[PEN-L:9221] Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: Moderator request help
Michael, You are setting a very bad example for the rest of us incapable of producing such a volume of quality in such a limited time. Maybe a hundred pages or two Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Date sent: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 13:29:56 -0700 From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:9204] Re: RE: Re: Re: Moderator request help Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Max Sawicky wrote: What is this thing, 2000 pages? I have pared it down to less than 600 pages.-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:9223] Re: Re: income by 'race'
Bill,
I can't give you specific references to where Wayne Simpson and
Derek Hum's data is/will be published given the usual summer
hiatus plus the fact that the PanAm games are here and have
completely disrupted all activity at the university (which is the
athletes village) but, from what you say, their data/conclusions
differ from those you report. They use SLID datat to which they
had special access to non-published micro data as 'guests' of
Stats Canada. Both are highly skilled and reputable
econometricians and their conclusions refute those based on 1991
census data. Given the quality of the data I would tend to accept
the SLID data over the Census data for this kind of analysis.
However, I hardly qualify as an expert in this field so I have to
concede to what I know. Since I have discussed the method and
data with Derek and Wayne, I have to trust their judgement.
Therefore, I would support their findings which (given my limited
econometric expertise seems impecable to me) suggests that
there is little/no visible minority discrimination to Canadian born in
Canda with the exception of black males -- with the proviso that the
data does not allow for an analysis of aboriginals -- of whom I think
we all agree there is discrimination against.
I will send you references to their work when normality returns to
the U of Manitoba.
Paul
Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba
Date sent: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 14:11:49 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Bill Burgess [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:9209] Re: income by 'race'
Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
A week or two ago I disagreed with Rod Hay's claims that there "appears to
be no widespread, identifiable systemic racism, at present" in Canada
(except against Natives), and that there are no economic studies which
"find any significance for 'self-identified race' in determining income".
I had results by Shapiro and Stelcner on hand which showed that unlingual
francophone men earned 9% less than unilingual anglophone men in Quebec in
1991 (8% when adjusted for education), and I cited them as evidence to the
contrary. Rod dismissed this study for being based on language rather than
'race', though I still don't see why.
Paul Phillips described a study by colleagues Simpson and Hum as providing
fairly strong evidence against the existence of *systematic income
discrimination* based on visible 'racial' physical characteristics.
It found that
With the exception of black males, there was no negative income
discrimination against Canadian born visible minorities in Canada.
Indeed, there was some support for positive returns to Asian and
Indian (from India) subgroups.
However, this was not the case for visible minority immigrants
which, as a group, received lower incomes -- but only for the first
generation.
(Paul noted that Unfortunately, the SLID data does not separate out
aboriginals...However, I have little doubt that if it were possible, the
results would show discrimination against our native population.)
I have been on vacation, and if Rod has posted the studies that show 'race'
is not a significant factor in determining income, I missed them. However,
I did come across a recent study by Pendakur and Pendakur [PP], who write
that in the last 5 years a "surge of research" has found "earnings and wage
differentials among ethnic groups that cannot be attributed to differences
in observable characteristics such as age and education. Although suitable
cautious, these authors conclude that discrimination may play a negative
role for some ethnic groups" ("The color of money: earning differentials
among ethnic groups in Canada" in the August '98 _Canadian Journal of
Economics_).
PP argue their own study extends and strengthens the evidence of
discimination. They distinguish between Canadian-born and immigrant
workers, men and women, within the various white and visible-minority
categories, and 'control' for major characteristics like education and
labour market experience.
Using 1991 census data, PP find that "conditional on observable
characteristics, Canadian-born visible-minority men face an earnings gap of
8% and Aboriginal men a gap of 13%, in comparison with Canadian white men."
Canadian-born British-origin men 'earned' 17% more than Canadian-born Black
men, 13% more than Canadian-born Chinese men, 10% more than Canadian-born
Balkan and Greek men, and 23% more than Aboriginal (single-origin) men.
In the case of immigrant-origin men, visible-minority men earned 16% less
less than Canadian-born men, while immigrant white men earned 2% less.
Within the immigrant men category there was substantial variation: no
substantial earnings penalty for Northern and central European immigrant
men, but Black immigrant men earned 22.2% less than Canadian-born
British-origin men, Latin
[PEN-L:9224] Re: Re: Re: income by 'race'
Michael, There was a book published a couple of years ago edited by Card and (I think) Freeman, called *Small Differences that Matter* where, if I remember correctly, they deal with this and come to the conclusion that unions have reduced not only disparities between gender, but also within class. It is an interesting book, particularly since it supports everthing I have been teaching for the last few years. ;-) Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Date sent: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 15:14:20 -0700 From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:9211] Re: Re: income by 'race' Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Bill's numbers concerning the earnings gap seem to show a smaller earnings gap for me in Canada than in the U.S. I recently sent in a note about unions being responsible for the lower Canadian women's earnings gap, compared to U.S. women. Could unions be playing a similar role for men? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:8048] Re: Re: RE: Good critiques of MAI, Tobin tax/alternatives
By far, a better critique from a Canadian perspective of MAI is Andrew Jackson and Matthew Sanger (eds.) *DISMANTLING DEMOCRACY*, (CCPA/Lorimer, 1998). It is a superb collection of critiques by various experts on many aspects of the MAI -- e.g. the MAI and the Environment byMichell Swenarchuk or The MAI and the World Economy, by Greg Albo. Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Date sent: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 23:45:28 -0700 From: Sam Pawlett [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copies to: "'POST-KEYNESIAN THOUGHT'" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:8040] Re: RE: Good critiques of MAI, Tobin tax/alternatives Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] There is a critical book called MAI by Maude Barlow and Bruce Cameron, 2 Canadian activists and writers.It focusses mostly on the MAI as it is applied to Canada but you mind find it useful, though it is too nationalistic and social democratic for me. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has a number of papers on the Tobin tax including a speech and QA by Tobin himself. Sam Pawlett
[PEN-L:7961] Re: KLA trade union organizing
Now NATO can have its go at ethnic cleansing. To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:7958] KLA trade union organizing Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Toronto Star, June 14, 1999 KLA SEIZES KEY MINE BYLINE: Candice Hughes After Serb pullout, kidnap 3 workers ASSOCIATED PRESS DOBRO SELO, Yugoslavia - It didn't take the Kosovo Liberation Army long to move in after Serb forces withdrew.
[PEN-L:7975] (Fwd) It's the Russians, Stupid - STRATFOR Intelligence Upda
Though I had promised not to forward Sid's postings, this one seems of sufficient importance that I think it should be available to all on pen-l. (sorry Doug) Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba --- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 16:39:20 -0700 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:"It's the Russians, Stupid" - STRATFOR Intelligence Update STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update Weekly Analysis June 14, 1999 "It's the Russians, Stupid" Summary: NATO continued its policy of trying to turn a compromise into a victory. In order to do that, it has been necessary to treat Russia as if its role was peripheral. It was a policy bound to anger Russia. It was not a bad policy, if NATO were ready and able to slay the bear. But goading a wounded bear when you are not in a position to kill him is a dangerous game. On Saturday morning, the bear struck back. NATO still hasn't gotten him back in his cage. Analysis: President Bill Clinton had a sign taped to his desk at the beginning of his first term in office that read, "It's the Economy, Stupid." He should have taped one on his desk at the beginning of the Kosovo affair that said, "It's the Russians, Stupid." From the beginning to the end of this crisis, it has been the Russians, not the Serbs, who were the real issue facing NATO. The Kosovo crisis began in December 1998 in Iraq. When the United States decided to bomb Iraq for four days in December, in spite of Russian opposition and without consulting them, the Russians became furious. In their view, the United States completely ignored them and had now reduced them to a third-world power - discounting completely Russia's ability to respond. The senior military was particularly disgruntled. It was this Russian mood, carefully read by Slobodan Milosevic, which led him to conclude that it was the appropriate time to challenge the West in Kosovo. It was clear to Milosevic that the Russians would not permit themselves to be humiliated a second time. He was right. When the war broke out, the Russians were not only furious again, but provided open political support to Serbia. There was, in late April and early May, an urgent feeling inside of NATO that some sort of compromise was needed. The feeling was an outgrowth of the fact that the air war alone would not achieve the desired political goals, and that a ground war was not an option. At about the same time, it became clear that only the Russians had enough influence in Belgrade to bring them to a satisfactory compromise. The Russians, however, were extremely reluctant to begin mediation. The Russians made it clear that they would only engage in a mediation effort if there were a prior negotiation between NATO and Russia in which the basic outlines of a settlement were established. The resulting agreement was the G-8 accords. The two most important elements of the G-8 agreement were unwritten, but they were at the heart of the agreement. The first was that Russia was to be treated as a great power by NATO, and not as its messenger boy. The second was that any settlement that was reached had to be viewed as a compromise and not as a NATO victory. This was not only for Milosevic's sake, but it was also for Yeltsin's. Following his humiliation in Iraq, Yeltsin could not afford to be seen as simply giving in to NATO. If that were to happen, powerful anti-Western, anti-reform and anti-Yeltsin forces would be triggered. Yeltsin tried very hard to convey to NATO that far more than Kosovo was at stake. NATO didn't seem to listen. Thus, the entire point of the G-8 agreements was that there would be a compromise in which NATO achieved what it wanted while Yugoslavia retained what it wanted. A foreign presence would enter Kosovo, including NATO troops. Russian troops would also be present. These Russian troops would be used to guarantee the behavior of NATO troops in relation to Serbs, in regard to disarming the KLA, and in guaranteeing Serbia's long-term rights in Kosovo. The presence of Russian troops in Kosovo either under a joint UN command or as an independent force was the essential element of the G-8. Many long hours were spent in Bonn and elsewhere negotiating this agreement. Over the course of a month, the Russians pressured Milosevic to accept these agreements. Finally, in a meeting attended by the EU's Martti Ahtisaari and Moscow's Viktor Chernomyrdin, Milosevic accepted the compromise. Milosevic did not accept the agreements because of the bombing campaign. It hurt, but never crippled him. Milosevic accepted the agreements because the Russians wanted them and because they guaranteed that they would be present as independent observers to make certain that NATO did not overstep its bounds. This is the key: it was the Russians, not the bombing campaign that delivered the
[PEN-L:7977] (Fwd) NATO SHOULD DISARM KLA BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE - A Soldier'
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 14:08:19 -0700 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO SHOULD DISARM KLA BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE - A Soldier's View THE VANCOUVER SUN JUNE 12, 1999 A Soldier's View NATO SHOULD DISARM KLA BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE The commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army has shown bloodthirstiness against civilians in the past. By Lewis Mackenzie A funny thing happened between the 4th and 5th of June. A subtle but extremely significant change occurred in describing the Kosovo Liberation Army's obligations following any ceasefire. The Rambouillet accord, signed by the KLA-led Kosovo Albanian delegation in March clearly stated the KLA would be disarmed once there was a ceasefire. The precise term was often repeated and reinforced by all the key NATO leaders and their representatives during the first 70 days of the bombing campaign. During the June 5-6 weekend, members of the U.S. executive branch, starting with Defence Secretary William Cohen, started to the use the term "demilitarize" rather than "disarm" to describe the KLA's postwar future. This change in the language of the Rambouillet accord is highly significant, particularly to the international peacekeepers, including Canadians, entering Kosovo. Disarming means just that handing over all your weapons with the possible exception of sidearms, a concession the United Nations authorized when the UN forces were ordered to disarm the Serbs and Croats within the three UN-protected areas in occupied Croatia in 1992. Demilitarization merely requires the KLA to give up its military structure, take off uniforms and, in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution of June 10, turn in their "heavy" weapons. For the most part, the KLA does not have big guns such as tanks, artillery and anti-aircraft missiles. Its weapons of choice due to the nature of its operations, are assault and sniper rifles and grenade launchers. It can now keep those. Its few heavy weapons would have been moved by now away from NATO's prying eyes, across the border into Albania, where the KLA has its training camps. The KLA has been conducting a war of secession against Yugoslav security forces for a number of years. Belgrade's heavy-handed response to the KLA's activities had the effect of increasing its following, and its sophistication. During NATO's bombing campaign, the KLA was in frequent contact with NATO headquarters, coordinating its efforts on the ground with NATO air strikes. This contact became even more reliable in the latter stages of the war as "liaison teams" from some allied countries married up with the KLA and assisted with the coordination. I must say I was more than a little disappointed to hear Jim Wright, the credible and persuasive spokesman for our foreign affairs department, state just a few days ago that, "We [NATO] have no contact with the KLA." Let's face it, this was not the case. Numerous western reporters were filmed standing with KLA members as they spoke directly with the NATO operations centre and, in one quite bizarre incident, with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright herself. I assume the decision to allow the KLA to keep its weapons is a payback for its help on the ground. Not a good idea. The KLA has stated publicly and repeatedly that its political objective is nothing short of independence for Kosovo and ul- timately a Greater Albania. The fact that it has softened its lan- guage over the past few days should convince no one that it has changed its mind. The group will continue to recruit, train and otherwise prepare for an independent Kosovo and it will maintain a number of camps in Albania. Its chief of staff, a retired officer from the Croatian army was the same officer who masterminded the 1993 Medak offensive in Croatia that saw Canadian soldiers using deadly force to stop horrendous atrocities against Serb civilians. This officer also ordered the overrunning of lightly armed UN outposts, in blatant contravention of international law. His influence within the KLA does not augur well for its trustwor- thiness during Kosovo's political evolution. A practical solution to the continuing threat posed by the KLA would be the sealing of the border between Kosovo and Albania. The best national contingent of peacekeepers to take on this task would be the one from Russia. Using the Russians to look after the small number of Serbs who will remain in Kosovo will only perpetuate the separation of the Albanian and Serb communities. Western peacekeepers can look after the Serbs. Let the Russians keep the KLA in line.
