Jugoinfo
THE FATAL FLAWS UNDERLYING NATO'S INTERVENTION IN YUGOSLAVIA
By Lt Gen Satish Nambiar (Retd.)
(First Force Commander and Head of Mission of the United Nations Forces
deployed in the former Yugoslavia 03 Mar92 to 02 Mar 93. Former Deputy
Chief of Staff, Indian Army. Currently, Director of the United Services
Insitution of India.)
My year long experience as the Force Commander and Head of Mission of
the
United Nations Forces deployed in the former Yugoslavia has given me an
understanding of the fatal flaws of US/NATO policies in the troubled
region.
It was obvious to most people following events in the Balkans since the
beginning of the decade, and particularly after the fighting that
resulted
in the emergence of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, that Kosovo was a 'powder keg' waiting
to
explode. The West appears to have learnt all the wrong lessons from the
previous wars and applied it to Kosovo.
(1) Portraying the Serbs as evil and everybody else as good was not only
counterproductive but also dishonest. According to my experience all
sides were guilty but only the Serbs would admit that they were no
angels
while the others would insist that they were. With 28, 000 forces under
me and with constant contacts with UNHCR and the International Red Cross
officials, we did not witness any genocide beyond killings and massacres
on all sides that are typical of such conflict conditions. I believe
none
of my successors and their forces saw anything on the scale claimed by
the
media.
(2) It was obvious to me that if Slovenians, Croatians and Bosniaks had
the right to secede from Yugoslavia, then the Serbs of Croatia and
Bosnia
had an equal right to secede. The experience of partitions in Ireland
and
India has not be pleasant but in the Yugoslavia case, the state had
already been taken apart anyway. It made little sense to me that if
multiethnic Yugoslavia was not tenable that multiethnic Bosnia could be
made tenable. The former internal boundaries of Yugoslavia which had no
validity under international law should have been redrawn when it was
taken apart by the West, just as it was in the case of Ireland in 1921
and
Punjab and Bengal in India in 1947. Failure to acknowledge this has led
to the problem of Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia.
(3) It is ironic that the Dayton Agreement on Bosnia was not
fundamentally
different from the Lisbon Plan drawn up by Portuguese Foreign Minister
Cuteliero and British representative Lord Carrington to which all three
sides had agreed before any killings had taken place, or even the
Vance-Owen Plan which Karadzic was willing to sign. One of the main
problems was that there was an unwillingness on the part of the American
administration to concede that Serbs had legitimate grievances and
rights.
I recall State Department official George Kenny turning up like all
other
American officials, spewing condemnations of the Serbs for aggression
and
genocide. I offered to give him an escort and to go see for himself
that
none of what he proclaimed was true. He accepted my offer and
thereafter
he made a radical turnaround.. Other Americans continued to see and
hear
what they wanted to see and hear from one side, while ignoring the other
side. Such behaviour does not produce peace but more conflict.
(4) I felt that Yugoslavia was a media-generated tragedy. The Western
media sees international crises in black and white, sensationalizing
incidents for public consumption. From what I can see now, all Serbs
have
been driven out of Croatia and the Muslim-Croat Federation, I believe
almost 850,000 of them. And yet the focus is on 500,000 Albanians (at
last count) who have been driven out of Kosovo. Western policies have
led
to an ethnically pure Greater Croatia, and an ethnically pure Muslim
statelet in Bosnia. Therefore, why not an ethnically pure Serbia?
Failure to address these double standards has led to the current one.
As I watched the ugly tragedy unfold in the case of Kosovo while
visiting
the US in early to mid March 1999, I could see the same pattern
emerging.
In my experience with similar situations in India in such places as
Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, Nagaland, and elsewhere, it is the essential
strategy of those ethnic groups who wish to secede to provoke the state
authorities. Killings of policemen is usually a standard operating
procedure by terrorists since that usually invites overwhelming state
retaliation, just as I am sure it does in the United States.
I do not believe the Belgrade government had prior intention of driving
out all Albanians from Kosovo. It may have decided to implement
Washington's own "Krajina Plan" only if NATO bombed, or these expulsions
could be spontaneous acts of revenge and retaliation by Serb forces in
the
field because of the bombing. The OSCE Monitors were not doing too
badly,
and the Yugoslav Government had, after all, indicated its willings to
abide by nearly all the provisions of the Rambouillet "Agreement" on
aspects like cease-fire, greater autonomy to the Albanians, and so on.
But they insisted that the status of Kosovo as part of Serbia was not
negotiable, and they would not agree to stationing NATO forces on the
soil
of Yugoslavia. This is precisely what India would have done under the
same circumstances. It was the West that proceeded to escalate the
situation into the current senseless bombing campaign that smacks more
of
hurt egos, and revenge and retaliation. NATO's massive bombing intended
to terrorize Serbia into submission appears no different from the
morality
of actions of Serb forces in Kosovo.
Ultimatums were issued to Yugoslavia that unless the terms of an
agreement
drawn up at Rambouillet were signed, NATO would undertake bombing.
Ultimatums do not constitute diplomacy. They are acts of war. The
Albanians of Kosovo who want independence, were coaxed and cajoled into
putting their signatures to a document motivated with the hope of NATO
bombing of Serbs and independence later. With this signature, NATO
assumed all the legal and moral authority to undertake military
operations
against a country that had, at worst, been harsh on its own people. On
24th March 1999, NATO launched attacks with cruise missiles and bombs,
on
Yugoslavia, a sovereign state, a founding member of the United Nations
and
the Non Aligned Movement; and against a people who were at the forefront
of the fight against Nazi Germany and other fascist forces during World
War Two. I consider these current actions unbecoming of great powers.
It is appropriate to touch on the humanitarian dimension for it is the
innocent who are being subjected to displacement, pain and misery.
Unfortunately, this is the tragic and inevitable outcome of all such
situations of civil war, insurgencies, rebel movements, and terrorist
activity. History is replete with examples of such suffering; whether
it
be the American Civil War, Northern Ireland, the Basque movement in
Spain,
Chechnya, Angola, Cambodia, and so many other cases; the indiscriminate
bombing of civilian centres during World War Two; Hiroshima and
Nagasaki;
Vietnam. The list is endless. I feel that this tragedy could have been
prevented if NATO's ego and credibility had not been given the highest
priority instead of the genuine grievances of Serbs in addition to
Albanians.
Notwithstanding all that one hears and sees on CNN and BBC, and other
Western agencies, and in the daily briefings of the NATO authorities,
the
blame for the humanitarian crisis that has arisen cannot be placed at
the
door of the Yugoslav authorities alone. The responsibility rests mainly
at NATO's doors. In fact, if I am to go by my own experience as the
First
Force Commander and Head of Mission of the United Nations forces in the
former Yugoslavia, from March 1992 to March 1993, handling operations in
Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia, I would say that reports put
out in the electronic media are largely responsible for provoking this
tragedy.
Where does all this leave the international community which for the
record
does not comprise of the US, the West and its newfound Muslim allies?
The
portents for the future, at least in the short term, are bleak indeed.
The United Nations has been made totally redundant, ineffective, and
impotent. The Western world, led by the USA, will lay down the moral
values that the rest of the world must adhere to; it does not matter
that
they themselves do not adhere to the same values when it does not suit
them. National sovereignty and territorial integrity have no sanctity.
And finally, secessionist movements, which often start with terrorist
activity, will get greater encouragement. One can only hope that good
sense will prevail, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Lt General Satish Nambiar Director, USI, New Delhi
6 April 1999
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
By Lt Gen Satish Nambiar (Retd.)
(First Force Commander and Head of Mission of the United Nations Forces
deployed in the former Yugoslavia 03 Mar92 to 02 Mar 93. Former Deputy
Chief of Staff, Indian Army. Currently, Director of the United Services
Insitution of India.)
My year long experience as the Force Commander and Head of Mission of
the
United Nations Forces deployed in the former Yugoslavia has given me an
understanding of the fatal flaws of US/NATO policies in the troubled
region.
It was obvious to most people following events in the Balkans since the
beginning of the decade, and particularly after the fighting that
resulted
in the emergence of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, that Kosovo was a 'powder keg' waiting
to
explode. The West appears to have learnt all the wrong lessons from the
previous wars and applied it to Kosovo.
(1) Portraying the Serbs as evil and everybody else as good was not only
counterproductive but also dishonest. According to my experience all
sides were guilty but only the Serbs would admit that they were no
angels
while the others would insist that they were. With 28, 000 forces under
me and with constant contacts with UNHCR and the International Red Cross
officials, we did not witness any genocide beyond killings and massacres
on all sides that are typical of such conflict conditions. I believe
none
of my successors and their forces saw anything on the scale claimed by
the
media.
(2) It was obvious to me that if Slovenians, Croatians and Bosniaks had
the right to secede from Yugoslavia, then the Serbs of Croatia and
Bosnia
had an equal right to secede. The experience of partitions in Ireland
and
India has not be pleasant but in the Yugoslavia case, the state had
already been taken apart anyway. It made little sense to me that if
multiethnic Yugoslavia was not tenable that multiethnic Bosnia could be
made tenable. The former internal boundaries of Yugoslavia which had no
validity under international law should have been redrawn when it was
taken apart by the West, just as it was in the case of Ireland in 1921
and
Punjab and Bengal in India in 1947. Failure to acknowledge this has led
to the problem of Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia.
(3) It is ironic that the Dayton Agreement on Bosnia was not
fundamentally
different from the Lisbon Plan drawn up by Portuguese Foreign Minister
Cuteliero and British representative Lord Carrington to which all three
sides had agreed before any killings had taken place, or even the
Vance-Owen Plan which Karadzic was willing to sign. One of the main
problems was that there was an unwillingness on the part of the American
administration to concede that Serbs had legitimate grievances and
rights.
I recall State Department official George Kenny turning up like all
other
American officials, spewing condemnations of the Serbs for aggression
and
genocide. I offered to give him an escort and to go see for himself
that
none of what he proclaimed was true. He accepted my offer and
thereafter
he made a radical turnaround.. Other Americans continued to see and
hear
what they wanted to see and hear from one side, while ignoring the other
side. Such behaviour does not produce peace but more conflict.
