-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Maj. Gen MacKenzie-Time to stop the Mr. Nice Guy act "NATO Bombing Enhanced Milosevic's Grip on Power Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie Citizen Special http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/010320/5033773.html While it can't be admitted publicly, the West is getting more than a little tired of the Balkans and the inability of too many of its citizens to act like civilized human beings. Handicapped by too many centuries of mistrust, foreign exploitation, atrocities and war, various ethnic communities seem incapable of putting the past behind them in the pursuit of real peace. During the last decade and continuing today, the United Nations and NATO have invested billions of their member countries' tax dollars and hundreds of their lives in the region with very questionable results. An obsession with quick fixes and an inclination to opt for easy, risk-free, short-term solutions has mired both alliances in the all too familiar Balkan quagmire. Those of us who argued in 1993 for a three-republic solution for Bosnia-Herzegovina as proposed by the European Union were branded as appeasers. Two years later a major, U.S.-inspired, Croatian ground offensive combined with NATO air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs resulted in the Dayton Accords which saw Bosnia divided into two parts, one a Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat federation, and the other a Bosnian Serb republic. The artificial shotgun marriage between the Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Muslims was doomed to fail. Two weeks ago, the Bosnia Croats indicated they were no longer prepared to co-operate within the federation and wanted to become part of neighbouring Croatia. There is now renewed interest in Sarajevo in reverting to the EU's original three-republic solution. Too bad the more challenging, long-term solution was not implemented eight years ago. If you consider the situation in Bosnia deja vu all over again, have a look at what is happening in Kosovo. In the mid-90s, following five years of heavy- handed, but far from brutal domination of the Albanian majority by Yugoslavia's then-president Slobodan Milosevic, an independence-seeking terrorist movement within the Kosovo Albanian community started to kidnap and murder Serbian security personnel. Major fighting developed as the Belgrade authorities moved to put down the rebellion on their sovereign territory. In 1998, NATO threatened to bomb the Serbs if they continued to react to the independence-seeking Kosovo terrorists (the CIA's term, not mine) with what NATO described as "disproportional force." The Rambouillet talks held in February 1999 were designed to guarantee the bombing of the Serbs as NATO had convinced itself Milosevic had to be contained, and the best cover for such an undertaking was a humanitarian intervention. The fact that the humanitarian disaster, which included massive ethnic cleansing, occurred after the bombing started, continues to be conveniently ignored. Equally ignored is the fact that NATO, in a desperate attempt to reach a ceasefire with Belgrade before the NATO coalition fell apart, 70 days into the bombing campaign, quietly removed the two requirements in the Rambouillet agreement that caused Milosevic not to sign it in the first place. As a result of the changes, there would be no freedom of movement for NATO forces in Serbia, and there would be no referendum on independence in Kosovo within three years. In other words, Kosovo would remain under Yugoslavian sovereignty administered for the time being by the UN. By taking the easy way out, NATO and the UN had created a solution guaranteed to fail. Needless to say, the Kosovo Albanians were incredulous that their dreams of independence were now thwarted by the very international community that had bombed and killed their enemies. By force, intimidation, coercion and good old diplomacy, the leaders from the terrorist independence movement managed to take over key positions in the UN-supervised Kosovo administration. Financed by drug running, a slave trade in prostitutes and industrial- strength black market activities, the outlawed military arm of the Kosovo Albanians moved into the UN-mandated demilitarized buffer zone between Kosovo and Serbia, and started killing Serbian security personnel -- presumably hoping that the Serbs would overreact and the international community would once again come to the Albanians' assistance. Not content with just intimidating the Serbs, the terrorists, more recently elevated to the more prestigious-sounding "separatist guerrillas" in the North American press, have started to link up with their Albanian brothers inside Macedonia itself, and are exchanging fire with Macedonian security and military forces and NATO peacekeepers. A greater Albania is their stated objective, and the UN-mandated NATO force in Kosovo now finds itself under significant international pressure to thwart the Albanian uprising by interdicting, and if necessary ambushing, Albanian terrorists as they infiltrate in and out of the UN-imposed buffer zone. In a move dripping with irony, the UN has invited Yugoslav elite military forces to enter the buffer zone to assist with the interception of the Albanian separatists. A year ago, to suggest such a scenario would have been justification for a sanity check. Many of those who firmly endorsed the bombing of Yugoslavia now say that while we might have been duped into it by the Kosovo Albanians, it was all worthwhile as it brought down Milosevic. Baloney! If anything, the bombing enhanced his grip on power. Even his most outspoken critics at home admired his standing up to the strongest military alliance ever created. What mercifully toppled the Milosevic regime was the modestly covert financial and organizational support for the Yugoslav opposition movement that was provided by the U.S. and her allies, and which operated from neighbouring countries. If it was the bombing that brought down his regime, then let's get busy bombing Kabul, Khartoum, Peking, Pyongyang and at least a dozen other capitals of repressive regimes over the next few months -- as a humanitarian gesture. The expanding crises in the Balkans have been exacerbated by the international community's love affair with quick, short-term solutions. There are no easy solutions left. Bosnia has to be restructured to reflect the desires of its ethnic communities and that means three republics, not two. The militant Kosovo Albanian separatists must be brought under control by the overpowering NATO military presence in the area. Concurrently, the UN has to impose a moderate, non-violent and crime-free Kosovo Albanian leadership. Taking the easy way out and leaving the choice of Kosovo's leaders to a flawed, pseudo-democratic process dominated by corruption and intimidation will guarantee that our grandchildren will be peacekeepers in the region 30 years hence. The time for Mr. Nice Guy has long since passed; it's time to get tough. Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, now retired, commanded UN troops during the siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian civil war of 1992. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. 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