[PEN-L:7976] (Fwd) SECRET TALKS WITH MILOSEVIC SPLIT RUSSIAN LEADERSHIP -
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 13:08:12 -0700 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:SECRET TALKS WITH MILOSEVIC SPLIT RUSSIAN LEADERSHIP - Financial Times The National Post June 14, 1999 SECRET TALKS WITH MILOSEVIC CAUSE SPLIT IN RUSSIAN LEADERSHIP London Russian officials, in collaboration with key leaders in the European Union, opened a secret channel in May to Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president, which was instrumental in securing a peace deal in Kosovo, according to EU and Yugoslav officials. However, the machinations in the runup to acceptance of the deal have opened up huge fissures in Russian leadership which now threaten the peacekeeping effort in Kosovo, and even the stability of the Russian government itself. A source close to the leadership of the Serbian security services, who refused to be identified, said Peter Castenfelt, a Swedish-born financier acting as a secret envoy, had revealed to Mr. Milosevic, just days before Belgrade approved the Group of Eight peace plan on June 3, NATO's final terms for an agreement. The source said it became clear to Mr. Milosevic that the deal was better than that offered by leading NATO powers during the Rambouillet negotiations earlier this year especially since it gave the UN Security Council control of the operation in Kosovo. "This means that the UN mandate can be voted down by the Russians and the Chinese when we don't want them [NATO] in [Kosovo] any more," said the Yugoslav source. He said it was critically important to Yugoslavia to have Russian presence in the province, both to affirm Moscow's strategic interest in the region and to protect the Serbs. His testimony, and that of German officials and advisors, suggest the talks with Mr. Milosevic, both open and covert, were more of a negotiation than leaders of the NATO countries have admitted. One advisor said Mr. Castenfelt had been asked to stress in his ne- gotiations that Mr. Milosevic's indictment as a war criminal was "completely separate" from a peace agreement. "We could not change or soften the judgment, but we could say that it was a quite different matter," the advisor said. The Serb security official said the effect of the peace settlement would be to "completely change" the Russian political system, with the next president of Russia being committed to an anti-West stance. He said Mr. Milosevic had had bad relations with Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president, always supporting and regularly entertaining Mr. Yeltsin's opponents in Belgrade. Mr. Castenfelt, the undercover envoy used by the Russians and the EU, has a record of behind-the-scenes economic diplomacy on behalf of successive Russian governments for the past six years, particularly on deals with the International Monetary Fund. Senior Russian officials loyal to Mr. Yeltsin had become concerned the talks between Mr. Milosevic and Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Russian envoy to the Balkans who was appointed in April by Mr. Yeltsin, were producing no results. Mr. Chernomyrdin, the longest-serving prime minister under Mr. Yeltsin, was seen in Russia and the West as not up to the task of conveying either the West's or NATO's position to Mr. Milosevic. Mr. Castenfelt was briefed in Moscow by government officials, and in Bonn by Wolfgang Ischinger, state secretary at the German foreign ministry; Michael Steiner, foreign policy advisor to Gerhard Schroeder, the chancellor; and Karl Kaiser, head of the Research Institute of the German Society of Foreign Affairs and Mr. Schroeder's foreign affairs advisor during last year's election campaign. Mr. Castenfelt also met Martti Ahtisaari, the EU envoy to the Balkans and the Finnish president, and Arpo Rusi, his advisor. He then flew to Sofia, Bulgaria from where he was taken to the Yugoslav border under the protection of Russian special forces and passed over to Yugoslav security and taken to Belgrade. In a one-to-one meeting with Mr. Milosevic, in meetings with ministers and officials and in a six-page analysis of the situation composed in a bunker during a NATO bombing raid, Mr. Castenfelt succeeded in defining the terms which could be represented as a compromise, not a capitulation. The Serbian security source said that "he explained to us for the first time what the truth was. We had never heard it before." The Serb source said the points on which the NATO deal was significantly better than the terms offered during the Rambouillet accords were particularly critical for their eventual acceptance by Mr. Milosevic in talks with Mr. Ahtisaari and Mr. Chernomyrdin. These were, he said, that there would be no referendum in Kosovo after three years, as the Rambouillet accord specified: that there would be a UN presence, not
[PEN-L:7910] (Fwd) listserv entry
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 12:17:58 -0400 From: Carmen MacDougall [EMAIL PROTECTED] Organization: Carnegie Endowment To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:listserv entry We saw mention of the Carnegie Endowment on the note below, and I wanted to correct the record. The Carnegie Endowment for Inernational Peace is not a grant-making institution and has not funded the Int'l War Crimes Tribunal. Since I'm not on the listserv, I thought I'd forward to you for correction, as appropriate. Thanks. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Diana Johnstone was interviewed from Paris on our local (Vancouver) lefty radio station the other day and she claims the International War Crimes Tribunal is funded by NATO governments as well as PRIVATE sources like Soros and the Carnegie Endowment. It's a kangeroo court. Much of its equipment was donated by the US gov't. The US gov't also gave 22 prosecutors to the tribunal for free. These claims can be verified by looking at its website (I'm told). Sorry, don't have the URL. Johnstone also claimes that it was set up in The Hague so people would confuse it with the International Court of Justice also in The Hague that is a wing of the U.N. ... ___ Carmen MacDougall Director of Communications Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 1779 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 voice: 202-939-2319 fax: 202-332-0925 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ceip.org
[PEN-L:7869] Multiple Copies
Doug has complained, rightly, that he is being bombarded with multiple copies of Sid Shniad's postings, one copy of which I have been forwarding. It appears that we are both on Sid's distribution list. Now some of you have commented on how useful they are so I continued to forward them -- but in response to Doug's complaint I have decided not to forward any more. People who would still like to see them, I would suggest they e-mail Sid and ask to be put on his distribution list. His address is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:7813] (Fwd) THE PEACE THAT BETRAYS THE KOSOVAR CAUSE - Robert Fisk
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 13:35:30 -0700 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:THE PEACE THAT BETRAYS THE KOSOVAR CAUSE - Robert Fisk The Independent June 5, 1999 THE PEACE THAT BETRAYS THE KOSOVAR CAUSE By Robert Fisk So we've won the war, have we? That's what we are now being told by our leaders. Messrs Clinton, Blair, Cook and all the rest are telling us that NATO may shortly achieve its aim of returning 750,000 refugees to their homes, of installing a NATO-Russian force in Kosovo and ensuring the withdrawal of Serb police and troops. NATO, after its failure to crush a country of 10 million people in fewer than 70 days, can now walk tall again. All the Albanians who trekked over the frontiers of Macedonia and Albania are going to head home under "our" protection. The BBC and CNN have gone along with this scenario - just as their cameras will be there to record the emotional return of the people of Kosovo to Pristina, Prizren, Pec and the other scorched towns. All that will be missing is the truth: that we never went to war for the return of refugees. We went to war for a peace agreement accepted by the Kosovo Albanians but rejected by the Serbs - an agreement that NATO's leaders have themselves now rejected in their desperation to finish the air bombardment on Serbia. For the price of peace for NATO is the erasure of the most crucial paragraph in the Paris peace agreeement - the "final settlement" promised to the Kosovo Albanians after three years of autonomy that would almost certainly have led to independence. Incredibly, we have allowed our leaders to bend the historical record, to twist the truth out of all recognition so that NATO's "victory" will be the return of an army of refugees who were not even refugees when we began this wretched war. And we are on the point of betraying the Kosovo Albanians whom we persuaded to sign up for peace in Paris with a promise that the "will of the people" (90 per cent of them Albanians) would be respected in 2002 with almost certain independence. We cannot expect the BBC or CNN to rewind the film for us but we can nevertheless spool back through the last three months of history to remind ourselves of why we went to war. In their campaign of "ethnic cleansing", the Serbs had by the early spring committed a series of massacres. The world was outraged by what appeared to be a repeat - if on a smaller scale - of the Bosnian war. And we in the West still had a score to settle with Slobodan Milosevic over that terrible conflict. In Paris, the Kosovo Albanians were cajoled into signing the American-scripted "peace". Madeleine Albright cosied up to her "friend" Hashim Thaci, the KLA man known as "The Snake" who was then the guerrilla army's leading officer. In the end, General Wesley Clarke - the very same general who has been busy bombing Serbia's barracks, army, air force, railways, oil refineries, water treatment plants, bridges, hospitals and housing estates - was brought in to remonstrate with Mr Thaci. The Kosovo Albanians would obtain their freedom, they were told, because - under the terms of the Paris agreement - an international meeting on Kosovo would be held in three years' time "to determine a mechanism for a final settlement for Kosovo, on the basis of the will of the people, opinions of the relevant authorities". Since only 10 per cent of "the people" were Serbs, the KLA knew what that meant. Then the war began. And within weeks, the biblical exodus of the Kosovo Albanians was upon us, driven from their homes by the Serbs the moment NATO commenced its bombardment of Serbia. Mr Blair was to tell us that the refugee situation would have been "far worse" had NATO not gone into action - a suggestion he mercifully forgot once half the Kosovo nation had poured over the international frontier. In fact, NATO had every reason to know what would happen if it went to war with Serbia; on 18 March, General Nebojsa Pavkovic said in Belgrade that "settling scores with the terrorists [sic] still in Kosovo doesn't pose any problem and that's what we'll do if our country is attacked from the air or the ground." Once the tragedy of the Kosovo Albanians was before our eyes, General Clarke announced that their exodus was "entirely predictable". He hadn't shared that information with us, of course, when the war had begun. And from that moment, the return of the refugees was adopted as the principal purpose of NATO's war. NATO troops would not enter Kosovo to "protect" the people - they would enter in order to ensure their safe return from an exile which the war itself had brought about. And the promises about the "will of the people" were forgotten.
[PEN-L:7812] (Fwd) RUSSIAN MILITARY BLAME NATO FOR COLLAPSE OF KOSOVO PULLO
pen-l pen-l pen-l --- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 16:43:41 -0700 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:RUSSIAN MILITARY BLAME NATO FOR COLLAPSE OF KOSOVO PULLOUT TALKS - AFP Agence France PresseJune 7, 1999 RUSSIAN MILITARY BLAME NATO FOR COLLAPSE OF KOSOVO PULLOUT TALKS MOSCOW The Russian military on Monday blamed NATO for the collapse of talks on securing a pullout of Yugoslav troops from Kosovo, and accused a senior British commander of exceeding his authority, Interfax news agency reported. A military official cited by Interfax accused NATO of seeking to dictate the terms of the withdrawal of Serb forces from the troubled province ahead of the deployment of an international peace force. "The UN Security Council has been left outside the framework of the talks, which violates the peace agreements reached during the Chernomyrdin-Ahtisaari-Talbott trilateral talks in Bonn," the official said. He was referring to Russia's Kosovo envoy Victor Chernomyrdin, his EU counterpart Martti Ahtisaari and US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott who devised a peace plan accepted by Belgrade on Thursday. Moscow insists peacekeepers can only be deployed in Kosovo under the auspices of the United Nations, as provided for under the peace plan. The Russian official accused NATO's chief negotiator at the pullout talks - Lt.-Gen. Michael Jackson -- of overreaching himself during two days of negotiations at the Yugoslav-Macedonian border. Jackson "has taken on too much responsibility. Decisions on any international presence in Kosovo are not made at his level," the military source said. The British general said Yugoslav proposals were "not consistent" with the agreed peace plan and "would not provide a safe return of the refugees and full withdrawal of Serb troops. "There is no alternative but to continue and intensify the bombardments until the Yugoslav side is prepared to implement their commitment," he said. Despite the hitch, the Russian military source said Moscow hoped negotiations would resume quickly: "It is certainly possible to get the talks back on track, and we are not inclined to dramatize the current situation."
[PEN-L:7810] (Fwd) PROTESTS IN SUPPORT OF YUGOSLAVIA IN UNITED STATES - Bor
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 13:26:12 -0700 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:PROTESTS IN SUPPORT OF YUGOSLAVIA IN UNITED STATES - Borba News of this protest in Washington and the statements by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, does not appear in today's NYT, Boston Globe or Washington Post. Borba 7 June 1999 MASSIVE PROTESTS IN SUPPORT OF YUGOSLAVIA IN UNITED STATES "NATO has committed the worst war crime in Yugoslavia, killing civilians, waging all-out war aimed at destroying the entire country," the U.S. anti-war movement International Action center President Ramsey Clark said at massive anti-NATO demonstrations in Washington on Saturday. About 15,000 people took part in the demonstrations, confirmed the organizer, the center for mobilization against the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia. The center rallied several hundred peace organizations and associations from all over the United States. Two protests were organized - one in Washington outside the Pentagon, and another in San Francisco, which rallied 12,000 demonstrators. Clark, among the first to address the protest rally, strongly condemned the U.S. administration, accusing it of genocide and crimes against Yugoslavia and the entire Yugoslav people. "NATO must disappear from the face of the earth," Clark said, describing the alliance as one of the most dangerous bodies which threaten the survival of mankind. "NATO has rallied former colonial powers that destroyed entire countries throughout Asia and Africa. Now these colonial powers have raised their ugly heads and are trying to change the map of the world yet again, redraw borders, annul sovereignty of countries, divide among themselves natural resources which belong to others," Clark said. Borba is a Belgrade paper: http://www.borba.co.yu/daily.html
[PEN-L:7808] (Fwd) KOSOVO CONFLICT GIVES RAYTHEON BIG CONTRACTS
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 13:26:34 -0700 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:KOSOVO CONFLICT GIVES RAYTHEON BIG CONTRACTS The Associated PressJune 3, 1999 CONFLICT GIVES RAYTHEON BIG CONTRACTS BOSTON (AP) -- The missiles and bombs raining down on Serb forces in Yugoslavia could add up to big money for the Raytheon Co., whose officials estimate they could gain about $1 billion in new contracts to replace munitions used in the Balkans. While 10-figure defense outlays are nothing new in the United States, Raytheon's direct link between military action and possible new revenues cast the Kosovo conflict in a new light, as a war that could be profitable to American defense contractors. Raytheon Systems Co., Raytheon's defense unit, is eyeing Pentagon contracts for the replacement of weaponry used in the nearly three-month-old engagement. Dave Shea, a spokesman for Raytheon Systems, said Thursday the company sees the potential for $1 billion in new orders. "But contract awards have not started flowing yet." He said the company is trying to capitalize on a variety of congressional outlays, including $420 million for the renovation and upgrade of Tomahawk missiles. Last month, President Clinton signed a bill that earmarked $12 billion for the air assault, as well as for the Kosovo Albanian refugees, Balkan countries near the fighting and U.S. forces around the globe. Lexington, Mass.-based Raytheon expects contract awards within six to 12 months, with the work spread out over about two or three years, Shea said. The prospect of a humanitarian crisis paying off for American executives and shareholders is unsettling for investment managers like Sophia Collier, who chairs Citizens Funds, a Portsmouth, N.H., mutual fund company that tries to practice what it calls socially responsible investing. "We don't hold Raytheon. One of the things the fund has done is made a conscious decision not to hold the stock of military contractors," said Collier, the company's chairwoman. "We've made the moral decision to avoid profiting from war." Still, Raytheon has been a hot stock, and analysts expect the new business to benefit shareholders. "It's certainly significant," said Paul Nisbet, a defense analyst at JSA Research Inc. The defense giant had sales of $4.9 billion for the quarter ending in April, and with any new contracts spread over a few years, "its impact on any one year is not great," Nisbet said. Raytheon's stock closed up 68 3/4 cents Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange, at $68.81 1/4.
[PEN-L:7805] (Fwd) YUGOSLAVIA 'HAS BEEN BOMBED BACK TO 1945'
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 10:55:28 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:YUGOSLAVIA 'HAS BEEN BOMBED BACK TO 1945' The Daily Telegraph June 5, 1999 YUGOSLAVIA 'HAS BEEN BOMBED BACK TO 1945' By Boris Johnson The Yugoslav economy has been smashed by Nato bombardment to the kind of primitive conditions that existed at the end of the Second World War, according to official figures released in Belgrade. As Tony Blair and other leaders gave warning that the West will not pay to rebuild the country until Slobodan Milosevic is removed from power, Serbs say they are facing an economic crisis of unprecedented severity. Officials say that there are now 500,000 workers out of jobs, an unemployment rate of about 27 per cent, with concealed unemployment at 50 per cent. The elderly have been told that their pensions will be frozen, and payments are now irregular. At the latest count, Nato aircraft had destroyed at least 50 bridges, six trunk roads, and five civilian airports. Belgrade says 20 hospitals, 30 health centres, 190 educational institutions, and 12 railway lines have been badly damaged. Yugoslavia's ability to manufacture cars has been entirely eliminated with the destruction of the Zastava factory in Kragujevac, which has in turn left 120 contractors facing bankruptcy. While the Yugo cars produced at Zastava were perhaps unlikely to find an enormous market in the West, the demolition has fuelled Serb suspicions that one of the objectives was to open up Yugoslavia to foreign acquisition. A month ago the oil giant Petrohemija was one of the pearls of the Yugoslav economy, its value estimated by Western accountants at about £600 million. The company's reservoirs are now all but destroyed. Yugoslavia's two largest oil refineries, at Pancevo and Novisad, have been bombed to the ground, in addition to the Yugopetrol warehouses. The effect has been increasingly to pastoralise the economy, with agriculture rising from 35 to 50 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, although farmers are said to be suffering from popular fears about the poisoning of food. The price of garlic has fallen to one dinar, from three dinars before the bombing began, and other vegetables have shown similar depreciation. The total bill is estimated by Yugoslav economists at between £30 billion and £60 billion, and Yugoslavia will inevitably try to claim war damages from Nato. Some officials are already planning on the basis that they will receive no such help, and are drawing up "work drives" to rebuild bridges and roads, similar to the reconstruction which took place after the Second World War. The reality is that sanctions and 10 years of Milosevic-style socialism had already done huge damage to the Yugoslav economy. Even before the Nato bombing commenced, economists forecast that Serbia would not achieve 1990 levels of productivity before 2015. In their campaign for reparations, the Serbs also face the problem that they are held by many in the West to be financially responsible for the cost of the Albanian exodus and attendant humanitarian disaster.