(4) I felt that Yugoslavia was a media-generated tragedy. The Western
media sees international crises in black and white, sensationalizing
incidents for public consumption. From what I can see now, all Serbs
have
been driven out of Croatia and the Muslim-Croat Federation, I believe
almost 850,000 of them. And yet the focus is on 500,000 Albanians (at
last count) who have been driven out of Kosovo. Western policies have
led
to an ethnically pure Greater Croatia, and an ethnically pure Muslim
statelet in Bosnia. Therefore, why not an ethnically pure Serbia?
Failure to address these double standards has led to the current one.
As I watched the ugly tragedy unfold in the case of Kosovo while
visiting
the US in early to mid March 1999, I could see the same pattern
emerging.
In my experience with similar situations in India in such places as
Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, Nagaland, and elsewhere, it is the essential
strategy of those ethnic groups who wish to secede to provoke the state
authorities. Killings of policemen is usually a standard operating
procedure by terrorists since that usually invites overwhelming state
retaliation, just as I am sure it does in the United States.
I do not believe the Belgrade government had prior intention of driving
out all Albanians from Kosovo. It may have decided to implement
Washington's own "Krajina Plan" only if NATO bombed, or these expulsions
could be spontaneous acts of revenge and retaliation by Serb forces in
the
field because of the bombing. The OSCE Monitors were not doing too
badly,
and the Yugoslav Government had, after all, indicated its willings to
abide by nearly all the provisions of the Rambouillet "Agreement" on
aspects like cease-fire, greater autonomy to the Albanians, and so on.
But they insisted that the status of Kosovo as part of Serbia was not
negotiable, and they would not agree to stationing NATO forces on the
soil
of Yugoslavia. This is precisely what India would have done under the
same circumstances. It was the West that proceeded to escalate the
situation into the current senseless bombing campaign that smacks more
of
hurt egos, and revenge and retaliation. NATO's massive bombing intended
to terrorize Serbia into submission appears no different from the
morality
of actions of Serb forces in Kosovo.
Ultimatums were issued to Yugoslavia that unless the terms of an
agreement
drawn up at Rambouillet were signed, NATO would undertake bombing.
Ultimatums do not constitute diplomacy. They are acts of war. The
Albanians of Kosovo who want independence, were coaxed and cajoled into
putting their signatures to a document motivated with the hope of NATO
bombing of Serbs and independence later. With this signature, NATO
assumed all the legal and moral authority to undertake military
operations
against a country that had, at worst, been harsh on its own people. On
24th March 1999, NATO launched attacks with cruise missiles and bombs,
on
Yugoslavia, a sovereign state, a founding member of the United Nations
and
the Non Aligned Movement; and against a people who were at the forefront
of the fight against Nazi Germany and other fascist forces during World
War Two. I consider these current actions unbecoming of great powers.
It is appropriate to touch on the humanitarian dimension for it is the
innocent who are being subjected to displacement, pain and misery.
Unfortunately, this is the tragic and inevitable outcome of all such
situations of civil war, insurgencies, rebel movements, and terrorist
activity. History is replete with examples of such suffering; whether
it
be the American Civil War, Northern Ireland, the Basque movement in
Spain,
Chechnya, Angola, Cambodia, and so many other cases; the indiscriminate
bombing of civilian centres during World War Two; Hiroshima and
Nagasaki;
Vietnam. The list is endless. I feel that this tragedy could have been
prevented if NATO's ego and credibility had not been given the highest
priority instead of the genuine grievances of Serbs in addition to
Albanians.
Notwithstanding all that one hears and sees on CNN and BBC, and other
Western agencies, and in the daily briefings of the NATO authorities,
the
blame for the humanitarian crisis that has arisen cannot be placed at
the
door of the Yugoslav authorities alone. The responsibility rests mainly
at NATO's doors. In fact, if I am to go by my own experience as the
First
Force Commander and Head of Mission of the United Nations forces in the
former Yugoslavia, from March 1992 to March 1993, handling operations in
Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia, I would say that reports put
out in the electronic media are largely responsible for provoking this
tragedy.
Where does all this leave the international community which for the
record
does not comprise of the US, the West and its newfound Muslim allies?
The
portents for the future, at least in the short term, are bleak indeed.
The United Nations has been made totally redundant, ineffective, and
impotent. The Western world, led by the USA, will lay down the moral
values that the rest of the world must adhere to; it does not matter
that
they themselves do not adhere to the same values when it does not suit
them. National sovereignty and territorial integrity have no sanctity.
And finally, secessionist movements, which often start with terrorist
activity, will get greater encouragement. One can only hope that good
sense will prevail, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Lt General Satish Nambiar Director, USI, New Delhi
6 April 1999
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
George Kenney
HOW MEDIA MISINFORMATION LED TO BOSNIAN INTERVENTION
in "Living Marxism" (London), April, 1997
Was it inevitable that the West
intervened militarily in Bosnia's civil war, taking sides against the
Serbs, and then occupying the country? I doubt it. Was it right? No,
not insofar as careful, objective, after-the-fact investigation of key
media events was lacking.
The first turning point, that led straightaway to the introduction of
Western troops,coincided with ITN's broadcast of images of what was
widely
assumed to be a concentration camp, at the Bosnian Serb-run Trnopolje
refugee collection centre in August 1992. Now, in a stunning
development,
Thomas Deichmann has discovered that those ITN images 'fooled the
world'.
To understand the impact that those misleading ITN pictures had, one
must
look at the atmosphere of July/August in Washington. Beginning with his
19 July articles on the Serb-run detention centres at Manjaca and
Omarska,
Roy Gutman of Newsday began filing a series of storiesbased, he
minimally
acknowledged at that time, only on second and third-hand accountsthat
culminated in his charge in several stories filed from 2-5 August that
the
Bosnian Serbs were operating 'Nazi-style' (his words) death camps for
non-Serb prisoners of war.
As the Yugoslav desk officer at the State Department, I knew about these
stories before they were printed, because Gutman had contacted the then
US
Consulate General in Zagreb to tell officials of his suspicions and ask
for help in corroborating his findings.
Specifically, he wanted US spy satellites to determine whether a 'death
camp' was in operation. Nobody took this request seriously, but I knew
such reports could create a public relations firestorm, so I made a
special effort to keep the highest levels of the State Department's
management, including Deputy Secretary Lawrence Eagleburger's office,
informed of his work. I did not, however, think management paid much or
enough attention before Gutman's story broke.
Among other tasks, I was responsible for drafting press materials, which
mainly involved preparing State Department Spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler
for her daily noon press briefing. Tutwiler, who was Secretary James
Baker's closest confidant and unofficially the second most influential
person at State, felt that the USA should have been doing considerably
more to stop, or at least suppress, the civil war in Bosnia. Alone
among
senior officials in her surreptitious dissent, she drew constant
attention
to the war's worst aspects, hoping to spur the administration to greater
action if for no other reason than Baker's fear of bad press. At my
initiative, she had already used the term 'ethnic cleansing' in mid-May
to
describe Bosnian Serb actions, introducing this previously unknown
revilement into the vernacular. Frequent use of this sort of lurid
language conditioned the press into a Pavlovian yearning for ever more
shocking news of atrocities.
On Tuesday, 4 August Assistant Secretary for European Affairs Tom Niles
was scheduled to give routine testimony to the House International
Relations European Subcommittee, and in carrying out this obligation he
badly erred, compounding public outcry about Gutman's 'death camps'
report. Inexplicably, Niles decided to stonewall instead of earnestly
declaring that we knew little, but took the matter seriously and were
looking into it. The subcommittee responded poorly, with Niles
particularly enraging its presiding member, Tom Lantos, a survivor of
pro-Nazi Hungarian concentration camps. Adding to public frustrations,
Niles' comments appeared to differ from what Tutwiler's assistant
Richard
Boucher told the press pool at the State Department the day beforethat
the
USA knew about the Gutman stories. Boucher had meant only that US
officials read newspapers, but the leading papers unanimously (and
mistakenly) reported that he said State had independent confirmation
from
its intelligence sources. Reporters, smelling a cover-up, launched into
full-throated choruses of 'what did they know, and when did they know
it?'
More importantly, they asked, 'what is the USA going to do?'.
The truth was, the State Department knew very little. The real scandal
was that it did not want to know more, because whatever could have been
learned might also have brought new obligations to do something
(anything). But by early 1992 the White House had decided not to incur
the least substantive responsibility for the Yugoslav crisis, in order
to
avoid a Vietnam-like slippery slope and messy foreign entanglements
during
an election. We did not know whether minor measures might have brought
results, but had no will to experiment. Yugoslavia, in the US
government's view, was Europe's problem; the State Department was
determined it should stay that way. In any case, by mid-week the State
Department's public affairs officials were in a nuclear panic. The
Yugoslav desk was asked, twice, to review its files about what we knew
on
'death camps', and I gave Boucher a thick folder to photocopy of
telegrams
from my unofficial, personal file on Bosnia. There was not much
information therenothing confirming Gutman's storyand the State
Department
struggled to find words to get out of the hole it had dug for itself.
We
had to explain our limited knowledge and say something more than 'we do
not like concentration camps', but less than 'we intend to invade Bosnia
and shut them down'.
Sensing an opportunity to attack President George Bush, on 5 August
then-candidate Bill Clinton renewed his call for the USA, through the
United Nations, to bomb Bosnian Serb positions. The US Senate began
consideration of a symbolic vote (eventually approved) to permit the use
of force to ensure aid deliveries and access to the camps. Even high
Vatican officials, speaking unofficially for the Pope, noted parallels
between Nazi atrocities and Bosnian camps, and called for military
intervention 'to hold back the hand of the aggressor'.
A kind of hysteria swept through the Washington press corps. Few
outsiders believed State was trying to tell the truth. After I resigned
over policy in late August, senior Clinton campaign officials speedily
approached me regarding the camps issue, seeking advice on whether they
should pursue spy satellite records which the administration allegedly
ignored. I told them not to waste their time. And for years afterwards
journalists continued to ask me about 'the cover-up'.
