At 06:22 24/01/00 +0100, Bob Malecki wrote:
>These
>people really are the little drummer boys for imperialism in my opinion.
In Bob's opinion - but that does not address the issues. As usual Bob takes
a very abstract approach to being revolutionary: it is enough to say
revolutionary sounding things, but not to expect that progressive people
can intervene concretely in any situation to take the leadership away from
the ruling class. It is a battle fought entirely on the terrain of
revolutionary rhetoric.
It also reveals a failure to understand the progressive reasons for
upholding the right of nations to self determination. That by no means
necessarily entails supporting the imperialist nature of the war that NATO
waged. If we make distinctions and avoid remaining stuck in one-sidedness,
we can see that it might well have entailed supporting the right of the
Kosovans to armed resistance. However as the Green Left article argues one
of the imperialist objectives in Yugoslavia was to be a condescending
saviour and avoid supporting the responsibility of the Kosovans to claim
the right to self-determination, almost certainly because of racist and
imperialist prejudice against muslims.
Rob concentrates on the number and causes of the deaths and misses the
point in the article about the meaning of genocide:
>In the UN Genocide Convention, “genocide” is defined as
>acts “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in
>part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”. Such
>acts, with these aims, are not restricted to killing, but
>include “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions
>of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction
>in whole or in part”, such as uprooting people from their homes.
>
>The Nuremberg Tribunal Charter explicitly lists deportation
>of the civilian population as one of its “crimes against
>humanity”. The genocide in Kosova was not a question of
>numbers of dead, but the fact that half the population of
>Kosova had been driven across borders, and around 80% of
>those remaining inside Kosova had also been uprooted from
>their homes.
Besides, with the evidence of what had happened in Bosnia failure to
intervene in Kosovov would have made the west culpable in genocide.
No doubt Bob on "revolutionary" grounds opposes intervention in Burundi at
present. However in a spirit of internationalism and human rights, some
intervention in Burundi is now essential, even if it does not involve
imperialist bombing their infrastructure!
I trust Rob will make the distinction, even though Bob, I am sure, will be
incapable of it.
Chris Burford
London
--- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