[PEN-L:7803] (Fwd) Of G-8, Rambouillet, Compromise and Surrender - Stratfor
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 12:35:35 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Of G-8, Rambouillet, Compromise and Surrender - Stratfor Of G-8, Rambouillet, Compromise and Surrender 1744 GMT, 990607 NATOs permanent council of ambassadors made it official on Monday that the talks between the allies and the Yugoslavs was a standoff and it would be left to the G8 powers to obtain a suitable resolution. According to a source close to NATO the Yugoslav side hardened its position, "just after a Russian observer the Russian military attache in Belgrade arrived in Kumanovo." The G8 foreign ministers are meeting in Bonn today to save the Kosovo peace process and forge a UN resolution to be sent to New York for approval. 1711 GMT, 990607 According to the Scotsman Online, talks in Kumanovo foundered today because of differences on two issues. The sticking points, as of now, appear to be a demand by the Yugoslavs that a 25 kilometer buffer zone between Serb forces and the KLA be provided during their retreat and their assertion that they will be unable to extract their troops at the pace and numbers required by NATO, due to a lack of fuel. The Yugoslavs have also repeatedly turned their attention to the issue of the air campaign, in lieu of discussing troop withdrawal, which NATO maintains is not open for negotiation. 1656 GMT, 990607 Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Monday that his country could not vote for a UN resolution without a pause in the NATO bombing occurring first. Ivanovs spokesman indicated there were still several unresolved problems at the political directors level and a new meeting was scheduled for Wednesday. 1940 GMT, 990606 - The Delay of the Cease-Fire Things seem to have become a bit complex. In spite of NATOs bombastic assertions that no negotiations are taking place, but only the presentation of non-negotiable demands, there are clearly negotiations going on. To be more precise, Belgrade is clearly not, at this moment, prepared to simply accept NATOs terms for ending the conflict. After two days of discussions, talks adjourned again without a conclusive settlement emerging. It is not clear what is holding up the agreement. NATO has hinted that it is simply a matter of timetables. We suspect that there are deeper issues involved. First, there is a question of what Milosevic agreed to. Milosevic agreed to the G-8 agreements. The G-8 agreements required that NATO be subordinated to the UN. NATO is representing Milosevics acceptance of the G-8 compromise as a capitulation by Milosevic to NATO. Milosevic may have been unprepared for the "spin" that NATO put on his acceptance of G-8. In practical terms, he was expecting a UN peace keeping force and found he had brought a NATO occupation. It is possible that Milosevic is genuinely surprised by NATOs interpretation of his acceptance. Under some political attack at home, we must be open to the possibility that Milosevic is in the process of reconsidering his acceptance. Second, there is a potential political crisis brewing in Moscow. Chernomyrdin has come under attack from the Duma for his handling of the negotiations and Yeltsin himself is said to be extremely unhappy that the bombing is continuing. The perception inside of Russia appears to be that Yeltsin caved in to the West. Yeltsin, who sacrifices politicians as a hobby, is quite capable of turning on Chernomyrdin and along with that, on NATO and the agreement. It has been very important for NATO to represent Milosevics acceptance of the G-8 agreement as surrender by Serbia. Otherwise, if the G-8 agreement were viewed as it originally was a compromise between NATO and Russiathen the question would be whether anything was actually gained by the two month bombing campaign. NATOs public gloating over Serb capitulation may have gone too far, humiliating both Milosevic and Yeltsin, and undercutting the credibility of Chernomyrdin. NATO has spun Belgrades acceptance for domestic political purposes. The issue on the table now is whether that spin has made it impossible for Milosevic and even the Russians to go through with the deal. It is possible that the only delays are technical in nature. It is also possible that NATOs public presentation of the agreement has caused second thoughts in Belgrade. The most important question, of course, is whether NATO's gloating has caused second thoughts in Moscow. Stratfor1725 GMT, 990604 NATO Attempting to Redefine G-8 Accord According to Russian news agencies, Moscow has not yet decided how or even if Russian troops will participate in a Kosovo peacekeeping force. Interfax quoted Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev as saying, "The chief of staff and the defense
[PEN-L:7804] (Fwd) NOTHING BUT INDEPENDENCE WILL DO, GUERRILLA ARMY INSISTS
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 10:46:39 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NOTHING BUT INDEPENDENCE WILL DO, GUERRILLA ARMY INSISTS - Daily Telegraph The Daily Telegraph Wednesday 14 October 1998 NOTHING BUT INDEPENDENCE WILL DO, GUERRILLA ARMY INSISTS By Julius Strauss and Juliette Terzieff in Pristina The Kosovo Liberation Army rejected the proposed peace deal yesterday, saying that any solution for the province other than full independence was not acceptable. The KLA spokesman, Bardyhl Mahmuti, said: "We cannot live with Serbia,". The American envoy, Richard Holbrooke, has sidelined the KLA from his peace talks with President Slobodan Milosevic while holding only brief talks with the moderate ethnic Albanian leader, Ibrahim Rugova. But the KLA did offer a ray of hope for compromise yesterday, suggesting that a form of phased independence might be acceptable. Mr Mahmuti said: "We agree to a three-year transition period that would lead to self-determination. If Milosevic accepts this, that would be satisfactory to the KLA." Yesterday on the streets of the Kosovan capital, Pristina, many ethnic Albanians said history had taught them that Mr Milosevic was not to be trusted. Valon Mehoni, manager of a grocery shop where worried customers continued to crowd in to stock up on food, said: "He's just faking. He's never kept his promises before so there's no reason he should do it now." There was no more flour, oil or sugar, and only two bags of rice. One elderly woman said: "I don't believe a word that man [Milosevic] says. He is a liar. I'm going to keep buying." Mr Rugova, a pacifist and head of the Democratic League of Kosovo, did not comment on the plan yesterday. It was not clear if he had been consulted before Mr Holbrooke and Mr Milosevic announced the deal. Dukagjin Gorani, the assistant editor of the Albanian-language daily Koha Ditore, suggested that Mr Rugova's life might be at risk if he signed the peadce deal. He said: "Rugova is Holbrooke's prisoner and he will have to rule through Milosevic. Once he signs the deal he will be at risk, I suspect." A summer of violent Serbian offensives has meant that almost all ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have become more radical and now sympathise with the KLA. Young men have been swelling its ranks, so that, although the KLA has suffered a string of defeats at the hands of the Yugoslav army and Serbian special police, it is not short of manpower. If a Serbian stranglehold on its arms supply routes is lifted it could pose a real threat again. Journalists were surprised this week to see guerrillas immaculately dressed, with new automatic weapons and four-wheel-drive vehicles. Mr Milosevic is opposed to the idea of a phased transition to independence and will probably be looking for Mr Holbrooke to bring the Albanians into line. But diplomats admit that with Albanians outnumbering Serbs in Kosovo by nine to one - and with a higher birth rate - the province will be effectively independent within a decade. Kosovars expect the peace deal to provide only a temporary solution, until new political imperatives force a solution. "I think it's over," said Enver Berisha yesterday as he sat drinking in a cafe. "Milosevic will comply and we'll wait for three years to push for real independence." His cheeriness was echoed by Serb policemen. "I just heard the news on the radio," said one. "None of us wanted to fight Nato. None of us wanted to fight at all."
[PEN-L:7811] (Fwd) MILOSEVIC SILENT ON A PULLOUT AS NATO-SERB TALKS GO ON -
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 16:54:18 -0700 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:MILOSEVIC SILENT ON A PULLOUT AS NATO-SERB TALKS GO ON - IHT The International Herald TribuneParis, Tuesday, June 8, 1999 MILOSEVIC SILENT ON A PULLOUT AS NATO-SERB TALKS GO ON By Joseph Fitchett The United States and Russia faced a potential diplomatic crisis Monday over a pivotal UN Security Council resolution that NATO hopes will provide uncontested international legitimacy for a military presence to replace Serbian armed forces in Kosovo. Daylong talks outside Bonn, led by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Igor Ivanov, the Russian foreign minister, were suspended until Tuesday after Mr. Ivanov said that he needed time to get instructions from President Boris Yeltsin. The talks also included foreign ministers of the other major industrialized countries in the Group of Seven: Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Approval of the resolution by the United Nations would eliminate a problem raised by Serbian military officers in talks with NATO that deadlocked late Sunday and blocked plans for a handover in Kosovo between 40,000 Serbian forces and NATO peacekeepers. Earlier, U.S. officials had voiced concern that Mr. Ivanov was trying to distance Russia from commitments made by Viktor Chernomyrdin, Russia's representative on the Kosovo crisis. Faced with signs that Moscow was reluctant to demand Serbian compliance with the terms set last week by Mr. Chernomyrdin in Belgrade, President Bill Clinton called President Boris Yeltsin early Monday, urging him to give Russian support for a draft resolution requiring complete Serbian military withdrawal from Kosovo and backing an international presence that implicitly would be a NATO- led force. In Washington, Joe Lockhart, the White House spokesman, said that the foreign ministers had made ''substantial progress'' on the text of a UN resolution, but that the United States was ''neither optimistic nor pessimistic'' about the overall movement toward a peaceful solution for Kosovo. Asked whether the slow movement in the military talks for a Serbian withdrawal represented a bump in the road to peace or an unraveling of diplomatic efforts, Mr. Lockhart said, ''It would be foolhardy to try to predict that.'' Asked whether the United States might consider accepting a peacekeeping force without NATO at its core, Mr. Lockhart replied, ''No, that's not negotiable.'' The UN resolution would have the effect of imposing a settlement on Kosovo involving international control of the Serbian province and the return of ethnic Albanian refugees - the core of a peace plan that Western leaders now accuse the Yugoslav leader, Slobodan Milosevic, of reneging on over the weekend. After apparently accepting the basic plan last week in talks with envoys from the European Union and Russia, Mr. Milosevic seemed to go back on his promise via his military commanders in technical talks that broke down late Sunday. ''The Serbs are up to their old tricks; maybe Milosevic telling the army to hang tough and even pretend to revolt against the deal he and the Serb Parliament signed up to,'' a U.S. official said in Washington. Mr. Milosevic could be trying to salvage some concessions on Kosovo, other diplomats added, saying that he might be hoping that the show of Serbian defiance might aggravate political in Moscow and cause a rift in the diplomatic teamwork between the NATO countries and Russia. NATO officials said that prompt Serbian compliance might depend on a strong Russian signal - via the UN resolution - that Mr. Milosevic could expect no help from Moscow. Without suggesting any explicit linkage between Kosovo and the outlook for Western economic aid to Russia, officials noted that the current exchanges were occurring only 10 days before the summit meeting involving leaders of the Group of Seven and President Yeltsin. NATO governments, reacting in unison, took the position that bombing would resume while the alliance waited for new developments in Belgrade, where opposition to the war has reportedly started surfacing strongly. Germany played down fears of a breakdown in the peace process, but other NATO governments reacted more firmly. A French official was quoted saying that Paris was prepared to back ground action by NATO forces in Kosovo, if necessary, without UN approval. As NATO ranks closed, Western leaders focused on maintaining the teamwork with Moscow that apparently forced Belgrade to yield on Kosovo last week - and was now being tested in the talks outside Bonn. The talks, which had been postponed since Saturday, took on fresh urgency
[PEN-L:7809] (Fwd) Of G-8, Rambouillet, Compromise and Surrender
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 15:10:17 -0700 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Of G-8, Rambouillet, Compromise and Surrender STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update Weekly Analysis June 7, 1999 Of G-8, Rambouillet, Compromise and Surrender Summary: Things are becoming curious indeed. When Milosevic agreed to the G-8 accords, we thought this meant he was agreeing to the terms agreed to in Bonn: a UN peacekeeping force under UN command in which some troops would be drawn from NATO, but many others would be from non-NATO countries. NATO, it turned out very quickly, had a different understanding of the Bonn G-8 agreements. NATO was reading it as essentially the same as the Rambouillet accords that Milosevic had rejected. Who had agreed to what is emerging as a mystery of the first order? Analysis: We have argued for the past several weeks that the basic outlines of a settlement are in place and that domestic politics have been holding up a settlement. Neither NATO nor the Serbs could afford to let it appear that they were defeated. Thus, a delicate ballet had to be acted out in which a settlement could be portrayed by each side as a victory or, at the very least, as something other than a defeat. That is why the G-8 agreement hammered out in Bonn was so important. It was a document that allowed both sides to claim that they had not been defeated. For that to work, however, each side had to avoid being greedy. Like a couple sharing a bed in a bad marriage, each had to leave enough cover for the other. What happened this weekend seems to be that NATO could not resist the temptation to take Milosevic's cover away from him. Worse yet, NATO tried to steal Yeltsin's cover. The result is a settlement in trouble, at least for now. Let's begin by reviewing the core issue separating NATO and Belgrade. Serbia had refused to sign at the Rambouillet agreements because of two core issues, both having to do with the concept of Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo. First, Serbia would not agree to the withdrawal of all troops from Kosovo. Some troops, numbers unspecified, had to remain. Second, Serbia was not prepared to allow a heavily armed NATO force to occupy Kosovo. It was prepared to allow a United Nations peacekeeping force into Kosovo. There were other issues, but none were as central as these two. NATO told the Serbs to take it or leave it. Serbia left it. The Russians, essentially supporting the Serb position, entered the discussions. After intense negotiations between primarily the Germans and Russians, followed by broader discussions, the G-8 accords were established in Bonn (the text is available at http://www.stratfor.com/crisis/kosovo/specialreports/special62.htm? section=3 ) The G-8 accords constituted an agreement between NATO and Russia. It was the price that Russia demanded in order to attempt to negotiate a settlement with Belgrade. The G-8 accords were a redefinition of the NATO demands into terms that Moscow felt Belgrade would accept and which could fit into Russia's and Belgrade's core concept of Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo. It was never conceived of by anyone, at the time it was negotiated, as a Serbian surrender. Rather, it was perceived as a center-point between NATO and Serbian demands that would allow for a workable settlement. Russia agreed that an armed force would occupy Kosovo. NATO agreed that that force would be under United Nations and not NATO command. The force was not defined but it was clearly intended that the force would include large numbers of non-NATO troops. It should be remembered that the G-8 accords were pressed on the Americans and British by the Italians and in particular by the Germans. Fearful of an extended bombing campaign, completely opposed to a ground war, and terrified of long-term Russian hostility, the Germans and Italians were the architects of the G-8 agreement. They wanted that agreement in order to find some way out of what appeared to be a hopeless deadlock. They were the driving force behind the G-8 accords and they clearly saw them as a compromise between the Serb position and Rambouillet. The G-8 agreement accepted the principle of the return of Kosovo Albanians to their homes and the creation of an autonomous Kosovo under Serbian sovereignty. But the important price NATO paid in the Bonn G-8 talks was the agreement that the United Nations and not NATO would command and control troops moving into Kosovo. It was not clear what the command structure would be beyond this, nor was it clear what precisely the composition of the occupying force would be. However, it was clear that it would be a United Nations force with significant non-NATO presence. When the Russians first brought the agreement to the Serbs, they focused on the composition of the forces, demanding that no
[PEN-L:7807] (Fwd) TEXT OF PEACE AGREEMENT
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 13:57:39 -0700 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:TEXT OF PEACE AGREEMENT The Associate Press Thursday, June 3, 1999 TEXT OF PEACE AGREEMENT BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- A copy of the Kosovo peace plan approved by the Serb parliament today, obtained by The Associated Press from parliamentary sources. The text was in Serbian and translated by AP: "In order to move forward toward solving the Kosovo crisis, an agreement should be reached on the following principles: 1: Imminent and verifiable end to violence and repression of Kosovo. 2. Verifiable withdrawal from Kosovo of military, police and paramilitary forces according to a quick timetable. 3. Deployment in Kosovo, under U.N. auspicies, of efficient international civilian and security presences which would act as can be decided according to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter and be capable of guaranteeing fulfillment of joint goals. 4. International security presence, with an essential NATO participation, must be deployed under a unified control and command and authorized to secure safe environment for all the residents in Kosovo and enable the safe return of the displaced persons and refugees to their homes. 5. Establishment of an interim administration for Kosovo ...which the U.N. Security Council will decide and under which the people of Kosovo will enjoy substantial autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . The interim administration (will) secure transitional authority during the time (for the) interim democratic and self-governing institutions, (establish) conditions for peaceful and normal life of all citizens of Kosovo. 6. After the withdrawal, an agreed number of Serb personnel will be allowed to return to perform the following duties: liaison with the international civilian mission and international security presence, marking mine fields, maintaining a presence at places of Serb heritage, maintaining a presence at key border crossings. 7. Safe and free return of all refugees and the displaced under the supervision of UNHCR and undisturbed access for humanitarian organizations to Kosovo. 8. Political process directed at reaching interim political agreement which would secure essential autonomy for Kosovo, with full taking into consideration of the Rambouillet agreement, the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and other states in the region as well as demilitarization of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The talks between the sides about the solution should not delay or disrupt establishment of the democratic self-governning institutions. 9. General approach to the economic development of the crisis region. That would include carrying out a pact of stability for southeastern Europe, wide international participation in order to advance democracy and economic prosperity, and stability and regional cooperation. 10. The end of military activities will depend on acceptance of the listed principles and simultaneous agreement with other previously identified elements which are identified in the footnote below. Then a military-technical agreement will be agreed which will among other things specify additional modalities, including the role and function of the Yugoslav, i.e. Serb, personnel in Kosovo. 11. The process of withdrawal includes a phased, detailed timetable and the marking of a buffer zone in Serbia behind which the troops will withdraw. 12. The returning personnel: The equipment of the returning personnel, the range of their functional responsibilities, the timetable for their return, determination of the geographic zones of their activity, the rules guiding their relations with the international security presence and the international civilian mission. Footnote. Other required elements: Fast and precise timetable for the withdrawal which means for instance: seven days to end the withdrawal; pulling out of weapons of air defense from the zone of the mutual security of 25 kilometers within 48 hours; return of the personnel to fullfill the four duties will be carried out under the supervision of the international security presence and will be limited to a small agreed number -- hundreds,not thousands. Suspension of military actions will happen after the beginning of the withdrawal which can be verified. Discussion about the military- technical agreement and its reaching will not prolong the agreed period for the withdrawal.''