On Wednesday 5 August, in an effort to quell the burgeoning
Boucher/Niles
'cover-up' story and regain control of the press, Deputy Secretary
Eagleburger's office issued a clarification of the State Department's
position, including an appeal for 'war crimes investigations' into
reports
of atrocities in Bosnian detention centres. Immune to his efforts,
extremely harsh press criticism continued to mount from every quarter.
On
Thursday, President George Bush issued an ill-prepared statement urging
the United Nations Security Council to authorise the use of 'all
necessary
measures' to ensure relief deliveries, but stopped short of calling for
the use of force to release prisoners. British and French officials
responded that his statement was a reaction to political concerns in the
USA. Meanwhile, further inflaming the public outcry, Serb forces
stepped
up their attacks on Sarajevo.
At almost exactly the moment of President Bush's call to arms, ITN's
pictures first aired. I do not know whether senior State Department
officials saw or learned of them that day, but I viewed them, to the
best
of my recollection, with a handful of colleagues on Friday morning or
possibly early afternoon, in the office of European Bureau's chief of
public affairs. We were unanimous, from our respective
mid-to-mid-senior
level vantage points, that the tape was ruinous for the Bush
administration's hands-off policy and could not but result in
significant
US actions. The notion that 'we have got to do something' echoed down
State's corridors.
At the start of the week possible critical policy shifts were dimly
perceived and highly tentative, but by week's end ITN's graphic
portrayal
of what was interpreted as a 'Balkan Holocaust' probably ensured that
those shifts became irreversible. Those shifts remain fundamental to
policy to this day. On 13 August the UN Security Council passed
Resolutions 770 and
771, which for the first time authorised the international use of force
in
Bosnia and promised to punish war criminals, the precursors of the
current
international occupation of Bosnia and the International War Crimes
Tribunal at the Hague. On the 14th, the United Nations Human Rights
Commission appointed former Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a
highly pious Catholic, as Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the
Former Yugoslavia, a position from which he tended to target only
Bosnian
Serbs. And, on the
18th, Britain reversed itself and pledged to send 1800 soldiers to
Bosnia
for humanitarian aid operations, the first step towards what became by
mid-September a UNSC approved, enlarged UN Protection Force mission in
Bosnia the seed that sprouted into IFOR and now SFOR.
Lost in the shuffle was any understanding of what was actually going on
in
the camps, who ran them, and why. Official Washington and the US press
almost completely ignored an International Committee of the Red Cross
report issued on 4 August, describing ICRC visits to 10 camps and their
finding of blatant human rights violations by all sides. And though the
Serbs did indeed, as the ICRC said, run more camps, it was not
disproportionately more. In the rush to convict the Serbs in the court
of
public opinion, the press paid no more attention to other, later reports
throughout the war, up to and after the Dayton agreement, of hellish
Croat
and Muslim run camps. Nor did the press understand that each side had
strong incentives to hold at least some prisoners for exchanges.
Medieval xenophobes reincarnated as high-tech cowboys, Western opinion
leaders fixated their fear and anger against the unknown. Defying
reason
and logic, a myth of a Serb perpetrated Holocaust, coupled with the
refusal to even acknowledge atrocities against Serbs, became
conventional
wisdom. This was the first instance and future model for post-modern
imperialistic intervention to determine the winner in a bloody civil
war.
Washington loves to go to war in August. The florid atmosphere of
August
1992, though not (yet) exactly a shooting match, comprised a more than
satisfactory propaganda war, vaguely reassuring those who lost their
bearings with the end of the Cold War, together with a new generation of
journalists who needed a fraught, dirty conflict on which to cut their
teeth. Bosnia made excellent sport.
It is no surprise, after all, that the temptation for news organisations
to try to change policy, when they knew how easily they could, was
overwhelming.
George Kenney resigned from the US State Department in August 1992, in
protest at the Bush Administration's policy towards the former
Yugoslavia.
This is his personal account of how the bogus interpretation which the
world placed upon ITN's pictures of Trnopolje camp helped to put
Washington on a war footing.
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
HOW MEDIA MISINFORMATION LED TO BOSNIAN INTERVENTION
in "Living Marxism" (London), April, 1997
Was it inevitable that the West
intervened militarily in Bosnia's civil war, taking sides against the
Serbs, and then occupying the country? I doubt it. Was it right? No,
not insofar as careful, objective, after-the-fact investigation of key
media events was lacking.
The first turning point, that led straightaway to the introduction of
Western troops,coincided with ITN's broadcast of images of what was
widely
assumed to be a concentration camp, at the Bosnian Serb-run Trnopolje
refugee collection centre in August 1992. Now, in a stunning
development,
Thomas Deichmann has discovered that those ITN images 'fooled the
world'.
To understand the impact that those misleading ITN pictures had, one
must
look at the atmosphere of July/August in Washington. Beginning with his
19 July articles on the Serb-run detention centres at Manjaca and
Omarska,
Roy Gutman of Newsday began filing a series of storiesbased, he
minimally
acknowledged at that time, only on second and third-hand accountsthat
culminated in his charge in several stories filed from 2-5 August that
the
Bosnian Serbs were operating 'Nazi-style' (his words) death camps for
non-Serb prisoners of war.
As the Yugoslav desk officer at the State Department, I knew about these
stories before they were printed, because Gutman had contacted the then
US
Consulate General in Zagreb to tell officials of his suspicions and ask
for help in corroborating his findings.
Specifically, he wanted US spy satellites to determine whether a 'death
camp' was in operation. Nobody took this request seriously, but I knew
such reports could create a public relations firestorm, so I made a
special effort to keep the highest levels of the State Department's
management, including Deputy Secretary Lawrence Eagleburger's office,
informed of his work. I did not, however, think management paid much or
enough attention before Gutman's story broke.
Among other tasks, I was responsible for drafting press materials, which
mainly involved preparing State Department Spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler
for her daily noon press briefing. Tutwiler, who was Secretary James
Baker's closest confidant and unofficially the second most influential
person at State, felt that the USA should have been doing considerably
more to stop, or at least suppress, the civil war in Bosnia. Alone
among
senior officials in her surreptitious dissent, she drew constant
attention
to the war's worst aspects, hoping to spur the administration to greater
action if for no other reason than Baker's fear of bad press. At my
initiative, she had already used the term 'ethnic cleansing' in mid-May
to
describe Bosnian Serb actions, introducing this previously unknown
revilement into the vernacular. Frequent use of this sort of lurid
language conditioned the press into a Pavlovian yearning for ever more
shocking news of atrocities.
On Tuesday, 4 August Assistant Secretary for European Affairs Tom Niles
was scheduled to give routine testimony to the House International
Relations European Subcommittee, and in carrying out this obligation he
badly erred, compounding public outcry about Gutman's 'death camps'
report. Inexplicably, Niles decided to stonewall instead of earnestly
declaring that we knew little, but took the matter seriously and were
looking into it. The subcommittee responded poorly, with Niles
particularly enraging its presiding member, Tom Lantos, a survivor of
pro-Nazi Hungarian concentration camps. Adding to public frustrations,
Niles' comments appeared to differ from what Tutwiler's assistant
Richard
Boucher told the press pool at the State Department the day beforethat
the
USA knew about the Gutman stories. Boucher had meant only that US
officials read newspapers, but the leading papers unanimously (and
mistakenly) reported that he said State had independent confirmation
from
its intelligence sources. Reporters, smelling a cover-up, launched into
full-throated choruses of 'what did they know, and when did they know
it?'
More importantly, they asked, 'what is the USA going to do?'.
The truth was, the State Department knew very little. The real scandal
was that it did not want to know more, because whatever could have been
learned might also have brought new obligations to do something
(anything). But by early 1992 the White House had decided not to incur
the least substantive responsibility for the Yugoslav crisis, in order
to
avoid a Vietnam-like slippery slope and messy foreign entanglements
during
an election. We did not know whether minor measures might have brought
results, but had no will to experiment. Yugoslavia, in the US
government's view, was Europe's problem; the State Department was
determined it should stay that way. In any case, by mid-week the State
Department's public affairs officials were in a nuclear panic. The
Yugoslav desk was asked, twice, to review its files about what we knew
on
'death camps', and I gave Boucher a thick folder to photocopy of
telegrams
from my unofficial, personal file on Bosnia. There was not much
information therenothing confirming Gutman's storyand the State
Department
struggled to find words to get out of the hole it had dug for itself.
We
had to explain our limited knowledge and say something more than 'we do
not like concentration camps', but less than 'we intend to invade Bosnia
and shut them down'.
Sensing an opportunity to attack President George Bush, on 5 August
then-candidate Bill Clinton renewed his call for the USA, through the
United Nations, to bomb Bosnian Serb positions. The US Senate began
consideration of a symbolic vote (eventually approved) to permit the use
of force to ensure aid deliveries and access to the camps. Even high
Vatican officials, speaking unofficially for the Pope, noted parallels
between Nazi atrocities and Bosnian camps, and called for military
intervention 'to hold back the hand of the aggressor'.
A kind of hysteria swept through the Washington press corps. Few
outsiders believed State was trying to tell the truth. After I resigned
over policy in late August, senior Clinton campaign officials speedily
approached me regarding the camps issue, seeking advice on whether they
should pursue spy satellite records which the administration allegedly
ignored. I told them not to waste their time. And for years afterwards
journalists continued to ask me about 'the cover-up'.
On Wednesday 5 August, in an effort to quell the burgeoning
Boucher/Niles
'cover-up' story and regain control of the press, Deputy Secretary
Eagleburger's office issued a clarification of the State Department's
position, including an appeal for 'war crimes investigations' into
reports
of atrocities in Bosnian detention centres. Immune to his efforts,
extremely harsh press criticism continued to mount from every quarter.
On
Thursday, President George Bush issued an ill-prepared statement urging
the United Nations Security Council to authorise the use of 'all
necessary
measures' to ensure relief deliveries, but stopped short of calling for
the use of force to release prisoners. British and French officials
responded that his statement was a reaction to political concerns in the
USA. Meanwhile, further inflaming the public outcry, Serb forces
stepped
up their attacks on Sarajevo.
