[PEN-L:5820] (Fwd) EVACUATION OF KOSOVARS HIGHLIGHTS NATO'S FAILURE

[ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]]

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date sent:              Thu, 22 Apr 1999 16:01:29 -0700
To:                     [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:                   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:                EVACUATION OF KOSOVARS HIGHLIGHTS NATO'S FAILURE 

The Vancouver Sun                                                       April 22, 1999

A Soldier's View

EVACUATION OF KOSOVARS HIGHLIGHTS NATO'S FAILURE 

        NATO's humanitarian rationale becomes increasingly muddy. This 
        was supposed to be a war to avoid a humanitarian disaster in Kosovo. 
        Now disaster has spread throughout Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, 
        Albania and Kosovo. 

        By Lewis Mackenzie

Bracebridge, Ontario — What an obvious confirmation of NATO's 
failed strategy when the very alliance whose stated mission was to 
avoid a humanitarian disaster in Kosovo now finds itself trying to 
find a way to get the remaining 500,000 Albanians out — repeat 
out — of Kosovo before they die of starvation or exposure. 
        If they are "successful" more than 1.5 million Kosovars will 
have been expelled during the last year, the vast majority as a 
result of Slobodan Milosevic's reaction to the first failed round of 
talks at Rambouillet when U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine 
Albright opted for threats rather than diplomacy. 
        We are now hearing comments attributed to the U.S. state 
department indicating that perhaps we should not have started the 
air campaign against Yugoslavia, but now that we have, "we must 
win." 
        What madness. 
        To sacrifice young men and women in uniform because 
NATO's leaders made a mistake or, as some would say, a 
"miscalculation", is blatantly irresponsible, particularly to the dead 
soldiers' families. 
        Without question we are revolted and emotionally moved by 
the forced departure of more than a million ethnic Albanians. 
However, I am not convinced that war is justified by deportation 
alone. 
        If it is, we had better get ready for a very bloody 21st century 
and Canadians had better start lobbying their political leaders to at 
least double the defence budget. 
        Current estimates suggest that somewhere in the region of 
4,000 people have been killed on all sides in the Kosovo conflict 
over the past year. That is the same as the number killed in 
Northern Ireland, albeit in a shorter time. 
        Mind you, it is also 1.95 million less than in Tibet; 1.85 
million fewer than in Sudan; 950,000 less than in Rwanda and the 
same figure in Angola; 195,000 fewer than in Bosnia, and there 
are many, too many, more examples. 
        As disgusting as it is to treat this aspect of the Kosovo crisis 
as a math exercise, the simple fact that there were no TV cameras 
in most of the above locations means that we have to find other 
ways to provide context. 
        What is happening in Kosovo is not genocide. As the Nobel 
laureate Elie Wiesel stated a few weeks ago, the use of the term in 
the Kosovc, context is offensive to anyone who survived the 
Holocaust, and presumably to any Tutsis in Rwanda also. 
        We are now hearing that the CIA believes that a significant 
number of the missing Albanian men in Kosovo were not rounded 
up and slaughtered by the Serbs as originally suggested. It is now 
believed they were forced by the Kosovo Liberation Army to join 
its ranks unless they could afford to pay a "deferment tax." 
        Evidence of the so-called "rape camps" has yet to be provided 
as promised. And as someone who was accused by one of the 
parties to the Bosnian conflict of rape and murder in Sarajevo in 
1992, I'm particularly sensitive to the rhetoric surrounding the 
"rape card." I would like to see some proof before I accept it as 
justification for expanding the war. 
        I have just returned from three weeks in the Belgrade area and 
while there I must admit that I was more than a little disappointed 
by the NATO rhetoric based on hearsay, speculation and erroneous 
comparisons to the Bosnian conflict. It is disappointing because 
the Serbs watch CNN, CNBC, the BBC, and a few other western 
channels and some of their reports are almost as outrageous as 
those of Serbian state television. 
        As a result, the vast majority of Serbs I met do not trust any 
TV reports, either western or Serbian. What a missed opportunity 
for the West to exploit during the various NATO, Pentagon and 
state department briefings when we could be speaking to the 
Serbian people, rather than President Milosevic and the press. 
        With respect, I would not buy a used car from the NATO 
spokesman Jamie Shea. 
        It was my understanding that this was a war to avoid a 
humanitarian disaster in Kosovo. Well, nice going. We now have a 
disaster throughout Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania and 
Kosovo and no amount of precision weaponry can stop it. 
        A lot of 20/20 hindsight? No way. 
        A little bit of "we told you so?" Perhaps. 
        Any satisfaction? None at all. 
        Will sanity take over? I doubt it. 
        But surely we must insist on a parliamentary debate — and a 
free vote — before one Canadian soldier sets foot in Kosovo. 

Retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie commanded United Nations 
troops during the siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian civil war of 1992.