[PEN-L:7802] (Fwd) SERBS FEAR MASS KILLINGS BY THE KLA - Daily Telegraph
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 10:48:57 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:SERBS FEAR MASS KILLINGS BY THE KLA - Daily Telegraph The Daily Telegraph June 7, 1999 SERBS FEAR MASS KILLINGS BY THE KLA By Philip Smucker in Skopje Serbs from Kosovo fear reprisal killings by the Kosovo Liberation Army when the Yugoslav army withdraws. They say that Nato is not offering enough guarantees for their safety in the troubled province. Danijela Knezevic, 28, a nurse with two small daughters said: "When I heard about the peace deal I called my husband in Pristina and said, 'This is great. I am coming home soon'. But he didn't share my opinion. He said, 'Be patient and stay there a little longer. The KLA might start to slaughter'." America offered few assurances over the weekend. Ken Bacon, a Pentagon spokesman, said: "Our assumption is that many Serbs will leave Kosovo. I don't think that Kosovo is going to be a very happy place for them." The Serbs, he said, would not be forced out, but that is what most of the 150,000 Kosovar Serbs, some living in the province and others surviving as refugees in neighbouring states, fear most. It is not clear, however, that Nato forces will be able to defend Serb civilians. An exodus of 150,000 Serbs from Kosovo would make a farce of Nato's mission to re-establish a multi-ethnic Kosovo. Most male Serbs of fighting age have remained in Kosovo during the Nato air strikes, many of them fighting on the side of the army and police. Though some Serbs from large cities are not armed, Serbian villagers generally keep at least a Kalashnikov handy at all times. Others have rocket-propelled grenades and bazookas. Serbs now planning their return from Macedonia are not happy about their homecoming prospects. Todor Stankovic, 48 is an engineer from Urosevac, a once peaceful town, which, say Albanian refugees, became an armed camp during the war with Nato. He said: "It will be very difficult for Serbs to defend themselves. People will be forced to move out, they will be harassed at work and we won't be able to find jobs." Adding to growing Serb fears of revenge, Albanian attacks against persons thought to be sympathetic to the Serbian regime began over the weekend in the Stankovec II refugee camp. Several gipsies said to have helped burn Albanian homes were severely beaten in the camp by an angry mob. Christopher Hill, the American Ambassador to Macedonia, arrived on the scene and tried to calm the Albanians by reassuring them that they would soon be going home under Nato's protection. But few Western officials appear ready to guarantee the safety of Serbs in Kosovo. The Serbs are most concerned about the first few days of the peace implementation process when their own forces leave and Nato forces move in. Despite an apparent peace agreement between Nato and Belgrade, Serb and KLA forces continue to engage in fierce fighting inside Kosovo. Western officials estimate that the rebels now have 20,000 armed followers. Nato officials say they hope to plug the security vacuum, but are not optimistic about creating immediate peace in Kosovo. Capt Anthony Kennaway, a British spokesman for Nato in Skopje siad: "We are not saying that when the first troops cross the border we will have peace in Kosovo. We will be in Kosovo to enforce the peace and that applies to both sides. It has been made clear to the KLA that we expect them to abide by our terms." Such statements are met with scepticism. The Serb people, who suffered immensely through two World Wars, have a long history of being persecuted. Zaklina Popovic, 30, a female economist from Pristina said: "Nato will provide no security for the Serbs in Kosovo. My husband is there, my job and my home. But I still don't feel free to plan my return." Under an original peace agreement offered to the Serb leadership in Rambouillet, the KLA was to be disarmed. The wording has now changed to "demilitarise", leading many Serbs to fear that Nato is not serious about disarming the rebels. Ana, 24, a student from Urosevac said: "The KLA is a dangerous organisation that will continue its terrorist activities. Nato said it would discuss their disarmament, but when? And how long a process is that going to be? I only hope that Nato will keep its promise to be the peacemaker."
[PEN-L:7741] (Fwd) THE MODERN EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES - Norman Solomon
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 04 Jun 1999 15:23:24 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:THE MODERN EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES - Norman Solomon THE MODERN EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES By Norman Solomon / Creators Syndicate Once upon a time, in early June of 1999, the man on the throne displayed his moral finery as he complained that "children are being fed a dependable daily dose of violence." The emperor added: "This desensitizes our children to violence and to the consequences of it." Courtiers and scribes exclaimed that the monarch was resplendent in the garb of wisdom. Reporting his statements with reverence, the journalists of the day were generally impressed. They nodded with appreciation for the popular verities. Sovereigns had long made a habit of going on parade while wearing pious garments, and this ruler was no exception. His loud costumes proclaimed how deeply he abhorred violence. Of course, some of the powerful scribes did not care for this particular emperor. They would have preferred the election of a different ruler, cloaked in another style. But they were content to criticize the current ruler for having bad taste in clothing. Meanwhile, there were many prominent defenders. For instance, a gentleman named Anthony Lewis was one of the bluebloods who found the emperor to be quite presentable. Sir Anthony saw virtues and responsibilities. "We are in the war now," he wrote in the New York Times as the spring neared its end, "and for the most urgent political as well as moral reasons we must win." On parade, the sovereign walked with dignity as he showed off the golden fabric of his nobility. Along with other influential scribes, Sir Anthony cheered and bowed while the stately procession advanced, imperial flags rippling in the wind. He wrote death sentences like: "NATO air attacks have killed Serbian civilians. That is regrettable. But it is a price that has to be paid when a nation falls in behind a criminal leader." Somewhere in the crowd stood a little girl and a little boy who were perplexed. They wanted to know why the scribes, so respected and so widely heeded, did not talk about the huge holes in the weave of the emperor's pronouncements. In fact, watching the parade, they wondered why no one mentioned that the royal highness was just about bare. The two kids scratched their heads when the emperor denounced some forms of media for stirring up violence among young people. "The boundary between fantasy and reality violence -- which is a clear line for most adults -- can become very blurred for vulnerable children," the emperor declared at a Rose Garden ceremony. "Why does he prance around with a few skimpy strands of cloth dangling from his shoulders?" the little girl asked. She became more agitated when the emperor's wife stepped forward to deplore a "culture of violence that is engulfing American children every day." The girl began to worry about lacking sophistication. She couldn't find any consistent thread running through the regal assertions. The royal couple kept saying that the culture of violence was bad. But their great enthusiasm for the present war seemed certain to further inflame it. "What kind of values are we promoting," the emperor's wife asked rhetorically, without a hint of irony, "when a child can walk into a store and find video games where you win based on how many people you can kill or how many places you can blow up?" The little boy tried to sort out the whole situation. "It must be a matter of the difference between pretend and for real," he observed. "The emperor and his wife don't want us to play at killing people because we might get confused and actually do it without proper authorization. The point is that we should wait till we're a few years older. Then, we could join the armed forces, and if an emperor wants us to kill some people we could do so, and everybody will praise us." "I suppose that's true," said the little girl. "For a while there, I figured the emperor for a stark naked hypocrite. But the scribes don't seem to see through his finery, so maybe we shouldn't either. Or at least we ought to keep it to ourselves." "The emperor's wearing some fine new clothes after all," said the little boy. "Surely, if he wasn't wearing a stitch, the wise people of the mass media would point that out." "That makes sense. After all, who are you going to believe, the news media or your own eyes?" Norman Solomon's most recent book, "The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media," was published this spring.
[PEN-L:7648] (Fwd) one to read and circulate:STATEMENT FROM CUBAN GOVT --EN
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 11:39:41 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Martin A. Andresen" [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], Peter Bohmer [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Colleen Fuller" [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], Fred Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED], Gunder Frank [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "michael a. lebowitz" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:one to read and circulate:STATEMENT FROM CUBAN GOVT --ENGLISH Return-Path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 09:21:36 -0700 (PDT) From: Jill Hamberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: STATEMENT FROM CUBAN GOVT --ENGLISH /* Written 6:23 PM Jun 2, 1999 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in igc:reg.cuba */ /* -- "STATEMENT FROM CUBAN GOVT --ENGLISH" -- */ DECLARATION BY THE GOVERNMENT OF CUBA On March 5, NATO Secretary General Javier Solana said that the presence of Allied troops in Kosovo was necessary so that the political agreement on that Yugoslav province "does not become a dead letter". On March 14, he said that the resumption of peace talks in Paris on Kosovo were "the last opportunity" for the Serbs if they wanted to avoid the NATO air strikes. On March 16, he stated that "we are at a very critical moment" and that negotiations were progressing "with great difficulty". He warned that "NATO will do whatever it needs to in case this situation evolves in the wrong direction" and added that "the [Paris] talks are not going to last forever". On March 18, the U.S. Defense Department stated that the NATO aircraft and the warships equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles were "in place and ready" to attack Serb positions were such a decision taken. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said that "those troops are in place and ready" to go into action. He added that "this is a significant force and, if they receive the order to take action from the NATO Secretary General [Javier Solana], they could do so very quickly." On March 22, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said, on the situation in Kosovo: "It is never too late to settle disputes or conflicts through diplomatic channels." After so many and such overwhelming and undiplomatic ultimatums, the NATO Secretary General stated on March 23: "The last diplomatic effort has failed." He further added: "There is no other alternative but military action." On that same day, he announced very clearly and in an unusually belligerent tone for a European former Minister of Culture, his only experience as an expert in matters of war: "I have just given the order to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, United States General Wesley Clark, to begin air operations against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." Since the Secretary General issued that order, NATO attacks have not stopped, not even for a single day. On that first night, 371 planes took part in the assaults, taking off from ground bases. Warships in the Adriatic launched cruise missiles. Significant and painful events immediately followed throughout 70 days until today. We shall limit ourselves to pointing out those incidents that are essential to show how, and against whom, this war is being waged and the perils that it could entail. March 25 Russian President Boris Yeltsin called the military action an open aggression and recalled his military envoy in NATO. Russia suspended its co-operation with NATO. Solana stated: "The operation will last for several more days." March 26 Six warships and 400 planes launched missiles and bombs on Yugoslavia. March 29 Five days after the bombing began, 15,000 Albanian Kosovars had crossed the border. A mass exodus had begun. April 2 NATO planes destroyed a bridge over the Danube in Novi Sad, blocking the main freight route to the Black Sea. April 7 The Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, was attacked for the first time. The Interior Ministries of Serbia and Yugoslavia were destroyed, and houses and all their surroundings severely damaged. The emergency ward of a mother-and-child hospital, where 74 children had been born that day, suffered the consequences of a direct impact and was put out of service. The United Nations estimated that 310,885 refugees and displaced persons had entered Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Turkey. The mass exodus was already full steam ahead. Fuel stores, highways and bridges were attacked throughout Yugoslavia. A missile made a direct impact on the town of Aleksinac, causing dozens of civilian deaths and injuries. By that date, 190 buildings devoted to education had been destroyed. The majority of these were primary and secondary schools but they also included universities and student residences. The natural parks of Fruska Gora,
[PEN-L:7528] (Fwd) Blair makes much of 'humanitarian values' but sells arms
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 16:57:58 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Blair makes much of 'humanitarian values' but sells arms to Indonesia which are used against East Timor - John Pilger The Guardian (London and Manchester)Tuesday June 1, 1999 A WORSE SLAUGHTER Blair makes much of 'humanitarian values' but sells arms to Indonesia which are used against East Timor By John Pilger The indictment of Milosevic is good news. The crimes he and his gang have committed make him a first class war criminal. However, try as he may, he has yet to approach the record set by the Indonesian dictator Suharto. According to a study commissioned by the Australian Parliament, "at least" 200,000 East Timorese have died as a direct result of the Indonesian invasion and occupation. That is a third of the population or, proportionally, more people than were killed by Pol Pot in Cambodia. When I travelled through the Matabean mountains of East Timor, beneath endless silhouettes of black crosses etched against the sky, I failed to meet a single family that grieved for fewer than five immediate members. Now the slaughter that began with the invasion 23 years ago has returned. In the tumultuous aftermath of Suharto's forced resignation last year, the new regime headed by his stooge, BJ Habibie, offered the East Timorese a vote on autonomy within Indonesia or independence. What Habibie failed to spell out was that real power remained with the army that Suharto built as a force for colonial expansion and domestic oppression and which has devoted itself to destroying the prospect of a free vote set by the UN for August 8. While the army chief, General Wiranto, gives bogus public support to the "peace process", there is abundant evidence that his officers train, arm and pay death squads to murder and intimidate anyone associated with the independence movement. "Just as it seemed the next generation might not be born in tears," wrote a friend from the capital, Dili, "hope is being snatched away from us." And the Blair government, those noted fighters for "humanitarian values" and against "repressive governments" are up to their necks in it. Britain is the biggest supplier of weapons to the Indonesian military. Everything from surface to air missiles, to anti-riot vehicles and cluster bombs, comes from Britain. In 1997, the joint East Timorese Nobel peace prize winner, Bishop Carlos Belo, came to London to appeal to Tony Blair and Robin Cook. "Please do not sustain any longer a conflict which without these [arms] sales could never have been pursued in the first place, nor for so long," he begged. Their response was to secretly approve 64 new arms shipments to the Indonesian army, using "commercial confidentiality" to justify ministers' refusal to answer MPs' questions. In March, just as the media's attention was concentrated on Kosovo, the government released, without warning, its long delayed annual report for 1998 on arms sales. Although hiding more than it reveals, the report confirms that Labour approved 92 arms contracts to Indonesia up to last December. These include the weapons prized by the Kopassus special forces, which led the invasion of East Timor and are behind the campaign of terror aimed at destroying the referendum. On April 29 Robin Cook routinely denounced the iniquities of "the Milosevic war machine", as 16 Hawk fighter-bombers were secretly delivered to the Indonesian military by British Aerospace. Others will soon be on their way. These were originally approved by the Tories. Last January, the late Derek Fatchett, then foreign office minister, told me: "The legal advice that we had was that we had no power to revoke the [Hawks'] licences..." Two months later, the annual report acknowledged the government's power to revoke licences on page 20. Armed with the same missiles and cluster bombs currently being used to great effect against civilians in Serbia and Kosovo, Hawk aircraft are ideally suited for the mountain passes of East Timor. The foreign office refrain is that the Indonesians would never dare betray their solemn "assurances" and use "our equipment" in their illegal colony. The British taxpayer might object; the Hawks, after all, are virtually gifts under an export credit system designed for tyrants without the readies. Alas, an outspoken member of Labour's opposition front bench gave the game away on May 11 1994, when he told parliament, "Hawk aircraft have been observed on bombing runs in East Timor in most years since 1984." His name is also Robin Cook. Mark Higson, the former foreign office official commended by the Scott inquiry into the arms-for-Iraq scandal,
[PEN-L:7458] (Fwd) RUSSIA SAYS TALKS SIDESWIPED - The Washington Post