At almost exactly the moment of President Bush's call to arms, ITN's
pictures first aired. I do not know whether senior State Department
officials saw or learned of them that day, but I viewed them, to the
best
of my recollection, with a handful of colleagues on Friday morning or
possibly early afternoon, in the office of European Bureau's chief of
public affairs. We were unanimous, from our respective
mid-to-mid-senior
level vantage points, that the tape was ruinous for the Bush
administration's hands-off policy and could not but result in
significant
US actions. The notion that 'we have got to do something' echoed down
State's corridors.
At the start of the week possible critical policy shifts were dimly
perceived and highly tentative, but by week's end ITN's graphic
portrayal
of what was interpreted as a 'Balkan Holocaust' probably ensured that
those shifts became irreversible. Those shifts remain fundamental to
policy to this day. On 13 August the UN Security Council passed
Resolutions 770 and
771, which for the first time authorised the international use of force
in
Bosnia and promised to punish war criminals, the precursors of the
current
international occupation of Bosnia and the International War Crimes
Tribunal at the Hague. On the 14th, the United Nations Human Rights
Commission appointed former Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a
highly pious Catholic, as Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the
Former Yugoslavia, a position from which he tended to target only
Bosnian
Serbs. And, on the
18th, Britain reversed itself and pledged to send 1800 soldiers to
Bosnia
for humanitarian aid operations, the first step towards what became by
mid-September a UNSC approved, enlarged UN Protection Force mission in
Bosnia the seed that sprouted into IFOR and now SFOR.
Lost in the shuffle was any understanding of what was actually going on
in
the camps, who ran them, and why. Official Washington and the US press
almost completely ignored an International Committee of the Red Cross
report issued on 4 August, describing ICRC visits to 10 camps and their
finding of blatant human rights violations by all sides. And though the
Serbs did indeed, as the ICRC said, run more camps, it was not
disproportionately more. In the rush to convict the Serbs in the court
of
public opinion, the press paid no more attention to other, later reports
throughout the war, up to and after the Dayton agreement, of hellish
Croat
and Muslim run camps. Nor did the press understand that each side had
strong incentives to hold at least some prisoners for exchanges.
Medieval xenophobes reincarnated as high-tech cowboys, Western opinion
leaders fixated their fear and anger against the unknown. Defying
reason
and logic, a myth of a Serb perpetrated Holocaust, coupled with the
refusal to even acknowledge atrocities against Serbs, became
conventional
wisdom. This was the first instance and future model for post-modern
imperialistic intervention to determine the winner in a bloody civil
war.
Washington loves to go to war in August. The florid atmosphere of
August
1992, though not (yet) exactly a shooting match, comprised a more than
satisfactory propaganda war, vaguely reassuring those who lost their
bearings with the end of the Cold War, together with a new generation of
journalists who needed a fraught, dirty conflict on which to cut their
teeth. Bosnia made excellent sport.
It is no surprise, after all, that the temptation for news organisations
to try to change policy, when they knew how easily they could, was
overwhelming.
George Kenney resigned from the US State Department in August 1992, in
protest at the Bush Administration's policy towards the former
Yugoslavia.
This is his personal account of how the bogus interpretation which the
world placed upon ITN's pictures of Trnopolje camp helped to put
Washington on a war footing.
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
BISSETT pred americkim congresom 19 jula 2000:
SPEAKING NOTES: CONGRESSIONAL HEARING
I AM PLEASED FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO APPEAR BEFORE YOU TODAY. AS A FORMER
CANADIAN DIPLOMAT IT IS A SPECIAL PRIVILEGE TO HAVE BEEN INVITED BY
CONGRESSMAN KUCINICH TO SPEAK TO YOU ABOUT KOSOVO.
I BELIEVE THAT NATO’S MILITARY INTERVENTION IN YUGOSLAVIA LAST YEAR WAS
A DREADFUL MISTAKE. INDEED I WOULD CHARACTERIZE IT AS A HISTORICAL
MISCALCULATION. A MISCALCULATION THAT WILL HAVE SERIOUS LONG-RANGE
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FRAMEWORK OF INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY.
KOSOVO MARKS A TURNING POINT FOR THE NATO COUNTRIES. THEY CHOSE TO
ABANDON THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES UPON WHICH THE ALLIANCE WAS FOUNDED.
THE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS FOR ALL OF US ARE SERIOUS AND FOREBODING.
WHEN PRINCIPLES ARE ABANDONED WHAT REMAINS IS EXPEDIENCYAND
OPORTUNISM.THESE ARE NOT SUITABLE PILLARS UPON WHICH A VIABLE ALLIANCE
CAN BE SUSTAINED.
AS A PRACTICING DIPLOMAT WHO SERVED HIS COUNTRY FOR 37 YEARS I DO NOT
CONSIDER MYSELF A WIDE-EYED IDEALIST. NEVERTHELESS, I AM A STRONG
BELIEVER IN DEMOCRACY.I DO RESPECT THE RULE OF LAW, I BELIEVE IN HUMAN
RIGHTS AND HAVE STRONGLY DEFENDED ALL OF THE BASIC PRINCIPLES THAT MY
COUNTRY AND YOURS HAVE STOOD FOR AND FOUGHT FOR THROUGH SO MANY YEARS.
NATO’S BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA SHATTERED THOSE BASIC PRINCIPLES. NOT ONLY
WAS THE BOMBING ILLEGAL AND CONTRARY TO EVERY PRECEPT OF INTERNATIONAL
LAW BUT IT WAS A DIRECT CONTRADICTION OF ARTICLE ONE OF NATO’S OWN
TREATY, WHICH STATES UNIQUIVICALLY THAT NATO WILL NEVER USE FORCE OR
INDEED EVEN THREATEN TO USE FORCE TO RESOLVE INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES.
ARTICLE ONE OF THE TREATY ALSO EMPHASIZES NATO’S COMMITMENT TO
INTERNATIONAL PEACE, SECURITY AND JUSTICE AND ITS ADHERENCE TO THE
PRINCIPLES OF THE UN CHARTER. ALL OF THIS WAS CYNICALLY CAST ASIDE BY
THE NATO MILITARY STRIKE AGAINST YUGOSLAVIA.
NATO BROKE ALL THE GROUND RULES IN KOSOVO.ITS AGGRESSIVE MILITARY
INTERVENTION INTO THE AFFAIRS OF A SOVEREIGN STATE WITHOUT SECURITY
COUNCIL OR AT LEAST UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY AUTHORITY MARKED AN OMINOUS
TURNING POINT IN THE CONDUCT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS.
TO MANY PEOPLE IN THE FREE WORLD [AND I INCLUDE MYSELF AMONG THESE] NATO
WAS MORE THAN JUST A STRONG MILITARY POWER ACTING AS THE FIRST LINE OF
DEFENCE AGAINST COMMUNIST TYRANNY. IT WAS AN ORGANIZATION THAT STOOD FOR
THE RULE OF LAW, FOR DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS… FOR ALL OF THOSE THINGS
THAT DISTINGUISHED THE WESTERN DEMOCRACIES FROM THE COMMUNIST AND NAZI
DICTATORSHIPS.
NATO WAS A POWERFUL MORAL FORCE.IT ACTED AS A SYMBOL OF HOPE FOR THE
CIVILIZED WORLD. A SYMBOL OF HOPE NOT ONLY FOR THOSE OF US IN THE WEST
BUT ALSO FOR THE MILLIONS CAUGHT BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN AND FOR MANY
OTHERS AROUND THE GLOBE.
THE BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA DESTROYED THAT SYMBOL. NOW WE HAVE LOST THE
MORAL HIGH GROUND. OUR NEW SET OF POLITICAL LEADERS, THE CLINTONS, THE
BLAIRS, THE SCHROEDERS, THE CHRETIENS, HAVE PROVEN THEMSELVES TO HAVE
ABOUT AS MUCH RESPECT FOR THE RULE OF LAW AND THE TRUTH AS THE FORMER
COMMUNIST PARTY BOSSES OF THE OLD SOVIET EMPIRE.THIS IS THE REAL TRAGEDY
OF KOSOVO.
. OUR POLITICAL LEADERS LIED TO US ABOUT KOSOVO. WE WERE TOLD THAT MASS
MURDERS WERE TAKING PLACE THERE. YOUR SECRETARY OF DEFENCE, MR. COHEN
TOLD US THAT 100,000 ALBANIAN KOSOVARS HAD PERISHED. TONY BLAIR, THE
BRITISH PRIME MINISTER, SPOKE OF GENOCIDE. WE WERE LED TO BELIEVE THAT
MILOSOVIC WAS PLANNING TO ETHNICALLY CLEANSE ALL OF THE ALBANIANS FROM
KOSOVO THROUGH A DEVILISH PLAN CODE-NAMED "OPERATION HORSESHOE."
WE WERE TOLD THAT A MASSACRE OF 45 ALBANIAN CIVILIANS HAD OCURRED IN
THE VILLAGE OF RACAK. INDEED IT WAS THIS INCIDENT THAT SPARKED THE
SUBSEQUENT BOMBING CAMPAIGN.WE WERE ALSO TOLD THAT THE BOMBING CAMPAIGN
HAD INFLICTED A CRIPPLING DEFEAT ON THE SERB WAR MACHINE. NATO SPOKES
PEOPLE AND MUCH OF THE MEDIA CONTINUE TO HAIL THE BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA
AS A TRIUMPHANT VICTORY.
THESE ARE LIES. WE NOW KNOW THAT THE TOTAL CASUALTIES IN KOSOVO BEFORE
THE BOMBING [BOTH ALBANIAN AND SERB] AMOUNTED TO APPROXIMATELY 2000.THIS
IS HARDLY MASS MURDER OR GENOCIDE AND NOT A SURPRISING FIGURE GIVEN THAT
AN ARMED REBELLION HAD BEEN TAKING PLACE IN KOSOVO FOR SEVERAL YEARS.
