croatian forces cleansing the Medak pocket. He mentions this in the first chapter of Inat, by way of background, noting that one Croatian commander in the Medak operation was a Kosovo Albanian named Agim Ceku.

Six years later, Taylor set out for Serbia, which had been under attack by NATO (including Canadian) bombers supporting Agim Ceku’s “Kosovo Liberation Army” for two months. Arriving on May 24, 1999, he witnessed the last two weeks off the air war, and the occupation of Kosovo that followed.

The first three chapters of Inat are by necessity exposition. Taylor explains Canada’s involvement in the region, gives a quick but accurate historical primer, describes Rambouillet and the diplomatic lead-up to the war, and covers the first two months of the war itself, noting NATO’s many “mistakes” and their casualties. Chapters four to seven deal with the war itself, with eight and nine examining the consequences. Taylor’s own photographs provide a poignant backdrop to a no-nonsense story, told in a clear and precise language. Though this makes the book an easy read, its subject matter is not easy at all: wholesale destruction, tragic deaths, terror and deprivation. While most reporters parroted NATO spokesman Jamie Shea’s euphemisms and fabrications, Taylor talked to families of actual victims, both civilians and soldiers. His research and style are examples of what journalism should be.

These are several minor problems in the book. Taylor occasionally makes a common Western mistake of spelling names wrong (e.g. “Sueterav” vs. Svetozar, p. 86), and sometimes writing them down backwards (e.g. “Vujovic Nebojosa” [sic], p. 82). But a far more serious editorial oversight was using a phrase Taylor himself discredits just a few pages earlier. Having noted that NATO officials and Alliance-friendly reporters failed to find evidence of atrocities (p.108), and condemning the use of the euphemism “revenge attacks” (p.112), he nonetheless uses “revenge killings” to describe the KLA terror just a few pages later on p. 132, and indeed, calls the entire chapter 7 “Revenge and Retreat.” These are definitely strange choices, which stand in a jarring contrast with the general tone and content of the book.

Inat ends on a subdued note, marking the irony that the Canadian troops are keeping the “peace” in Kosovo run by the very same Agim Ceku whom they so valiantly resisted in 1993. Taylor does not spell out his condemnation of NATO’s invasion of Kosovo, but he doesn’t have to. Almost every word – and more so, every picture – in Inat is condemnation enough.

Five years after NATO occupied Kosovo, the truth about that war is still suppressed in the mainstream Western media. Myths perpetuated in the West about Kosovo, its inhabitants, and the NATO intervention, were stretched beyond credulity during an anti-Serb pogrom in March, but not pierced. In chapter six, as the war ends, Taylor quotes a Japanese pundit, Masaru Oki: “It’s one thing for NATO to say they have won this war. However, it is a dangerous thing for the future of the world if they actually believe it.”

Because both the leaders and the misinformed public of NATO countries did actually believe it, Taylor has had the opportunity to write two similar books since: Diary of an Uncivil War (on Macedonia’s 2001 war) and Spinning on the Axis of Evil (on Iraq 2004). Together with Inat, they are powerful testimonies to a world gone mad, where might makes right and truth is murdered every day, over and over again.

Want to delve deeper into the Balkans’ recent turmoil? Read the Balkanalysis.com review of Scott Taylor’s Macedonian military adventure, Diary of an Uncivil War.