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 28 May 1999 12:13:38 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:RUSSIA SAYS TALKS SIDESWIPED - The Washington Post The Washington Post Friday, May 28, 1999; Page A28 RUSSIA SAYS TALKS SIDESWIPED Milosevic Indictment Deepens Pessimism Over Peace Efforts By David Hoffman Moscow, May 27 Russia vowed today to continue to try to mediate between NATO and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic but said that his indictment on war crimes charges had complicated the effort and that the talks were not moving in a positive direction. Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Russian special envoy for the Yugoslav crisis, denounced the indictment of Milosevic as a "political show" and postponed his planned trip to Belgrade by a day, until Friday. He did so after a round of talks here with Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, the European Union envoy -- the latest effort in prolonged negotiations that have yet to produce a postwar plan for Kosovo. Talbott and Ahtisaari immediately left for Bonn. Aides said Chernomyrdin still planned to fly to Belgrade on Friday, and Ahtisaari said later he may join him. While concrete information was scarce, Russian and Western sources emphasized that the talks face difficulties. Russian officials said the three negotiators would meet in a few days to try again. Today's talks, which included military experts, were the outgrowth of several weeks of slow-going diplomacy aimed at finding a political settlement to end the NATO air raids against Yugoslavia and the exodus of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic. A key focus has been on how to create a Kosovo peacekeeping force that would allow refugees to return. NATO insists it must be at the core of such a force, but Russia wants United Nations leadership. There were signs that the West's discussions with Chernomyrdin were difficult, even before his next step of flying to see Milosevic. Chernomyrdin has insisted that he does not want to be just a mailman between NATO and Belgrade. But the West has shown no signs of compromise, putting him in a ticklish position at home. "I have a nasty feeling about the talks," said a Russian source with close ties to the foreign policy establishment. "NATO is making it clear that [a settlement] has to be on their terms, and if we want to, we can join. Chernomyrdin is a bit heavy to go into retirement as a former mailman." In Washington today, Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou also expressed concern that the mediation was hampered by the gap between Moscow and NATO on key issues such as composition of the peacekeeping force. "We have basically given the whole negotiation . . . to the Russians," Papandreou told Washington Post editors and reporters. "They're saying, 'We can only negotiate up to a point, we can't push NATO priorities because they aren't our priorities.' " There were signs that Yugoslavia was looking for mediators other than Moscow to convey its message to the United States. In Washington, Jesse L. Jackson said Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic told him today that Yugoslavia was willing to reduce its forces in Kosovo "substantially and quickly" to 12,000 if NATO first suspended its bombing. NATO has signaled it will halt its airstrikes only after Belgrade has withdrawn significant forces from Kosovo. NATO estimates that Yugoslavia has about 40,000 troops, police and other forces in the province. It has demanded that all of them leave, while signaling some could return for purposes such as to help protect borders and holy sites. Jackson said he had remained in touch with senior Yugoslav officials since playing a key role in winning the release of three American POWs on May 2. Jackson, who said he briefed the White House on his talk with Jovanovic, said "12,000 is too many, but it's still substantial movement. There is some flexibility here." In Moscow, Western sources said Chernomyrdin, accompanied by Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov at today's discussions, faces several obstacles. The first is that his personal relationship with Milosevic is not good; their prior meetings have been tense. Second, Russia's foreign policy and defense establishment is firmly against NATO's offensive and Chernomyrdin has few allies at home and many critics -- especially if he just appears to be doing the West's bidding. Still other roadblocks are today's indictment of Milosevic and NATO's continuing airstrikes, despite Russia's daily pleas for a pause. "We cannot say the situation is developing positively," President Boris Yeltsin's spokesman, Dmitri Yakushkin, told
[PEN-L:7457] (Fwd) CHIPS MAY DIP INTO WORKPLACE SANITY - Windsor Star
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 28 May 1999 11:15:59 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:CHIPS MAY DIP INTO WORKPLACE SANITY - Windsor Star The Windsor StarMay 10, 1999 CHIPS MAY DIP INTO WORKPLACE SANITY By Stephan Bevan, The London Times Big Brother could soon be watching from the inside. Several British companies are consulting scientists on ways of developing microchip implants for their workers to measure their timekeeping and whereabouts. The technology, which has been proven on pets and human volunteers, would enable firms to track staff. The data could enable them to draw up estimates of workers' efficiency and productivity. The firms, understood to include British banks and technology companies, have approached Prof. Kevin Warwick of Reading University, a leading cybernetics expert. He has also been in consultations with Blackbaud Inc, the American software giant. Warwick hit the headlines last summer when he had a silicon chip transponder surgically implanted in his forearm. He was subsequently able to show how a computer could monitor every move he made using detectors scattered around the building in which he worked. In his experiment, Warwick showed how the system could also benefit workers by programming it to switch on lights, computers and heating systems as he entered a room -- and turning them off when he left. The technology is likely to have a strong appeal to companies with high labour costs, for which small increases in staff productivity can have a big impact on profits. It is also relatively cheap -- just a few dollars for each person, according to Warwick. "For a business, the potential is obvious," he said. "You can tell when people clock into work and when they leave the building. You would know at all times exactly where they were and who they were with." Warwick admits people will be "shocked' by the idea of companies asking their employees to have such implants. He said: "It is pushing at the limits of what society will accept, but in a way it is not such a big deal. Many employees already carry swipecards." His research follows earlier experiments by companies, such as telecommunications firm ATT, that showed how smart cards carried by staff could be programmed to relay a worker's position back to a central computer. ATT Laboratories in Cambridge have been working on "smart badges" for two years. They use ultrasound to tell the main computer exactly where the wearer is, allowing their desktop computers and phone calls to "follow" them around the building. The company has, however, stopped short of suggesting staff should have devices inserted into their bodies. The first practical application of such technology is, however, not in humans but in pets. Under the government's new "passports for pets" scheme, which replaces the quarantine system from 2001, dogs will have a microchip implanted beneath their skin to identify who they belong to. Representatives from police forces in the United Kingdom and the United States have also expressed interest in the implant technology, according to Warwick. He believes that submitting to an implant could be made a condition, for example, of being granted a gun licence.
[PEN-L:7455] (Fwd) WHAT'S DEMOCRACY GOT TO DO WITH IT? Norman Solomon
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 27 May 1999 16:33:11 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:WHAT'S DEMOCRACY GOT TO DO WITH IT? Norman Solomon WHAT'S DEMOCRACY GOT TO DO WITH IT? By Norman Solomon / Creators Syndicate A few days ago, the president of the United States openly violated the War Powers Act -- and the national media yawned. The war powers law, enacted in 1973, requires congressional approval if the U.S. military is to engage in hostilities for more than 60 days. As that deadline passed on May 25, some members of the House spoke up. "Today, the president is in violation of the law," California Republican Tom Campbell pointed out. "That is clear." And Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich added: "The war continues unauthorized, without the consent of the governed." But sophisticated journalists in the nation's capital just shrugged. To them -- and to the Clinton administration -- the law is irrelevant and immaterial, a dead letter undeserving of serious attention. In this dark time of push-button warfare, when more and more eyes are getting adjusted to shadowy maneuvers, it's possible to discern a pattern of contempt for basic democratic principles. Forget all that high-sounding stuff in the civics textbooks. Unable to get Congress to vote for the ongoing air war, the president insists on continuing to bomb Yugoslav cities and towns, destroying bridges and hospitals, electrical generators and water systems. Boasting of the Pentagon's might, he pursues a Pax Technocratica with remote-control assurance. Attorney Walter J. Rockler, a former prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials more than half a century ago, is among the Americans outraged at what is now being done in their names. On May 23, his essay in the Chicago Tribune denounced "our murderously destructive bombing campaign in Yugoslavia." "The notion that humanitarian violations can be redressed with random destruction and killing by advanced technological means is inherently suspect," he wrote. "This is mere pretext for our arrogant assertion of dominance and power in defiance of international law. We make the non-negotiable demands and rules, and implement them by military force." With enormous help from mass media, the White House has been able to marginalize the public on matters of war and peace. Reporters and pundits routinely portray top U.S. officials as beleaguered experts whose jobs are difficult enough without intrusive pressures from commoners. More than ever, the American people are serving as spectators while elites make crucial foreign- policy decisions. When military action is on the agenda in Washington, public opinion can be troublesome, even obstructionist. That's one of the hazards of democracy -- or at least it should be. But the Clinton team has learned to mitigate the danger that the public will intrude on the process of deciding whether the United States should go to war. It's a trend that has been accelerating in recent years. In February 1998, key U.S. officials traveled to Ohio State University for a "town hall meeting" about a prospective American missile attack on Iraq. Airing live on CNN, the session went badly from the vantage point of Madeleine Albright, William Cohen and Samuel Berger, whose responses to tough questions seemed inadequate to many viewers. The trio left Columbus with egg on their faces. Evidently, the debacle made a big impression. Since then, leery of any high-profile forum that could get out of control, the White House has not even gone through the motions of consulting the public before launching a military attack -- on Sudan and Afghanistan last August, on Iraq last December, and on Yugoslavia this spring. With warfare on the horizon, President Clinton's attitude toward the American public seems to be: When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it. This approach has met with little challenge from news media. In fact, many journalists in Washington seem to share the view that the public is inclined to be too meddlesome -- and should not be allowed to tie the hands of foreign-policy specialists who may wisely wish to pursue the goals of U.S. diplomacy by military means. While the decision to go to war is momentous, the public has found itself in the role of passive onlooker. Rather than submit to a process of national debate, the White House prefers to present Americans with a fait accompli. One of the effects of the missile attack launched against Yugoslavia on March 24 was to truncate the public debate before it had even begun. When U.S. military action is involved, Clinton's policy-makers seem to regard the public as a sort of unruly -- and perhaps rather dumb -- animal that must be tamed
[PEN-L:7365] (Fwd) RALLY AGAINST THE WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA/MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 27 May 1999 12:41:29 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:RALLY AGAINST THE WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA/MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY ANNOUNCEMENT RALLY AGAINST THE WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA PRESENTS MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY ECONOMIST, UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA, EXPERT ON THE ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE BALKANS, Author of THE GLOBALIZATION OF POVERTY, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms, Third World Network, and forthcoming book, THE ALBANIAN CRISIS, Abele Group Publishers, Rome "Macro economic reforms imposed by Belgrade's external creditors since the late 1980's had been carefully synchronized with NATO's military and intelligence operations. Kosovo's fate had already been decided. Resulting from the IMFs deadlly economic medicine, the entire Yugoslav economy had been spearheaded into bankruptcy. The Rambouillet agreement largely replicated the model of colonial administration and military occupation imposed on Bosnia under the Dayton Agreement. In Kosovo, the economic reforms were conducive to the concurrent impoverishment of both the Albanian and Serbian populations contributing to fueling ethnic tensions. The deliberate manipulation of market forces destroyed economic activity and people's livelihood creating a situation of social despair. The fate of Kosovo had already been carefully laid out prior to the signing of the 1995 Dayton agreement. NATO had entered an unwholesome marriage of convenience with the mafia. Freedom Fighters were put in place, the narcotics trade enabled Washington and Bonn to finance the Kosovo conflict with the ultimate objective of destabilizing the Belgrade government and fully recolonizing the Balkans. The destruction of an entire country is the outcome. Western governments which participated in the NATO operation bear a heavy burden of responsibility in the deaths of civilians, the impoverishment of both the ethnic and Serbian populations and the plight of those who were so brutally uprooted fromo towns and villages in Kosovo as a result of the bombings." Michel Chossudovsky OTHER SPEAKERS ARE TO BE CONFIRMED SATURDAY, JUNE 5TH, 1999 4:00 P.M. VANCOUVER ART GALLERY (north side) Sponsors committed to date: Ad hoc Committee to Stop Canada's Participation in The War in Yugoslavia, Canada Cuba Friendship Society, Canadian Auto Workers, Canadian Action Party, Coalition of Solidarity WIth Peoples In Struggle, Communist Party of Canada, Communist Party of Chile (Vancouver), Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee, Serbian-Canadian Community, Veterans Against Nuclear War, Womens International League for Peace and Freedom, Green Party of Canada, East Indian Workers Association, Connolly Association, Canadian Latin American Association Many other possibles. Contacts: George Gidora 254- 9836 (work) [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Connie Fogal 687 0588 (work) or 872 2128 (home) [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Eduardo Luro [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7366] (Fwd) Selected pieces of analysis of the Kosovo situation from
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 27 May 1999 12:11:47 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Selected pieces of analysis of the Kosovo situation from Stratfor Stratfor Analysis Current Status of the War 2100 GMT, 990516 As the new week begins, it is time to take stock of the war. This is not particularly difficult as we have clearly entered a period of stalemate in which neither side is able to bring the conflict to a close and indeed, for the moment, neither side is motivated to bring it to a close. From the NATO perspective, the air war is not particularly costly or risky. Given the fragility of the NATO coalition, the policy of air war intensification without either a diplomatic breakthrough or a ground war is the lowest risk option. The advantage of this strategy is threefold. First, it keeps open the possibility, however distant, that the Serbs will crack under the bombing attack and capitulate to NATOs demands. Second, absent that, it allows NATO to keep further war fighting options open while also keeping open diplomatic options. Third, as we have said, it also avoids decision-making in NATOs councils. The less decision- making goes on, the less likely the coalition is to come apart. From Belgrades side, the stalemate is also acceptable. First, while daily tragedies occur, from a strictly military viewpoint, the bombing is not affecting Sebias long-term war fighting capability. The light infantry forces that would be used in an extended resistance to a NATO invasion are not being sufficiently hurt by the bombing to force a strategic reconsideration. Second, Milosevics political standing has been strengthened by the bombing. While NATOs psychological warfare staff is trying to generate a sense of impending disintegration in Milosevics support, both among civilians and military, and some war weariness is certainly setting in, it is our view that the sense of victimization at the hands of NATO is sufficient to hold his support together. Appearing to be too eager to seek a settlement may actually hurt him rather than help him. Finally, the Russian internal political situation has become so unsettled that the basic premise that allowed Milosevic to resist NATO has become problematic. It is in Milosevics interests to wait until the situation in Moscow clarifies itself and hopefully the pro-Serb factions reassert themselves, before entering negotiations. Thus, the major tendency is toward gridlock. There are, however, forces on the horizon that can generate movement. On NATOs side, the Italian political situation is deteriorating daily. The government could move into crisis by mid-week over the bombing issue. That political crisis could end the war unilaterally. Should Italy deny NATO the use of its air bases for the bombing campaign, it would signal the end of the war. Italy is absolutely necessary for the war. This means that NATO, in anticipation of the outcome of the Italian crisis, might be forced to seek some diplomatic initiatives. Indeed, the Italian situation is one reason that Milosevic not only might, but must, hold out. It is his major hope for a breakthrough. Yugoslavia has its own pressures leading it to make concessions. While the current situation in Moscow is an argument for waiting, there is tremendous long-term danger there for Yugoslavia. If victory in Moscows political wars goes to western-oriented leaders, which might happen if only for a short time, and Milosevic loses his support from that quarter, his strategic position will deteriorate dramatically. China is simply too far away to matter. A shift in Moscow could trigger a shift in Greece and Macedonia, opening the way to a ground war. In addition, while the air campaign is not decisive, it does hurt. All of these factors cause movement toward diplomacy. The key question continues to be the makeup of the peacekeeping force and the quantity and type of force Serbia will be permitted to keep in Kosovo. It is interesting to us that the discussions on this seem to be going on in slow motion. Discussions that should take hours are taking days. Discussions that should take days are taking weeks. One reason for this is the situation in Moscow and Rome. But the underlying problem is that each side believes that the others problems are more serious than its own. Milosevic hopes that Clintons problems with Rome will cripple him. Clinton hopes that Milosevics problems with Moscow will cripple him. From our perspective, there is an ongoing tragedy here. There is a clear structure for a peace agreement in place. It has been there from the beginning. The discussions have now degenerated to what weapons peacekeepers will carry. The real problem is not one of substantial issues, but of appearance. Clinton
[PEN-L:7367] (Fwd) The US: MAKING FOREIGN POLICY WHILE IN A STATE OF SHOCK