THE SO-CALLED, "OPERATION HORSESHOE," HAS BEEN REVEALED AS A COMPLETE
FALSEHOOD FABRICATED BY THE GERMAN DEFENCE MINISTER RUDOLPH SCHARPING TO
SWING FALTERING GERMAN PUBLIC OPINION BEHIND THE BOMBING CAMPAIGN.THERE
IS NOT A SHRED OF EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT MILOSOVIC PLANNED BEFORE THE
BOMBING TO CLEANSE KOSOVO OF ITS ALBANIAN POPULATION.
FURTHERMORE, IT NOW SEEMS THAT THE RACAK MASSACRE MAY NEVER HAVE
HAPPENED.FROM THE OUTSET THERE HAS BEEN STRONG SUSPICION THAT THIS
INCIDENT HAD BEEN ENGINEERED BY THE KLA TO APPEAR AS AN EXECUTION OF
INNOCENT CIVILIANS.FRENCH JOURNALISTS ON THE GROUND CHALLENGED GENERAL
WALKERS DECLARATION THAT A MASSACRE HAD TAKEN PLACE.
MORE RECENTLY ON MARCH 24 OF THIS YEAR, GERMAN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS
FROM THE BERLIN ZEITUNG HAVE WRITTEN THAT AUTOPSY REPORTS TO WHICH THEY
HAVE GAINED ACCESS REVEAL NO EVIDENCE OF THE VICTIMS HAVING BEEN
EXECUTED AT CLOSE RANGE.
AS FOR NATO’s AIR WAR VICTORY OVER THE SERB ARMY WE KNOW FROM A
SUPRESSED US AIRFORCE REPORT PUBLICIZED IN THE MAY 15 ISSUE OF NEWSWEEK
MAGAZINE THAT THE NUMBER OF MILITARY TARGETS DESTROYED BY NATO AIR
STRIKES, "WAS A TINY FRACTION OF THOSE CLAIMED." THE REPORT DECLARED
THERE WERE ONLY 58 CONFIRMED STRIKES BY NATO PILOTS NOT THE PREVIOUSLY
744 AS CLAIMED BY NATO.
I AM SORRY TO SAY I FULLY EXPECT WE WILL FIND AS TIME GOES BY THAT MORE
LIES AND FALSEHOODS WILL BE REVEALED ABOUT THE KOSOVO WAR.
THE REALIZATION THAT OUR POLITICAL LEADERS CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO TELL
THE TRUTH MAY NOT COME AS A COMPLETE SURPRISE TO THOSE OF YOU FAMILIAR
WITH THE POLITICAL PROCESS. NEVERTHELESS IT IS NOT A COMFORTING THOUGHT.
IT IS ESPECIALLY DISTRESSING WHEN THE LIES INVOLVE FOREIGN POLICY
ISSUES. THESE ARE ISSUES FREQUENTLY DEALING WITH MATTERS OF LIFE AND
DEATH, OF WAR AND PEACE, OF THE DESTRUCTION OF CITIES AND THE
DISPLACEMENT OF PEOPLE AND OF THE WELLBEING OF OUR OWN SONS AND
DAUGHTERS WHO SERVE IN THE MILITARY FORCES.
AS THE CANADIAN AMBASSADOR TO YUGOSLAVIA FROM 1990 TO1992 I WITNESSED AT
FIRST HAND HOW WESTERN DIPLOMATIC INEPTITUDE AND CLUMSINESS HASTENED THE
BREAKUP OF YUGOSLAVIA AND CONTRIBUTED TO THE DREADFUL VIOLENCE AND
BLOODSHED THAT FOLLOWED THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE COUNTRY. HERE ARE A
FEW EXAMPLES:
THE FINANCIAL AND MILITARY SUPPORT GIVEN TO THE SEPERATIST
REPUBLICS BY SOME WESTERN GOVERNMENTS WHICH ENCOURAGED THEM TO BREAK
AWAY BY FORCEFUL MEANS WITHOUT ANY SERIOUS ATTEMPT AT NEGOTIATING THE
TERMS OF SECESSION IN A NON-VIOLENT MANNER.
THE PREMATURE RECOGNITION OF SLOVENIA AND CROATIA BEFORE ANY
GUARANTEES OF CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS WERE GIVEN TO THE SERBIAN
POPULATION OF CROATIA WHICH, BECAUSE OF THE HORRENDOUS EVENTS THAT
OCURRED THERE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR, MADE CIVIL WAR INEVITABLE.
. THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF ALIA IZETBEGOVIC TO WITHDRAW HIS
SIGNATURE FROM THE SO-CALLED LISBON AGREEMENT AND TO PROCEED WITH A
REFERENDUM ON INDEPENDENCE IN BOSNIA WHICH EVERYONE KNEW WOULD LEAD TO
THE DEATH AND DISPLACEMENT OF THOUSANDS.
THE EARLY IDENTIFICATION OF THE SERBS AS THE ONLY BAD GUYS IN THE
BALKANS AND THE PORTRAYAL OF THEM BY THE WESTERN MEDIA AS BARBARIC
SAVAGES COMPRIMIZED ATTEMPTS BY THE WESTERN POWERS TO DEAL WITH THESE
ISSUES OBJECTIVELY.
THESE EXAMPLES DEMONSTRATE HOW WESTERN DIPLOMATIC INEPTITUDE ENSURED
THAT THE BREAKUP OF YUGOSLAVIA WOULD BE ACCOMPANIED BY LARGE SCALE
KILLING AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF ETHNIC POPULATIONS.YUGOSLAVIA WAS AN
AVOIDABLE WAR.IT WAS MADE UNAVOIDABLE BY THE CYNICAL NATURE OF WESTERN
DIPLOMATIC INTERVENTION.
KOSOVO, HOWEVER, PRESENTS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SCENARIO. KOSOVO WAS NOT
THE RESULT OF DIPLOMATIC FAILURE. SERIOUS DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS WERE NOT
TRIED. NATO UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF THE UNITED STATES CHOSE TO DISCARD
ANY SERIOUS ATTEMPT AT FINDING A DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION IN FAVOR OF USING
FORCE AND VIOLENCE. BOMBING WAS THE INSTURMENT OF CHOICE.
THE TERMS OF THE ULTIMATION ISSUED AT RAMBOUILLET WERE CLEARLY DESIGNED
TO ENSURE THAT THE SERBIAN SIDE WOULD FIND IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ACCEPT
THEM.THE TRICK WAS TO KEEP THE MEDDLESOME RUSSIANS AND THE UNITED
NATIONS OUT OF THE ACTION AND THUS AVOID THE RISK THAT DIPLOMATIC
OPTIONS MIGHT BE OFFERED WHICH WOULD HAVE AVOIDED THE USE OF DEADLY
FORCE. NATO NEEDED ITS WAR. THE ASUMPTION APPEARED TO BE THAT AFTER A
FEW DAYS OF BOMBING THE YUGOSLAVS WOULD BE FORCED TO ACCEPT THE TERMS OF
RAMBOUILLET.
AS THE BOMBING CONTINUED NATO WAS FORCED TO SWITCH ITS TARGETTING TO THE
CIVILIAN INFRASTRUCTURE. PUBLIC OPINION IN THE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES BEGAN
TO OPPOSE THE WAR.NATO BECAME DESPERATE TO FIND A WAY OUT OF THE MESS
THEY HAD CREATED. THE ALLIANCE THAT HAD REJECTED DIPLOMACY AS AN OPTION
WAS FORCED IRONICALLY TO FIND A DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION. EVEN MORE
IRONICALLY, THEY HAD TO TURN TO THE RUSSIANS AND THE UNITED NATIONS TO
FIX IT FOR THEM.
THIS WAS DONE BY GETTING NATO TO DROP THE TWO CONDITIONS THEY HAD
INCLUDED AT RAMBOUILLET FOR THE PURPOSE OF ENSURING A SERB REJECTION;
NAMELY, THE ACCEPTANCE OF NATO TROOPS THROUGHOUT YUGOSLAVIA AND THE
HOLDING OF A REFERENDUM ON AUTONOMY FOR KOSOVO. WHEN NATO DROPPED THE
TWO CONDITIONS THAT HAD CAUSED THE WAR, MILOSOVIC READILY ACCEPTED THE
PEACE TERMS OUTLINED BY UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTION 1244. SO MUCH FOR THE
NATO VICTORY!
I AM AFRAID THAT JUST AS NATO MISMANAGED THE WAR IN KOSOVO THEY WILL
MISMANAGE THE PEACE. THE EVENTS THAT HAVE TAKEN PLACE THERE SINCE THE
FIGHTING STOPPED IS NOT ENCOURAGING.DESPITE THE PRESENCE OF 40,000 NATO
AND UN FORCES, MURDER AND KIDNAPPING, BURNING OF CHURCHES AND THE ETHNIC
CLEANSING OF SERBS, ROMANS AND MUSLIM SLAVS CONTINUES ALMOST ON A DAILY
BASIS. IT SEEMS EVIDENT THAT IT IS THE KLA NOT NATO OR THE UN THAT IS
GOVERNING KOSOVO.
THE STABILITY OF THE BALKANS HAS NEVER BEEN SO PRECARIOUS. ALBANIAN
DREAMS OF UNITING ALL OF THEIR PEOPLE IN ONE TERRITORY HAS BEEN
ENCOURAGED BY THE KOSOVO DEBACLE.THE FORMER REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA WITH
ITS LARGE ALBANIAN POPULATION IS A POTENTIAL POWDER KEG.THE ALBANIANS
ARE INCREASING DEMANDS FORFOR SELF-DETERMINATION AND POSSIBLE SECESSION.
SERBIA, CRIPPLED ECONOMICALLY AND PSYCHOLOGICALLY IS FESTERING WITH
BITTERNESS AND HOSTILITY.ENCUMBERED BY A GOVERNMENT INCREASINGLY
ISOLATED FROM THE PEOPLE AND DESPERATE TO REMAIN IN POWER BY ANY MEANS,
THE COUNTRY IS RIPE FOR CIVIL WAR. IT STILL HAS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL
ARMIES IN EUROPE. SHOULD RELATIONS WITH MONTENEGRO CONTINUE TO
DETERIORATE WE COULD SEE ANOTHER ARMED CONFLICT BREAKOUT WITH ALL OF THE
TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF INTERNECINE STUGGLE.
GIVEN THE TRACK RECORD OF THE WESTERN DEMOCRACIES IN YUGOSLAVIA I AM NOT
OPTIMISTIC THAT THEY WILL RESPOND TO THE CHALLENGES THERE WITH GOOD
SENSE AND GOOD DIPLOMACY. THEIR TENDENCY TO OVER SIMPLIFY COMPLICATED
SITUATIONS, THEIR COMPULSION TO IDENTIFY FOR TV AUDIENCES GOOD GUYS AND
BAD GUYS, THEIR AVOIDANCE OF TELLING THE TRUTH TO THEIR OWN CITIZENS
ABOUT THE REAL ISSUES. THESE CHARACTERISTICS OF OUR PRESENT DAY
LEADERSHIP DO NOT INSPIRE ME WITH HOPE ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE BALKANS.
EVEN MORE DISTURBING IS THE REALITY THAT IN OUR NEW UNIPOLAR WORLD THE
OVERWHELMING MILITARY POWER OF THE UNITED STATES SEEMS TO LEAD IT
INEVITABLY TO RESORT TO FORCE IN THE RESOLUTION OF INTERNATIONAL
DISPUTES RATHER THAN TO USE ITS STRENGTH AND INFLUENCE TO BRING ABOUT
JUST AND EQUITABLE SOLUTIONS.WHY GO THROUGH THE DIFFICULT AND LENGTHY
PROCESS OF DIPLOMATIC NEGOTIATIONS WHEN YOU CAN THREATEN TO BOMB FROM
15000 FEET WITH NO RISK OF AMERICAN CASUALTIES?
AS A LONG-RANGE POLICY THISAPPROACH COULD BE DISASTEROUS.HISTORY
ENDURES AND POWER RELATIONSHIPS CHANGE.NOBODY RESPECTS A BULLY OR
ADMIRES SOMEONE THAT DOESN’T PLAY BY THE RULES. AS THE SAYING GOES,
"WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND."THERE WILL INEVITABLY BE A DAY WHEN THE
UNITED STATES WILL WANT TO BE ABLE TO RELY ON AN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
FRAMEWORK THAT IS FAIR AND ABIDES BY THE RULE OF LAW.
I THINK WE CAN LEARN FROM KOSOVO. LET US NOT TURN OUR BACKS ON THE
PRINCIPLES THAT HAVE SERVED US SO WELL IN THE PAST. LET US ABIDE BY THE
RULES OF THE UN CHARTER EVEN WHILE WE STRIVE TO REFORM THAT BODY. LET US
BE RELUCTANT TO INTERVENE IN THE DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF A SOVEREIGN STATE
WITHOUT SECURITY COUNCIL OR GENERAL ASSEMBLY APPROVAL. LET US TRY TO
STAY OUT OF CIVIL WARS UNLESS OUR OWN VITAL INTERESTS ARE AT STAKE OR IF
WE MUST INTERVENE LET US DO SO OBJECTIVELY IN AN EFFORT TO RESOLVE THE
DISPUTE BY PEACEFUL MEANS.
I WOULD HOPE THAT KOSOVO HAS TAUGHT US TO BE MORE DEMANDING OF OUR
POLITICAL LEADERS. IN THE CASE OF MY OWN COUNTRY CANADIANS WOKE UP ONE
MORNING LAST MARCH TO FIND THAT CANADIAN PILOTS WERE BOMBING YUGOSLAVIA.
THERE HAD BEEN NO DECLARATION OF WAR, NO DEBATE IN OUR PARLIAMENT. WE
WERE BOMBING A COUNTRY THAT PRESENTED NO THREAT TO CANADA. A COUNTRY
THAT HAD FOUGHT ALONG SIDE OF US IN TWO WORLD WARS.THE VAST MAJORITY OF
CANADIANS HAD NO IDEAOF WHERE KOSOVO WAS OR WHAT WERE THE ISSUES.
WE WERE ASKED TO SIMPLY ACCEPT THE FACT THAT WE WERE ON THE SIDE OF THE
GOOD GUYS.AFTER ALL WE WERE A DEMOCRACY AND COULD NOT STAND BY WHILE
THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WERE BEING MURDERED IN KOSOVO.
MOREOVER WE WERE PART OF THE NATO TEAM AND EVERYONE KNEW THAT NATO WAS
THERE TO REPRESENT THE RULE OF LAW, DEMOCRACY AND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE
UNITED NATIONS CHARTER. IF WE WERE BOMBING FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS IN
BELGRADE, NOVI SAD OR PANCEVO AT LEAST WE WERE DOING IT FOR HUMANITARIAN
REASONS SO IT MUST BE OK.THIS IS THE MESSAGE THE CANADIAN POLITICAL
LEADERS WERE TELLING CANADIANS ABOUT KOSOVO.I FOUND THIS PRETTY
DISTURBING STUFF.
I THINK KOSOVO SHOULD HAVE ALSO TAUGHT US TO ACCEPT THE REALITY THAT
THOSE WHO STRUGGLE FOR SELF- DETERMINATION ARE STRUGGLING FOR TERRITORY.
THE ONE IS INTRINSICALLY BOUND UP WITH THE OTHER. PRESIDENT HAVEL OF THE
CZECH REPUBLIC RECEIVED A STANDING OVATION IN THE CANADIAN PARLIAMENT
WHEN HE DECLARED THAT KOSOVO WAS THE FIRST WAR IN HISTORY FOUGHT FOR
HUMAN VALUES RATHER THAN TERITORY. HE WAS WRONG. THE STRUGGLE IN KOSOVO
WAS ALL ABOUT TERRITORY AND WHO SHOULD CONTROL IT –SERBS OR ALBANIANS.
THAT STRUGGLE IS NOT YET SETTLED.
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
SPEAKING NOTES: CONGRESSIONAL HEARING
I AM PLEASED FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO APPEAR BEFORE YOU TODAY. AS A FORMER
CANADIAN DIPLOMAT IT IS A SPECIAL PRIVILEGE TO HAVE BEEN INVITED BY
CONGRESSMAN KUCINICH TO SPEAK TO YOU ABOUT KOSOVO.
I BELIEVE THAT NATO’S MILITARY INTERVENTION IN YUGOSLAVIA LAST YEAR WAS
A DREADFUL MISTAKE. INDEED I WOULD CHARACTERIZE IT AS A HISTORICAL
MISCALCULATION. A MISCALCULATION THAT WILL HAVE SERIOUS LONG-RANGE
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FRAMEWORK OF INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY.
KOSOVO MARKS A TURNING POINT FOR THE NATO COUNTRIES. THEY CHOSE TO
ABANDON THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES UPON WHICH THE ALLIANCE WAS FOUNDED.
THE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS FOR ALL OF US ARE SERIOUS AND FOREBODING.
WHEN PRINCIPLES ARE ABANDONED WHAT REMAINS IS EXPEDIENCYAND
OPORTUNISM.THESE ARE NOT SUITABLE PILLARS UPON WHICH A VIABLE ALLIANCE
CAN BE SUSTAINED.
AS A PRACTICING DIPLOMAT WHO SERVED HIS COUNTRY FOR 37 YEARS I DO NOT
CONSIDER MYSELF A WIDE-EYED IDEALIST. NEVERTHELESS, I AM A STRONG
BELIEVER IN DEMOCRACY.I DO RESPECT THE RULE OF LAW, I BELIEVE IN HUMAN
RIGHTS AND HAVE STRONGLY DEFENDED ALL OF THE BASIC PRINCIPLES THAT MY
COUNTRY AND YOURS HAVE STOOD FOR AND FOUGHT FOR THROUGH SO MANY YEARS.
NATO’S BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA SHATTERED THOSE BASIC PRINCIPLES. NOT ONLY
WAS THE BOMBING ILLEGAL AND CONTRARY TO EVERY PRECEPT OF INTERNATIONAL
LAW BUT IT WAS A DIRECT CONTRADICTION OF ARTICLE ONE OF NATO’S OWN
TREATY, WHICH STATES UNIQUIVICALLY THAT NATO WILL NEVER USE FORCE OR
INDEED EVEN THREATEN TO USE FORCE TO RESOLVE INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES.
ARTICLE ONE OF THE TREATY ALSO EMPHASIZES NATO’S COMMITMENT TO
INTERNATIONAL PEACE, SECURITY AND JUSTICE AND ITS ADHERENCE TO THE
PRINCIPLES OF THE UN CHARTER. ALL OF THIS WAS CYNICALLY CAST ASIDE BY
THE NATO MILITARY STRIKE AGAINST YUGOSLAVIA.
NATO BROKE ALL THE GROUND RULES IN KOSOVO.ITS AGGRESSIVE MILITARY
INTERVENTION INTO THE AFFAIRS OF A SOVEREIGN STATE WITHOUT SECURITY
COUNCIL OR AT LEAST UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY AUTHORITY MARKED AN OMINOUS
TURNING POINT IN THE CONDUCT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS.
TO MANY PEOPLE IN THE FREE WORLD [AND I INCLUDE MYSELF AMONG THESE] NATO
WAS MORE THAN JUST A STRONG MILITARY POWER ACTING AS THE FIRST LINE OF
DEFENCE AGAINST COMMUNIST TYRANNY. IT WAS AN ORGANIZATION THAT STOOD FOR
THE RULE OF LAW, FOR DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS… FOR ALL OF THOSE THINGS
THAT DISTINGUISHED THE WESTERN DEMOCRACIES FROM THE COMMUNIST AND NAZI
DICTATORSHIPS.
NATO WAS A POWERFUL MORAL FORCE.IT ACTED AS A SYMBOL OF HOPE FOR THE
CIVILIZED WORLD. A SYMBOL OF HOPE NOT ONLY FOR THOSE OF US IN THE WEST
BUT ALSO FOR THE MILLIONS CAUGHT BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN AND FOR MANY
OTHERS AROUND THE GLOBE.