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 27 May 1999 11:56:57 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:The US: MAKING FOREIGN POLICY WHILE IN A STATE OF SHOCK Stratfor Analysis of the Crisis in Kosovo MAKING FOREIGN POLICY WHILE IN A STATE OF SHOCK 1145 GMT, 990527 One of the critical dimensions of the Kosovo conflict is the state of mind of U.S. policy makers. Their view of Kosovo is, quite naturally, part of their general perception both of the world and of their place in it. It is, therefore, important to understand that Bill Clinton and his foreign policy team are experiencing a crisis of confidence of monumental proportions. Actually, saying they are in a state of shock is probably a better way to put it. They have gone in less than 90 days from being a fairly credible foreign policy team to a group in total, and probably unrecoverable, disarray. Obviously it started with Kosovo. They did not expect Milosevic to resist as he has. One result has been the near disappearance of the administrations expert on Yugoslavia and Milosevic, Richard Holbrooke. His nomination for UN Representative stalled, Holbrookes bad advice led the administration into a war for which it was unprepared. However, it has been their China policy that has truly shaken the administration. Sandy Berger, National Security Advisor, was particularly close to the Chinese and a strong relationship with China has been one of the foundations of Clintons foreign policy. Chinas crackdown on dissidents struck the administration as a betrayal of their tacit understanding with the Chinese, and the administration struck back with bitter rhetoric. The Chinese merely hardened their position. The Chinese response to the bombing of their Embassy further stunned the administration. The release of the Cox report has left their China policy in a shambles and the speed of the collapse has left Clintons staff stunned. Add to that the near collapse of relations with Russia at the beginning of the war, German and Italian mistrust of U.S. competence and motives, and we are seeing the near collapse not only of foreign policy, but also of the leadership of the foreign policy apparatus. With the departure of Robert Rubin, the loss of credibility for Clintons foreign policy team is breath taking. Berger is being held by many as personally responsible (along with Janet Reno) for not stanching Chinese espionage. Albright is being treated with increasing contempt in Washington and foreign capitals. George Tenet, head of CIA, was forced to take responsibility for the China bombing incident. After his humiliation over Monica Lewinsky, Clinton was going to use foreign policy to redeem himself. That search for redemption has turned into a nightmare. Clinton cannot fire his top foreign policy advisors in the middle of a war and a foreign policy scandal. Clintons natural inclination, judging from past performance, is to become inflexible in the face of reversal, counting on his ability to out wait and out maneuver his critics. His problem now is that he is not dealing with a crisis of image but a crisis of substance. The war cannot simply be "spun." It requires difficult decisions. Under the current circumstances it is difficult to imagine his senior foreign policy staff having the stamina to think through the situation. They are on the defensive and barely hanging on. That is one of the reasons for the current immobility in the peace process. These guys still cant figure out what hit them.
[PEN-L:7369] (Fwd) DOGS OF WAR - Tariq Ali in The Guardian
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 27 May 1999 12:24:28 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:DOGS OF WAR - Tariq Ali in The Guardian The Guardian (London and Manchester) Wednesday May 26, 1999 DOGS OF WAR By Tariq Ali Outside Natoland, the situation about the war is extremely serious. The Ukraine was the only country in the world to renounce nuclear weapons and unilaterally disarm. A few weeks ago its parliament voted unanimously to revert to its former nuclear status. The deputies claimed that they had foolishly believed the United States when it had promised a new norm-based and inclusive security system. NATO's war on Yugoslavia had destroyed all their illusions. If Kiev is angry, Moscow is incandescent. The military- industrial complex is one of the best-preserved institutions in the country. Its leaders have been arguing with the politicians for nearly two years, pleading that they be allowed to upgrade Russia's nuclear armoury. Until March 24 this year they had not made too much headway. On April 30, a meeting of the National Security Council in Moscow approved the modernisation of all strategic and tactical nuclear warheads. It gave the green light to the development and manufacture of strategic low-yield nuclear missiles capable of pin- point strikes anywhere in the world. Simultaneously the defence ministry authorised a change in nuclear doctrine. First use is no longer excluded. In the space of several weeks, Javier Solana and Robin Cook, former members of European Nuclear Disarmament, have re- ignited the nuclear flame. In Beijing, too, the bombing of the Chinese embassy has resulted in a shift away from the no-first-strike principle. The Chinese refuse to accept that the bombing of their embassy was an accident. They believe that it was a Machiavellian ploy by the war-party in Washington to sabotage any peace plan by ensuring a hard-line Chinese veto at the UN. There are also indications that Moscow and Beijing are discussing new security arrangements. The bombs on Belgrade may well come to be seen as the first shots of a new cold war. As a result of all this, a great deal of diplomacy is taking place behind closed doors. Britain is not part of it because what it thinks does not really matter. Its leaders are used to accepting decisions made elsewhere. That is why there is something surreal about Cook's huffing and puffing and why Blair's promises to the refugees have a hollow ring. New Labour and its media-chorus, having unleashed mayhem on Kosovan and Serb alike, should, at the very least, have the decency and moral courage to admit their mistake and call for a halt to the bombing, which, in the words of the Pope's Easter message this year, has become a "diabolical act of retribution". The real tragedy is that the Kosovo for which NATO supposedly went to war in March no longer exists. Its cities and villages are being bombed to smithereens by NATO. Its population is being pushed out by Milosevic. Even if some of the refugees were to return, a significant proportion, the very people whose talents would be needed to rebuild the region, will probably never go back. Refugees rarely do. Only 10% returned to Bosnia. The scale of disaster is now clearly visible. Every day, as the bombs fall, the situation gets worse. With the exception of Britain, EU countries are pushing for a negotiated settlement, aware that it is the only viable solution. It could have been achieved some months ago if the US had not insisted on a NATO peacekeeping force. The New York Times, writing as recently as April 8, 1999 on the failed Rambouillet negotiations, said: "In a little-noted resolution of the Serbian parliament just before the bombing, when that hardly independent body rejected NATO troops in Kosovo, it also supported the idea of UN forces to monitor a political settlement there." In other words this war has been fought not so much for the safety of the Kosovans, but to assert NATO hegemony and it is now indisputable that it turned out to be a grave miscalculation. Natoland is seriously divided. The isolation of the war party led by Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger in Washington (and supported by Blair and Cook in London) is almost complete. The German chancellor has ruled out his country's involvement in any escalation of the war. The Italian prime minister has excluded the use of Italian soldiers in any NATO operation on the ground unless expressly sanctioned by the UN and backed by Russia and China. The Greek foreign minister has made it clear in public that if NATO sent in troops it would be impossible to use Salonika as a point of landing. In private he has warned that a popular revolt could topple his government if it were
[PEN-L:7370] (Fwd) WAR CRIMES LAW APPLIES TO U.S. TOO - Walter J. Rockler,
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 27 May 1999 15:44:26 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:WAR CRIMES LAW APPLIES TO U.S. TOO - Walter J. Rockler, former prosecutor at Nuremberg War Crimes Trial The Chicago Tribune May 23, 1999 WAR CRIMES LAW APPLIES TO U.S. TOO By Walter J. Rockler Rockler, a Washington lawyer, was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial WASHINGTON As justification for our murderously destructive bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, it is of course necessary for the U.S. to charge that the Serbs have engaged in inhuman conduct, and that President Slobodan Milosevic, the head Serb demon, is a war criminal almost without peer. President Clinton assures us of this in frequent briefings, during which he engages in rhetorical combat with Milosevic. But shouting "war criminal" only emphasizes that those who live in glass houses should be careful about throwing stones. We have engaged in a flagrant military aggression, ceaselessly attacking a small country primarily to demonstrate that we run the world. The rationale that we are simply enforcing international morality, even if it were true, would not excuse the military aggression and widespread killing that it entails. It also does not lessen the culpability of the authors of this aggression. As a primary source of international law, the judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal in the 1945-1946 case of the major Nazi war criminals is plain and clear. Our leaders often invoke and praise that judgment, but obviously have not read it. The International Court declared: To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. At Nuremberg, the United States and Britain pressed the prosecution of Nazi leaders for planning and initiating aggressive war. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the head of the American prosecution staff, asserted "that launching a war of aggression is a crime and that no political or economic situation can justify it." He also declared that "if certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us." The United Nations Charter views aggression similarly. Articles 2(4) and (7) prohibit interventions in the domestic jurisdiction of any country and threats of force or the use of force by one state against another. The General Assembly of the UN in Resolution 2131, "Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention," reinforced the view that a forceful military intervention in any country is aggression and a crime without justification. Putting a "NATO" label on aggressive policy and conduct does not give that conduct any sanctity. This is simply a perversion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, formed as a defensive alliance under the UN Charter. The North Atlantic Treaty pledged its signatories to refrain from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations, and it explicitly recognized "the primary responsibility of the Security Council (of the United Nations) for the maintenance of international peace and security." Obviously, in bypassing UN approval for the current bombing, the U.S. and NATO have violated this basic obligation. From another standpoint of international law, the current conduct of the bombing by the United States and NATO constitutes a continuing war crime. Contrary to the beliefs of our war planners, unrestricted air bombing is barred under international law. Bombing the "infrastructure" of a country -- waterworks, electricity plants, bridges, factories, television and radio locations -- is not an attack limited to legitimate military objectives. Our bombing has also caused an excessive loss of life and injury to civilians, which violates another standard. We have now killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Serbs, Montenegrins and Albanians, even some Chinese, in our pursuit of humanitarian ideals. In addition to shredding the UN Charter and perverting the purpose of NATO, Clinton also has violated at least two provisions of the United States Constitution. Under Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, Congress, not the president, holds the power to declare war and to punish offenses against the law of nations. Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist No. 69 pointed out one difference between a monarchy and the presidency under the new form of
[PEN-L:7372] Arbourg , unfortuantely
This is getting rediculous. Everytine I try to send a message it seems to go adaft, away, and the more I try to answer someone in a stream, the stream seams to get awash, away... This is in response to the comment about Louise Arbourg and the listing of Milosevic by her of an indighted war criminal. This is a terrible conflict of interest in that Arbourg is a candidate for the Canadian Supreme Court and who is responsible for her appointment is by the cabinet who is also a party to the Yugoslav war. Here is Chretien, also alleged to be a war criminal by the charges laid against him before the international tribunal, facing a judge which he nominated for the international job, and which He is now nominating for a national 'supreme court' job, now demanding that the court he has appointed adjudicate his 'crimes'. What criminal nonsense. But of course acceptable in our immoral times. Alas. Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba pen-l
[PEN-L:7368] (Fwd) NATO OFFERS LESSON IN HOW NOT TO MAKE WAR - Lewis Macken
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 27 May 1999 10:54:15 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO OFFERS LESSON IN HOW NOT TO MAKE WAR - Lewis Mackenzie retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie THE VANCOUVER SUN THURSDAY, MAY 27,1999 A soldier's view: NATO OFFERS LESSON IN HOW NOT TO MAKE WAR Forget about launching a land war this year. It is already too late for a fractured alliance to get into Yugoslavia before winter. By Lewis Mackenzie OTTAWA NATO's strategy in Kosovo will be used for generations as an example of how not to wage war. In fact, if students in this year's U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force war colleges had come up with the NATO objectives now being pursued in the Balkans, each and every one of those students would have or at least should have been failed on the spot. I never thought I would be saying this. I served 10 years with NATO forces in junior command and staff positions and participated in eight United Nations peacekeeping missions, the last one as commander of the UN forces that opened the Sarajevo airport for humanitarian relief flights in 1992. When the Kosovo conflict erupted, my experience with both organizations led me to believe that NATO's decision-making process would put the UN's to shame. I now realize that I was terribly naive. NATO, with its 19 members and 19 national leaders, is saddled with some of the same problems that I observed at the UN during the Bosnian civil war. The crisis in Bosnia in 1992 was the UN's first major post-Cold War challenge. Just weeks after our modest peacekeeping force (900 troops initially) established its headquarters in Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital, the civil war broke out. The difficulty of achieving consensus within the 15-member UN Security Council on what we should and could do became all too obvious. Dominated by its five permanent members (the United States, Britain, France China and Russia), the Security Council could only reach agreement if it watered down its resolutions to the point of ineffectiveness. The creation of five "safe havens" that the UN could not keep safe, and the establishment of a "dual key" authorization for air strikes (shared by NATO and the UN) are but two examples of the bizarre decision making that resulted from the Security Council's need to compromise beyond reason. Because of NATO's 50 years of practice and experience, I ex- pected better this time around. But once again the need to please everyone has led to a flawed strategy that pleases no one and cannot accomplish NATO's goals. Much has been written and said about the folly of eliminating the option of using ground troops even before NATO launched its first air strikes against Yugoslavia on March 24. The American people breathed a collective sigh of relief, I'm sure. But I dare say that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was even more delighted. I spent three weeks recently reporting from Belgrade for Southam News and Canadian television, and I interviewed a number of Serbian politicians. Many of them brought up the possibility of a ground war (perhaps to learn something from me), but I had the clear sense that no one considered it a serious threat. By taking that option off the table at the outset, NATO emboldened Milosevic and his backers. Now, suddenly, talk of a ground war is back in the headlines. Pundits continue to dissect U.S. President Bill Clinton's statements, looking for a change of heart. The British are lobbying to position more troops in Albania and Macedonia to be ready for a "semi-permissive" environment (presumably that exists when only some of the enemy's forces want to kill you). The Germans, Hungarians and Greeks still say no to ground troops, and Canada continues trying to keep everyone happy by deploying a small ground contingent (not due to arrive until July 1) while actively urging a negotiated settlement. Sorry, folks, but it's too late to even threaten a ground war. It may sound odd to say so now that the weather has just turned nice, but on the military calendar, winter is at hand. There isn't enough time to achieve the necessary political consensus (remember those 19 national leaders) or enough time to put together, train and supply an inter- national force that could complete an occupation of Kosovo before the nasty Balkan weather sets in (Napoleonic wishful thinking to the contrary). The fact is that it took NATO a month to deliver 24 Apache helicopters to the region and it will take more than two months to send 800 Canadians there, so the rapid deployment of more than 30,000 additional troops and their equipment sounds at this point like a fairy tale. A combination
[PEN-L:7364] (Fwd) Guardian editorial: DISPLACED PEOPLE... HARASSED, BUT NO
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 27 May 1999 15:32:34 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Guardian editorial: DISPLACED PEOPLE... HARASSED, BUT NOT NECESSARILY WORSE The Guardian (London and Manchester)Wednesday May 26, 1999 Editorial: DISPLACED PEOPLE... HARASSED, BUT NOT NECESSARILY WORSE The recent UN mission to Kosovo represented an opportunity for objective observers to test the truth of some of the allegations made against the Serbs since the war began. Sergio Vieira de Mello, its leader, will be reporting in full to the UN Secretary General, Kofi Anan, later this week. The mission had just three days in Kosovo, and members were not able to visit all the areas they had wished to see, but they were able to talk to many displaced Kosovo Albanians. The initial impression, voiced by de Mello at a press conference in Montenegro earlier this week, is that 'there has been an attempt at displacing internally and externally a shocking number of civilians.' The arrival of yet more refugees at the Macedonian border this week shows that this tragic displacement continues. Indeed, whenever a pause in such departures leads to the hope that the uprooting of Kosovans may have ended, it seems that a fresh exodus is reported. But the release by the Serbians at the weekend of a large number of young men who had been presumed murdered underlines with what care these issues should be treated. We do not yet know enough about what has happened in Kosovo to throw about words like 'genocide' or to use the phrase 'ethnic cleansing' without modification. Ethnic cleansing has certainly happened, but whether all of it was fully willed by the Serbs must remain an open question. At one end of the spectrum there is crude counter insurgency war, in which villages in areas where there was Kosovo Liberation Army activity were shelled, police and para-military units moved in, and villagers fled, some of them not stopping until they reached a foreign country. At the other, we have the Serbian authorities laying on buses and trains to the border. What we know suggests that for a year or more the Serbs were certainly ready to clear people out of areas they wanted to deny to the KLA, and did not much care where those people went. How the Nato bombing campaign affected this strategy, apart from quickening the pace of operations, is not clear. Yet it is probable that some of what happened was inadvertent or unplanned. The Serbs cannot be excused, but they should not be accused of crimes for which there is so far no hard evidence. The worse that has been charged might turn out to be true, but we ought to pause before assuming that every accusation made against the Serbs is a proven thing.