THE BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA DESTROYED THAT SYMBOL. NOW WE HAVE LOST THE
MORAL HIGH GROUND. OUR NEW SET OF POLITICAL LEADERS, THE CLINTONS, THE
BLAIRS, THE SCHROEDERS, THE CHRETIENS, HAVE PROVEN THEMSELVES TO HAVE
ABOUT AS MUCH RESPECT FOR THE RULE OF LAW AND THE TRUTH AS THE FORMER
COMMUNIST PARTY BOSSES OF THE OLD SOVIET EMPIRE.THIS IS THE REAL TRAGEDY
OF KOSOVO.
. OUR POLITICAL LEADERS LIED TO US ABOUT KOSOVO. WE WERE TOLD THAT MASS
MURDERS WERE TAKING PLACE THERE. YOUR SECRETARY OF DEFENCE, MR. COHEN
TOLD US THAT 100,000 ALBANIAN KOSOVARS HAD PERISHED. TONY BLAIR, THE
BRITISH PRIME MINISTER, SPOKE OF GENOCIDE. WE WERE LED TO BELIEVE THAT
MILOSOVIC WAS PLANNING TO ETHNICALLY CLEANSE ALL OF THE ALBANIANS FROM
KOSOVO THROUGH A DEVILISH PLAN CODE-NAMED "OPERATION HORSESHOE."
WE WERE TOLD THAT A MASSACRE OF 45 ALBANIAN CIVILIANS HAD OCURRED IN
THE VILLAGE OF RACAK. INDEED IT WAS THIS INCIDENT THAT SPARKED THE
SUBSEQUENT BOMBING CAMPAIGN.WE WERE ALSO TOLD THAT THE BOMBING CAMPAIGN
HAD INFLICTED A CRIPPLING DEFEAT ON THE SERB WAR MACHINE. NATO SPOKES
PEOPLE AND MUCH OF THE MEDIA CONTINUE TO HAIL THE BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA
AS A TRIUMPHANT VICTORY.
THESE ARE LIES. WE NOW KNOW THAT THE TOTAL CASUALTIES IN KOSOVO BEFORE
THE BOMBING [BOTH ALBANIAN AND SERB] AMOUNTED TO APPROXIMATELY 2000.THIS
IS HARDLY MASS MURDER OR GENOCIDE AND NOT A SURPRISING FIGURE GIVEN THAT
AN ARMED REBELLION HAD BEEN TAKING PLACE IN KOSOVO FOR SEVERAL YEARS.
THE SO-CALLED, "OPERATION HORSESHOE," HAS BEEN REVEALED AS A COMPLETE
FALSEHOOD FABRICATED BY THE GERMAN DEFENCE MINISTER RUDOLPH SCHARPING TO
SWING FALTERING GERMAN PUBLIC OPINION BEHIND THE BOMBING CAMPAIGN.THERE
IS NOT A SHRED OF EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT MILOSOVIC PLANNED BEFORE THE
BOMBING TO CLEANSE KOSOVO OF ITS ALBANIAN POPULATION.
FURTHERMORE, IT NOW SEEMS THAT THE RACAK MASSACRE MAY NEVER HAVE
HAPPENED.FROM THE OUTSET THERE HAS BEEN STRONG SUSPICION THAT THIS
INCIDENT HAD BEEN ENGINEERED BY THE KLA TO APPEAR AS AN EXECUTION OF
INNOCENT CIVILIANS.FRENCH JOURNALISTS ON THE GROUND CHALLENGED GENERAL
WALKERS DECLARATION THAT A MASSACRE HAD TAKEN PLACE.
MORE RECENTLY ON MARCH 24 OF THIS YEAR, GERMAN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS
FROM THE BERLIN ZEITUNG HAVE WRITTEN THAT AUTOPSY REPORTS TO WHICH THEY
HAVE GAINED ACCESS REVEAL NO EVIDENCE OF THE VICTIMS HAVING BEEN
EXECUTED AT CLOSE RANGE.
AS FOR NATO’s AIR WAR VICTORY OVER THE SERB ARMY WE KNOW FROM A
SUPRESSED US AIRFORCE REPORT PUBLICIZED IN THE MAY 15 ISSUE OF NEWSWEEK
MAGAZINE THAT THE NUMBER OF MILITARY TARGETS DESTROYED BY NATO AIR
STRIKES, "WAS A TINY FRACTION OF THOSE CLAIMED." THE REPORT DECLARED
THERE WERE ONLY 58 CONFIRMED STRIKES BY NATO PILOTS NOT THE PREVIOUSLY
744 AS CLAIMED BY NATO.
I AM SORRY TO SAY I FULLY EXPECT WE WILL FIND AS TIME GOES BY THAT MORE
LIES AND FALSEHOODS WILL BE REVEALED ABOUT THE KOSOVO WAR.
THE REALIZATION THAT OUR POLITICAL LEADERS CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO TELL
THE TRUTH MAY NOT COME AS A COMPLETE SURPRISE TO THOSE OF YOU FAMILIAR
WITH THE POLITICAL PROCESS. NEVERTHELESS IT IS NOT A COMFORTING THOUGHT.
IT IS ESPECIALLY DISTRESSING WHEN THE LIES INVOLVE FOREIGN POLICY
ISSUES. THESE ARE ISSUES FREQUENTLY DEALING WITH MATTERS OF LIFE AND
DEATH, OF WAR AND PEACE, OF THE DESTRUCTION OF CITIES AND THE
DISPLACEMENT OF PEOPLE AND OF THE WELLBEING OF OUR OWN SONS AND
DAUGHTERS WHO SERVE IN THE MILITARY FORCES.
AS THE CANADIAN AMBASSADOR TO YUGOSLAVIA FROM 1990 TO1992 I WITNESSED AT
FIRST HAND HOW WESTERN DIPLOMATIC INEPTITUDE AND CLUMSINESS HASTENED THE
BREAKUP OF YUGOSLAVIA AND CONTRIBUTED TO THE DREADFUL VIOLENCE AND
BLOODSHED THAT FOLLOWED THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE COUNTRY. HERE ARE A
FEW EXAMPLES:
THE FINANCIAL AND MILITARY SUPPORT GIVEN TO THE SEPERATIST
REPUBLICS BY SOME WESTERN GOVERNMENTS WHICH ENCOURAGED THEM TO BREAK
AWAY BY FORCEFUL MEANS WITHOUT ANY SERIOUS ATTEMPT AT NEGOTIATING THE
TERMS OF SECESSION IN A NON-VIOLENT MANNER.
THE PREMATURE RECOGNITION OF SLOVENIA AND CROATIA BEFORE ANY
GUARANTEES OF CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS WERE GIVEN TO THE SERBIAN
POPULATION OF CROATIA WHICH, BECAUSE OF THE HORRENDOUS EVENTS THAT
OCURRED THERE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR, MADE CIVIL WAR INEVITABLE.
. THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF ALIA IZETBEGOVIC TO WITHDRAW HIS
SIGNATURE FROM THE SO-CALLED LISBON AGREEMENT AND TO PROCEED WITH A
REFERENDUM ON INDEPENDENCE IN BOSNIA WHICH EVERYONE KNEW WOULD LEAD TO
THE DEATH AND DISPLACEMENT OF THOUSANDS.
THE EARLY IDENTIFICATION OF THE SERBS AS THE ONLY BAD GUYS IN THE
BALKANS AND THE PORTRAYAL OF THEM BY THE WESTERN MEDIA AS BARBARIC
SAVAGES COMPRIMIZED ATTEMPTS BY THE WESTERN POWERS TO DEAL WITH THESE
ISSUES OBJECTIVELY.
THESE EXAMPLES DEMONSTRATE HOW WESTERN DIPLOMATIC INEPTITUDE ENSURED
THAT THE BREAKUP OF YUGOSLAVIA WOULD BE ACCOMPANIED BY LARGE SCALE
KILLING AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF ETHNIC POPULATIONS.YUGOSLAVIA WAS AN
AVOIDABLE WAR.IT WAS MADE UNAVOIDABLE BY THE CYNICAL NATURE OF WESTERN
DIPLOMATIC INTERVENTION.
KOSOVO, HOWEVER, PRESENTS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SCENARIO. KOSOVO WAS NOT
THE RESULT OF DIPLOMATIC FAILURE. SERIOUS DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS WERE NOT
TRIED. NATO UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF THE UNITED STATES CHOSE TO DISCARD
ANY SERIOUS ATTEMPT AT FINDING A DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION IN FAVOR OF USING
FORCE AND VIOLENCE. BOMBING WAS THE INSTURMENT OF CHOICE.
THE TERMS OF THE ULTIMATION ISSUED AT RAMBOUILLET WERE CLEARLY DESIGNED
TO ENSURE THAT THE SERBIAN SIDE WOULD FIND IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ACCEPT
THEM.THE TRICK WAS TO KEEP THE MEDDLESOME RUSSIANS AND THE UNITED
NATIONS OUT OF THE ACTION AND THUS AVOID THE RISK THAT DIPLOMATIC
OPTIONS MIGHT BE OFFERED WHICH WOULD HAVE AVOIDED THE USE OF DEADLY
FORCE. NATO NEEDED ITS WAR. THE ASUMPTION APPEARED TO BE THAT AFTER A
FEW DAYS OF BOMBING THE YUGOSLAVS WOULD BE FORCED TO ACCEPT THE TERMS OF
RAMBOUILLET.
AS THE BOMBING CONTINUED NATO WAS FORCED TO SWITCH ITS TARGETTING TO THE
CIVILIAN INFRASTRUCTURE. PUBLIC OPINION IN THE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES BEGAN
TO OPPOSE THE WAR.NATO BECAME DESPERATE TO FIND A WAY OUT OF THE MESS
THEY HAD CREATED. THE ALLIANCE THAT HAD REJECTED DIPLOMACY AS AN OPTION
WAS FORCED IRONICALLY TO FIND A DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION. EVEN MORE
IRONICALLY, THEY HAD TO TURN TO THE RUSSIANS AND THE UNITED NATIONS TO
FIX IT FOR THEM.