[PEN-L:7312] (Fwd) WHAT THIS WAR IS REALLY ABOUT - By Marcus Gee, The Globe
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 26 May 1999 15:45:41 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:WHAT THIS WAR IS REALLY ABOUT - By Marcus Gee, The Globe and Mail The Globe and Mail Wednesday, May 26, 1999 WHAT THIS WAR IS REALLY ABOUT By Marcus Gee Belgrade -- Hats off to Lieutenant-General Michael C. Short of the United States Air Force. Thanks to Lt.-Gen. Short, NATO's claim that the air war in Yugoslavia is not directed at civilians has been stripped of its last shreds of credibility. When he sat down for an interview with The Washington Post last weekend, the general made it plain that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is trying to do much more than just hurt the Yugoslav military when it bombs bridges, power plants and water- pumping stations. It is trying to break the will of the Serbian people and foment an uprising against President Slobodan Milosevic. Here is what he said about how he hoped Serbs would react to the devastation of their country. "If you wake up in the morning and you have no power to your house and no gas to your stove and the bridge you take to work is down and will be lying in the Danube for the next 20 years, I think you begin to ask, 'Hey, Slobo, what's this all about? How much more of this do we have to withstand?' And at some point, you make the transition from applauding Serb machismo against the world to thinking what your country is going to look like if this continues." There you have it, straight from the man in charge of the air campaign. This is no longer a short-term air strike against the Yugoslav government, as it began, or even a long-term campaign against the Yugoslav military, as it became. It is a war of attrition against the whole Serbian nation. The aim is to make ordinary people so miserable, so afraid and so discouraged that they will rise up in anger against Mr. Milosevic and force him to pull out of Kosovo. If NATO's generals can't do the job, the Serbs will do it for them. You have to be here to understand how absurd that is. People in Belgrade are simply amazed at the boneheadedness of the NATO strategy, and when I ask people what they think of it, they sputter with outrage, frustration and incomprehension. A good part of the population already opposes Mr. Milosevic; so those people need no incentive to dislike him. The idea that they might be bombed into disliking him more is laughable. People here are so angry at the bombing, and so involved with the daily struggle to survive under a bombardment, that they have little time or inclination for politics. Even the fiercest critics of the government find the bombing repugnant and ridiculous. After fighting Mr. Milosevic for years, they feel they are being punished for his crimes. While bombs fall all around them, he is safe in a bunker somewhere, more powerful than ever. "I am the mother of a son," one bright-eyed young woman said yesterday as her three-year-old played on the floor. "We are suffering, Milosevic isn't. He has all the cards." The bombing does seem to have strengthened Mr. Milosevic, not necessarily by making him more popular but by giving him a perfect excuse to crush dissent. These days in Yugoslavia, anyone who opposes his regime is called a traitor. The editor of a leading independent newspaper was murdered last month -- a reminder, everyone here assumes, that in wartime it is best not to criticize. The Belgrade headquarters of the opposition Democratic Party has been repeatedly stoned and defaced by a rent-a-mob. In such an atmosphere, a veteran opposition figure told me in a darkened café during a power outage, "to say the opposition should speak up now is a call to suicide." Yet that is just what the allies appear to be saying. Newsweek magazine reported this week that U.S. President Bill Clinton had authorized a plan to use the Central Intelligence Agency to destabilize Mr. Milosevic. As if the systematic destruction of Yugoslavia's infrastructure were not enough, the plan reportedly includes a scheme to train Albanian rebels to carry out a campaign of sabotage in Serbia. Asked about the plan, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman said, "I wouldn't be surprised if we were using it here as part of an effort to bring the war in Kosovo home to the people, the civilians in Belgrade, so that they pressure Milosevic to break and make an agreement with NATO." Okay, so here is the plan. We rain bombs on their heads for a couple more months. Then we send Albanian terrorists to blow up what's left. Then we tell them to rise up en masse against a man whose ruthlessness we have compared with Hitler's. Thank you, Senator Lieberman. Thank you, General Short. Now we know what this war is really
[PEN-L:7311] (Fwd) REPORT FROM THE WAR ZONE - Yugoslavs resolute as bombs f
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 26 May 1999 16:50:47 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:REPORT FROM THE WAR ZONE - Yugoslavs resolute as bombs fall everywhere International Action Center 39 West 14 St., #206 New York, NY 10011 (212) 633-6646 fax: (212) 633-2889 http://www.iacenter.org email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] REPORT FROM THE WAR ZONE Yugoslavs resolute as bombs fall everywhere By Gloria La Riva and Sara Flounders, Belgrade, Yugoslavia La Riva and Flounders went to Yugoslavia May 14 with an International Action Center delegation headed by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. They were accompanied by Pacifica radio news reporter Jeremy Scahill. La Riva, who also visited Belgrade with Clark in the first week of the bombing, is making a video, "NATO Targets." Flounders is an editor and co-author of the book "NATO in the Balkans." Scahill will be filing twice-daily reports from Yugoslavia to over 200 U.S. radio stations. May 18, 1999--Tonight at 11:30 p.m. two huge detonations destroyed Yugopetrol's last remaining fuel-storage facility in Belgrade, a little over a mile from our hotel. We raced to the scene through darkened streets to witness with our own eyes the latest crime of U.S. and NATO forces. The truth is inescapable: this war of aggression on Yugoslavia is a war against the people. Today at the Clinical Center of Serbia, we witnessed patients with truly horrifying injuries. Dr. Vladimir Yucic was about to leave for the heavily bombed city of Nis to perform emergency surgery on injured patients there. He told us, "I am a specialist in liver surgery. This hospital was about to introduce liver transplants. Instead I'm doing amputations on people wounded by bombs." Dr. Sonja Pavlovic works in intensive care. She took us to meet Nada, a 15-year-old girl whose legs had been mangled by a cluster bomb. The child's family is Serbian and lives in Kosovo. Because of the relentless bombing there, they sent her by bus to relatives in Montenegro. The bus was hit by a NATO cluster bomb. She is now paralyzed from the waist down, with shrapnel throughout her body. NATO bombers have a diabolical practice: they drop a second missile minutes after the first, just as rescue teams arrive. We spoke with two men from civil defense who had gone to rescue workers in the army headquarters in downtown Belgrade. As their vehicle approached the damaged building, a second bomb hit. One of the men whispered in great pain that a co-worker had died when they were blown into the air. He said he knew "in a millisecond" that his own legs had been blown off. The other patient, Nebojsa Starcevic, has had reconstructive surgery that doctors hope will save his leg. These two people were courageous not only in their struggle to survive, but in telling us their story and reliving the horror. Belgrade's top official for civil defense was also a patient in the ICU unit. Dr. Pavlovic said, "These men are truly our heroes because they know of the second bombs and still rush to the scene to recover the wounded and dead." During the day, people fill the streets of Belgrade and other cities, shopping, going to work. Life seems normal. But when the air-raid sirens go off, their lives can be turned upside down in an instant. This afternoon at 3 p.m. we stood on a balcony in downtown Belgrade, about to head out to a refugee camp at Rakovica, a suburb 15 minutes away that had recently been bombed. Suddenly the sirens sounded. Within minutes came an announcement that bombs were dropping once again on Rakovica. Yugoslavia has no high-tech weapons that could possibly take on the Pentagon. So what are NATO's targets? In 50 days of bombing, NATO's goal has been to break the Yugoslav people's resistance to an army of foreign occupation--the main demand presented by the U.S. at Rambouillet before the bombing began. The list of NATO military targets includes schools, hospitals, heating plants, communication grids, fertilizer plants to undermine this rich agricultural country, television and radio stations, cultural and religious sites, bus and train stations, and housing units on busy downtown streets. All government and municipal services, fuel supplies and bridges have been targeted. To drive from Budapest, Hungary, to Belgrade we had to take back roads. All the main highways, including bridges and overpasses, had been bombed and were impassable. The countryside is intensely green. Fields have just been planted and new plants peek up in neat rows. Between Novi Sad and Belgrade, we came on a small gas station still smoldering, flames licking pools of oil. Four laser-guided bombs had hit it just hours before. Gas fumes hung heavily in the air. Two gas pumps plus a small kiosk that sold coffee, crackers and plastic quarts of oil were now melted rubble.
[PEN-L:7313] (Fwd) Stop This Horrible Slaughter now!