THIS WAS DONE BY GETTING NATO TO DROP THE TWO CONDITIONS THEY HAD
INCLUDED AT RAMBOUILLET FOR THE PURPOSE OF ENSURING A SERB REJECTION;
NAMELY, THE ACCEPTANCE OF NATO TROOPS THROUGHOUT YUGOSLAVIA AND THE
HOLDING OF A REFERENDUM ON AUTONOMY FOR KOSOVO. WHEN NATO DROPPED THE
TWO CONDITIONS THAT HAD CAUSED THE WAR, MILOSOVIC READILY ACCEPTED THE
PEACE TERMS OUTLINED BY UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTION 1244. SO MUCH FOR THE
NATO VICTORY!
I AM AFRAID THAT JUST AS NATO MISMANAGED THE WAR IN KOSOVO THEY WILL
MISMANAGE THE PEACE. THE EVENTS THAT HAVE TAKEN PLACE THERE SINCE THE
FIGHTING STOPPED IS NOT ENCOURAGING.DESPITE THE PRESENCE OF 40,000 NATO
AND UN FORCES, MURDER AND KIDNAPPING, BURNING OF CHURCHES AND THE ETHNIC
CLEANSING OF SERBS, ROMANS AND MUSLIM SLAVS CONTINUES ALMOST ON A DAILY
BASIS. IT SEEMS EVIDENT THAT IT IS THE KLA NOT NATO OR THE UN THAT IS
GOVERNING KOSOVO.
THE STABILITY OF THE BALKANS HAS NEVER BEEN SO PRECARIOUS. ALBANIAN
DREAMS OF UNITING ALL OF THEIR PEOPLE IN ONE TERRITORY HAS BEEN
ENCOURAGED BY THE KOSOVO DEBACLE.THE FORMER REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA WITH
ITS LARGE ALBANIAN POPULATION IS A POTENTIAL POWDER KEG.THE ALBANIANS
ARE INCREASING DEMANDS FORFOR SELF-DETERMINATION AND POSSIBLE SECESSION.
SERBIA, CRIPPLED ECONOMICALLY AND PSYCHOLOGICALLY IS FESTERING WITH
BITTERNESS AND HOSTILITY.ENCUMBERED BY A GOVERNMENT INCREASINGLY
ISOLATED FROM THE PEOPLE AND DESPERATE TO REMAIN IN POWER BY ANY MEANS,
THE COUNTRY IS RIPE FOR CIVIL WAR. IT STILL HAS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL
ARMIES IN EUROPE. SHOULD RELATIONS WITH MONTENEGRO CONTINUE TO
DETERIORATE WE COULD SEE ANOTHER ARMED CONFLICT BREAKOUT WITH ALL OF THE
TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF INTERNECINE STUGGLE.
GIVEN THE TRACK RECORD OF THE WESTERN DEMOCRACIES IN YUGOSLAVIA I AM NOT
OPTIMISTIC THAT THEY WILL RESPOND TO THE CHALLENGES THERE WITH GOOD
SENSE AND GOOD DIPLOMACY. THEIR TENDENCY TO OVER SIMPLIFY COMPLICATED
SITUATIONS, THEIR COMPULSION TO IDENTIFY FOR TV AUDIENCES GOOD GUYS AND
BAD GUYS, THEIR AVOIDANCE OF TELLING THE TRUTH TO THEIR OWN CITIZENS
ABOUT THE REAL ISSUES. THESE CHARACTERISTICS OF OUR PRESENT DAY
LEADERSHIP DO NOT INSPIRE ME WITH HOPE ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE BALKANS.
EVEN MORE DISTURBING IS THE REALITY THAT IN OUR NEW UNIPOLAR WORLD THE
OVERWHELMING MILITARY POWER OF THE UNITED STATES SEEMS TO LEAD IT
INEVITABLY TO RESORT TO FORCE IN THE RESOLUTION OF INTERNATIONAL
DISPUTES RATHER THAN TO USE ITS STRENGTH AND INFLUENCE TO BRING ABOUT
JUST AND EQUITABLE SOLUTIONS.WHY GO THROUGH THE DIFFICULT AND LENGTHY
PROCESS OF DIPLOMATIC NEGOTIATIONS WHEN YOU CAN THREATEN TO BOMB FROM
15000 FEET WITH NO RISK OF AMERICAN CASUALTIES?
AS A LONG-RANGE POLICY THISAPPROACH COULD BE DISASTEROUS.HISTORY
ENDURES AND POWER RELATIONSHIPS CHANGE.NOBODY RESPECTS A BULLY OR
ADMIRES SOMEONE THAT DOESN’T PLAY BY THE RULES. AS THE SAYING GOES,
"WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND."THERE WILL INEVITABLY BE A DAY WHEN THE
UNITED STATES WILL WANT TO BE ABLE TO RELY ON AN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
FRAMEWORK THAT IS FAIR AND ABIDES BY THE RULE OF LAW.
I THINK WE CAN LEARN FROM KOSOVO. LET US NOT TURN OUR BACKS ON THE
PRINCIPLES THAT HAVE SERVED US SO WELL IN THE PAST. LET US ABIDE BY THE
RULES OF THE UN CHARTER EVEN WHILE WE STRIVE TO REFORM THAT BODY. LET US
BE RELUCTANT TO INTERVENE IN THE DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF A SOVEREIGN STATE
WITHOUT SECURITY COUNCIL OR GENERAL ASSEMBLY APPROVAL. LET US TRY TO
STAY OUT OF CIVIL WARS UNLESS OUR OWN VITAL INTERESTS ARE AT STAKE OR IF
WE MUST INTERVENE LET US DO SO OBJECTIVELY IN AN EFFORT TO RESOLVE THE
DISPUTE BY PEACEFUL MEANS.
I WOULD HOPE THAT KOSOVO HAS TAUGHT US TO BE MORE DEMANDING OF OUR
POLITICAL LEADERS. IN THE CASE OF MY OWN COUNTRY CANADIANS WOKE UP ONE
MORNING LAST MARCH TO FIND THAT CANADIAN PILOTS WERE BOMBING YUGOSLAVIA.
THERE HAD BEEN NO DECLARATION OF WAR, NO DEBATE IN OUR PARLIAMENT. WE
WERE BOMBING A COUNTRY THAT PRESENTED NO THREAT TO CANADA. A COUNTRY
THAT HAD FOUGHT ALONG SIDE OF US IN TWO WORLD WARS.THE VAST MAJORITY OF
CANADIANS HAD NO IDEAOF WHERE KOSOVO WAS OR WHAT WERE THE ISSUES.
WE WERE ASKED TO SIMPLY ACCEPT THE FACT THAT WE WERE ON THE SIDE OF THE
GOOD GUYS.AFTER ALL WE WERE A DEMOCRACY AND COULD NOT STAND BY WHILE
THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WERE BEING MURDERED IN KOSOVO.
MOREOVER WE WERE PART OF THE NATO TEAM AND EVERYONE KNEW THAT NATO WAS
THERE TO REPRESENT THE RULE OF LAW, DEMOCRACY AND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE
UNITED NATIONS CHARTER. IF WE WERE BOMBING FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS IN
BELGRADE, NOVI SAD OR PANCEVO AT LEAST WE WERE DOING IT FOR HUMANITARIAN
REASONS SO IT MUST BE OK.THIS IS THE MESSAGE THE CANADIAN POLITICAL
LEADERS WERE TELLING CANADIANS ABOUT KOSOVO.I FOUND THIS PRETTY
DISTURBING STUFF.
I THINK KOSOVO SHOULD HAVE ALSO TAUGHT US TO ACCEPT THE REALITY THAT
THOSE WHO STRUGGLE FOR SELF- DETERMINATION ARE STRUGGLING FOR TERRITORY.
THE ONE IS INTRINSICALLY BOUND UP WITH THE OTHER. PRESIDENT HAVEL OF THE
CZECH REPUBLIC RECEIVED A STANDING OVATION IN THE CANADIAN PARLIAMENT
WHEN HE DECLARED THAT KOSOVO WAS THE FIRST WAR IN HISTORY FOUGHT FOR
HUMAN VALUES RATHER THAN TERITORY. HE WAS WRONG. THE STRUGGLE IN KOSOVO
WAS ALL ABOUT TERRITORY AND WHO SHOULD CONTROL IT –SERBS OR ALBANIANS.
THAT STRUGGLE IS NOT YET SETTLED.
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
1. http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/356?&start=330
IN THE INFORMATION WAR, A VICTORY FOR PEACE
Reflections on the one year anniversary of the US/NATO bombing of
Yugoslavia
Text of a speech given to Dayton Peace Action, Dayton, Ohio, 3/21/00
By Geoff Berne
2. http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/357
THE FATAL FLAWS UNDERLYING NATO'S INTERVENTION IN YUGOSLAVIA
By Lt Gen Satish Nambiar (Retd.)
(First Force Commander and Head of Mission of the United Nations Forces
deployed in the former Yugoslavia 03 Mar92 to 02 Mar 93. Former Deputy
Chief of Staff, Indian Army. Currently, Director of the United Services
Insitution of India.)
6 April 1999
3. http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/358
George Kenney
HOW MEDIA MISINFORMATION LED TO BOSNIAN INTERVENTION
in "Living Marxism" (London), April, 1997
4. http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/359
JAMES BISSETT in front of the US Congress, July 19, 2000:
SPEAKING NOTES: CONGRESSIONAL HEARING
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
IN THE INFORMATION WAR, A VICTORY FOR PEACE
Reflections on the one year anniversary of the US/NATO bombing of
Yugoslavia
Text of a speech given to Dayton Peace Action, Dayton, Ohio, 3/21/00
By Geoff Berne
2. http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/357
THE FATAL FLAWS UNDERLYING NATO'S INTERVENTION IN YUGOSLAVIA
By Lt Gen Satish Nambiar (Retd.)
(First Force Commander and Head of Mission of the United Nations Forces
deployed in the former Yugoslavia 03 Mar92 to 02 Mar 93. Former Deputy
Chief of Staff, Indian Army. Currently, Director of the United Services
Insitution of India.)
6 April 1999
3. http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/358
George Kenney
HOW MEDIA MISINFORMATION LED TO BOSNIAN INTERVENTION
in "Living Marxism" (London), April, 1997
4. http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/359
JAMES BISSETT in front of the US Congress, July 19, 2000:
SPEAKING NOTES: CONGRESSIONAL HEARING
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