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 26 May 1999 16:51:18 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Stop This Horrible Slaughter now! Marin Independent Journal Friday, May 21,1999 P.O.Box 6150 Novato,CA 94948-6150 Fax: 415 883 8458 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Stop This Horrible Slaughter now! By Frank Scott "Women and children were killed and scalped, babies killed at their mothers' breasts, and all the corpses were most horribly mutilated The women's corpses were profaned in a way that makes you sick in the telling, and throughout, Colonel Chivington was inciting his troops to commit their diabolical outrages." This is not testimony from Kosovo; it is from a report on the slaughter of American Indians by the First Cavalry of Colorado. We would do well to learn our own history of mass murder before labeling other people as genocidal, especially while we are in the process of destroying another nation of innocent people. In a deadly blend of immorality, arrogance and breathtaking stupidity, the U.S. has inflicted mayhem on Yugoslavians who have done nothing to hurt any Americans. A murderous air campaign is being rationalized as a humanitarian response to the ethnic cleansing which has actually increased in intensity and violence because of this assault. A little understood crisis in the Balkans, much of it provoked by western powers, finds many politicians using the weapon of nationalism to gain power, with Milosevic of Serbia being the main proponent. But it was the Serbians who first suffered ethnic cleansing at the hands of Croatia, which was aided by the US. The Serbians then began their dreadful treatment of the Kosovar Albanians. Now, we are to believe that the suffering which was experienced before March 24 is somehow corrected by the horrible slaughter that has taken place since. Americans have been confused by an endless flow of slanted, one-sided reporting, and the ridiculous use of words like genocide, holocaust and extermination. Media mind managers simply repeat what they are told by the U.S. military and its NATO spear carriers. Brain-dead commentators and pundits offer analysis designed to reduce our minds to mush. The public has suffered a propaganda barrage that may be the closest thing to genocide - the attempted extermination of an entire peoples ability to think. Bloody human limbs scattered among fruits and vegetables from a bombed market in Serbia is reported - for Americans - as collateral damage. Stories of bombed stores, public transit, refugee convoys, embassies and other targets not even remotely military, are first called enemy lies, then excused as mistakes which must be expected in war. But there has been no declaration of war, and this is not war; it is a slaughter. Slobodan Milosevic is a political opportunist of the type who might be quite successful in America. Likening him to Hitler is an abuse of language and logic. Serbia has not invaded other countries or even threatened to do so, and it has no plan to exterminate any populations. It s policy of ethnic cleansing is wicked, and some of its attacks on Kosovar Albanians are terrible. But calling this a holocaust or genocide is a travesty that degrades those who have suffered real genocide, like the Jews of Europe, or the native people and African slaves of the Americas. The ethically challenged president and his cronies bear major responsibility for this carnage, but it is sustained by morally bankrupt bipartisan support. It demands the opposition of all Americans who are still able to think for themselves, and who havent been reduced to being obedient zombies, obeying party bosses and toeing a party line. Too many have already died, and too many are still being killed. It is time for the silent majority of citizens to speak up, and demand that their representatives, whether liberal or conservative, end this murderous campaign. Now! Frank Scott, who lives in San Rafael, is a freelance political columnist and is president of the Marin Democratic Club frank scott http://www.marin.cc.ca.us/~frank/columns email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 225 laurel place, san rafael ca. 94901 (415)457 2415 fax(415)457 4791
[PEN-L:7314] (Fwd) NEW COMPUTER VIRUS THREATENS CORPORATE AMERICA
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 26 May 1999 15:45:25 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NEW COMPUTER VIRUS THREATENS CORPORATE AMERICA The Washington Post Sunday, May 2, 1999 NEW COMPUTER VIRUS THREATENS CORPORATE AMERICA By Bob Hirschfeld A new computer virus is spreading throughout the Internet, and it is far more insidious than last week's Chernobyl menace. Named Strunkenwhite after the authors of a classic guide to good writing, it returns e-mail messages that have grammatical or spelling errors. It is deadly accurate in its detection abilities, unlike the dubious spellcheckers that come with word processing programs. The virus is causing something akin to panic throughout corporate America, which has become used to the typos, misspellings, missing words and mangled syntax so acceptable in cyberspace. The CEO ofLoseItAll.com, an Internet startup, said the virus has rendered him helpless. "Each time I tried to send one particular e-mail this morning, I got back this error message: 'Your dependent clause preceding your independent clause must be set off by commas, but one must not precede the conjunction.' I threw my laptop across the room." A top executive at a telecommunications and long-distance company, 10-10-10-10-10-10-123, said: "This morning, the same damned e-mail kept coming back to me with a pesky notation claiming I needed to use a pronoun's possessive case before a gerund. With the number of e-mails I crank out each day, who has time for proper grammar? Whoever created this virus should have their programming fingers broken." A broker at Begg, Barow and Steel said he couldn't return to the "bad, old" days when he had to send paper memos in proper English. He speculated that the hacker who created Strunkenwhite was a "disgruntled English major who couldn't make it on a trading floor. When you're buying and selling on margin, I don't think it's anybody's business if I write that 'i meetinged through the morning, then cinched the deal on the cel phone while bareling down the xway.' " If Strunkenwhite makes e-mailing impossible, it could mean the end to a communication revolution once hailed as a significant time saver. A study of 1,254 office workers in Leonia, N.J., found that e-mail increased employees' productivity by 1.8 hours a day because they took less time to formulate their thoughts. (The same study also found that they lost 2.2 hours of productivity because they were e-mailing so many jokes to their spouses, parents and stockbrokers.) Strunkenwhite is particularly difficult to detect because it doesn't come as an e-mail attachment (which requires the recipient to open it before it becomes active). Instead, it is disguised within the text of an e-mail entitled "Congratulations on your pay raise." The message asks the recipient to "click here to find out about how your raise effects your pension." The use of "effects" rather than the grammatically correct "affects" appears to be an inside joke from Strunkenwhite's mischievous creator. The virus also has left government e-mail systems in disarray. Officials at the Office of Management and Budget can no longer transmit electronic versions of federal regulations because their highly technical language seems to run afoul of Strunkenwhite's dictum that "vigorous writing is concise." The White House speech writing office reported that it had received the same message, along with a caution to avoid phrases such as "the truth is... " and "in fact" Home computer users also are reporting snafus, although an e- mailer who used the word "snafu" said she had come to regret it. The virus can have an even more devastating impact if it infects an entire network. A cable news operation was forced to shut down its computer system for several hours when it discovered that Strunkenwhite had somehow infiltrated its TelePrompTer software, delaying newscasts and leaving news anchors nearly tongue-tied as they wrestled with proper sentence structure. There is concern among law enforcement officials that Strunkenwhite is a harbinger of the increasingly sophisticated methods hackers are using to exploit the vulnerability of business's reliance on computers. "This is one of the most complex and invasive examples of computer code we have ever encountered. We just can't imagine what kind of devious mind would want to tamper with e-mails to create this burden on communications," said an FBI agent who insisted on speaking via the telephone out of concern that trying to e-mail his comments could leave him tied up for hours. Meanwhile, bookstores and online booksellers reported a surge in orders for Strunk White's "The Elements of Style."
[PEN-L:7315] (Fwd) French soldier of fortune fights alongside KLA - AFP
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 26 May 1999 16:57:04 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:French soldier of fortune fights alongside KLA - AFP Agence France PresseMay 21, 1999 French soldier of fortune fights alongside KLA TIRANA, - "I was recruited as an officer in the KLA as soon as I showed pictures of the Serbs I had killed in Croatia," said 'Jacques', a far-right Frenchman, lying wounded on a hospital bed here, after three weeks of fighting in Kosovo. "I arrived in Albania by boat, all by myself and without any connection, simply because I wanted to go on killing Serbs as I had done in Croatia and in Bosnia. I'm a diehard anti-communist," said the athletic 39-year-old skinhead, his body covered with tattoos. As soon as he landed in the western port of Durres, the former marine went to the Drenica cafe, a recruitment centre for the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). From there he was transferred to the training camp of Burrel, 70 kilometres (40 miles) m north-east of Tirana, which holds about 700 new recruits. "I was immediately appointed instructor of a special reconnaissance group. Ten days later, the KLA told me I was fit to start fighting in Kosovo," he said. "At first I was part of a group including nine foreigners -- several Germans, a Lebanese, a Senegalese, a Spaniard and a Swiss. Our mission was to defend a position close to the frontline, eight kilometres inside Kosovo, a corridor through a valley encircled by the Serbs," 'Jacques' added. But after a first night of intense bombardment by the Serb artillery, seven members of the group asked permission to leave. "They were scared to death, they were vomiting," he said. On the other hand, "even if most of the Albanians, officers included, had never seen action before, they had brave hearts and were very motivated, despite the dire lack of weapons and adequate food," said 'Jacques'. "Their old Kalashnikovs are coming apart while their missile launchers are outdated Russian gadgets," he explained. The 20 or so fighters defending that particular position passed most of their days protecting themselves from the shelling, ducking snipers and avoiding the innumerable landmines. The group also made some brief reconnaissance incursions into enemy territory. According to 'Jacques', Serb aircraft also bomb the KLA positions in this frontier sector of Kosare, overlooking the Djakovica region of southern Kosovo, using fragmentation bombs and toxic gas. The Frenchman, who asked to remain anonymous while claiming his father was French President Jacques Chirac's chauffeur, said the KLA suffers severe losses as "the guys get less than two weeks' training". In order to conceal the scope of the losses, the foreign fighters who are injured are not allowed to go back to their countries of origin, 'Jacques' claimed. Many of them are wounded by landmines or shelling by the Serbs, "whose tactics have not changed since the war in Croatia", he said, showing off a tattoo on his right hand reading 'HOS'. "HOS for Ustashis," the Nazis' Croatian allies during World War II, he said proudly. On May 15 'Jacques' was injured by a fragment of mortar shell. "There were sparks everywhere. I could not feel my leg anymore and I was bleeding," he said. Carried on a stretcher by his comrades along the rocky mountain roads, then put in a cross-country vehicle, he was admitted to hospital in the north-western town of Bajram Curri. Then, given the serious condition he was in, he was flown by helicopter to the military hospital of Tirana. Registered at the hospital under the name of Georges Hassani, he now hesitates between resuming fighting -- once he has recovered -- or going back to France, where former troubles with the police might catch up with him. Even if he said he had received no pay for fighting in Kosovo, 'Jacques' praised the generosity of civilians who on several occasions offered him substantial sums in German mark notes. "I was wounded the very day I was about to get a Winchester 308, a super rifle of great accuracy, excellent for sniping Serbs. This time I didn't have the chance to kill even one", he said regretfully.
[PEN-L:7316] (Fwd) S.O.S.: MAI AND WTO PREPARATIONS ADVANCE IN MEXICO AND O
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 26 May 1999 17:03:20 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:S.O.S.: MAI AND WTO PREPARATIONS ADVANCE IN MEXICO AND OTHER COUNTRIES. Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 From: "Margrete Strand-Rangnes" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: (mai) S.O.S. : MAI AND WTO PREPARATIONS ADVANCE IN MEXICO -- forwarded message, for more information contact "Red Mexicana de Accion frente al Libre comercio, A.C." [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- --- S.O.S., S.O.S. : MAI AND WTO PREPARATIONS ADVANCE IN MEXICO AND OTHER COUNTRIES. The recent ratification by the European Parliament (6 May, 1999) of the Global Agreement on Free Trade, Political Partnership and Co-operation between the countries of the European Union and Mexico, and its appended Agreement on Trade and matters related to trade (the Interim Agreement), containing as they do a clone of the MAI and the themes of the next WTO, mean an advance fro the corporate finance and trade agenda. These agreements were passed without transparency and with a lack of information to the public in European and in Mexico. They were denounced by the coalition of organisations known as "Mexican Citizens on the European Union," by a range of international human rights, labour, environmental, and human rights organisations (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, International Federation of Human Rights, NGOs-Liaison to the European Community, and the European Environmental Bureau). These are trade and finance agreements that lack obligatory mechanisms to guarantee respect for labour rights, human rights, rights of indigenous people, social rights and environmental standards. They include the central issues of the MAI, contents of NAFTA, and the themes of liberalisation of agriculture, forestry, intellectual property rights and governmental procurement that may be negotiated in the framework of the WTO. This model of a Free Trade Agreement (a "NAFTA with the EU"), dressed up with a "democracy clause" which with rhetoric says it seeks to defend human rights and democracy, is the proposal that the European Union corporations may present to Latin American heads of state in the "First Latin America European Co-operation Summit," to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at the end of June. It likely embraces the fundamental aspects of what the Council of the European Union would present as well to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations which are part of the LomT Agreement. The European Union-Mexico agreement, ratified to date by the parliaments of at least eight EU member countries, is not known by many citizens organisations or even parliamentarians. It includes guarantees for the liberalisation of the flows of capital (including speculative flows), guarantees against nationalisation, and external dispute resolution tribunals ; in other words, it provides extreme guarantees to capital and obligations to states. It contains as well liberalisation measures for markets in agriculture, forestry, government procurement, and intellectual property rights that go beyond the commitments achieved in the Uruguay round and the WTO. The evident dangers which hundreds of civil organisations have denounced with respect to the MAI and the Millennium, Round are being filtered beneath the door in two ways: the bilateral agreements on trade and investment such as this Mexico-European Union Agreement, as well as through Bilateral Investment Agreements (on promotion and reciprocal protection of investments). We must denounce them before they are expanded to all of Latin America and the ACP countries. Mexican civil organisations launch a global alert to call on our civil counterpart organisations to put a stop to these actions that our governments are taking against the interests of our peoples. 1. We propose that, together with reinforcing the global actions against the MAI and the Millennium Round, we show our opposition to these kinds of bilateral agreements which are preparing the way for the corporate agenda from our countries and in the name of our own interests. We seek to strengthen such actions as those in favour of the ATTAC proposal that we support as well. 2. We call on all civil organisations, and especially our European counterparts, to send letters to their parliamentarians indicating their concern with respect to this agreement, and in the cases of those parliaments that have not yet ratified the agreement, ask that they not ratify it. In the same way, we ask that the letters be sent with copies of documents by such organisations as the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, International Federation of Human Rights, NGOs-Liaison to the European Community, and the European Environmental Bureau. 3. We ask that all European
[PEN-L:7145] Re: Re: imperialism and Imperialism
Barkley, This is a hell of a topic. I am just at this moment writing up the results of our case study/survey of the legacy of self management in Slovenia (which I will send you for comment before sending it off for publication) and I admit I don't know enough of what has happened in Serbia since I was last there -- everytime I get an invitation to come someone embargoes or bombs Serbia so I can't really find out what is going on, particularly with respect to social and public ownershi of the mop. The last time I was there and able to make some judgement, the situation was decidedly mixed. Paul Phillips, \Economics, University of Manitoba ps. incidentely I am speaking next week on a panel including the former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, the historian Michael Bliss who is "embarrassed to be a Canadian", and the former head of the Canadian force in Kosovo. Every one of the panel is opposed to our current (and NATO's ) genocidal policy in Yugoslavia. I will let you know of the outcome. From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:7129] Re: imperialism and Imperialism Date sent: Fri, 21 May 1999 16:44:59 -0400 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jim, Actually Louis P. has argued that Serbia (or Yugoslavia) is socialist and he has a point. He goes farther than I do in declaring that Milosevic was elected because of his defense of Serbian workers against imperialist privatization threats rather than for his appeals to ethnic chauvinism, and that he should be defended as some kind of leader of the global vanguard of the proletariat none of whose actions can be criticized because then one has become a mouthpiece for objectively pro-imperialist agents. If the US atttacks him (and his supporters (along with a lot of other "collateral" folks)) then he can do no wrong. It is socialist in the old formal definition which I think is quite useful (this is Marx's definition, I believe) of state ownership of the means of production. Now I know that a lot of people on this list don't like that definition for a lot of reasons, either finding it too narrow or too broad, or just plain useless. Thus Louis P. has in the past rejected the idea that such places as Syria or Iraq are socialist just because they have high levels of state ownership of the m.o.p., if I am remembering correctly (and I wish to do so, given how heated we are all getting here, and I like to think of Uncle Lou as a friend these days), Serbia under Milosevic certainly has resisted privatization and has annoyed various outsiders with this stance, although I do not think that David Rockefeller has called special secret meetings of the Trilateral/Bilderburgers to order Albright to zap Serbia because of its threat to global capitalism by its intransigence vis a vis privatization. One other aspect of the current state of the Yugoslav economy, and I ask Paul Phillips to clarify this if he can (asked you before, Paul, but you desisted), is that it is my understanding that there has been some movement back towards central planning and command in the nature of the economy, compared with what was in place under Tito, that is away from market socialism. Although he has not discussed it, to the extent that it is true, based on past positions, I believe that Louis P. would also applaud this also. A remaining issue that is very unclear is to what extent the half-baked remnants of the old workers' management system remain in place, to the extent that it ever really existed which some dispute, something I believe that Paul Phillips is more knowledgeable about than anybody else on this list. I read an account from an Albanian Kosovar who claimed that after the removal of autonomy in 1990 that on the apparently still existing workers' councils that the Albanians could no longer voice their opinions. But that is obviously just one probably biased person's perspective. Barkley Rosser -Original Message- From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Friday, May 21, 1999 3:43 PM Subject: [PEN-L:7122] imperialism and Imperialism Barkley wrote: ... There are deep ethnic conflicts with wrongs committed on both sides [of the Kosova/o conflict]. Outside powers of various sorts have gotten involved in various ways and in some cases exacerbated things, including some parties in the US and Germany in the 1980s and 1990s. This most recent war effort by the US and NATO is simply unacceptable and causing far more death and destruction than anything it is accomplishing. But I am more willing to blame it on misguided incompetence than on some grand imperial scheme to dismember socialist Serbia. What has been imperialistic has been the manner in which it has been conducted and the assumption of the right to conduct
[PEN-L:7125] (Fwd) The origin of the term area bombing
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 21 May 1999 12:20:38 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:The origin of the term "area bombing" Reflections from a friend on the origin of the term "area bombing": For most of WWII the night bombing of German cities and other such targets was the explicit policy of RAF Bomber Command, defended most forcefully by its head, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris, who once said that he considered no bomb dropped over Germany to be off its target. Its greatest American proponent was General Curtis Le May, whose 20th Air Force conducted the aerial bombardment of Japan in 1944-45. In one night on March 9-10 (?), 1945 the B-29s, using incendiaries, burnt out 16 square miles of Tokyo, killing more people than were killed in the later atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With such illustrious precedents, why should it surprise anyone that NATO is moving on to "area bombing", especially if they are running short of cruise missiles and smart bombs?
[PEN-L:7126] (Fwd) WILL THE UN BRING PEACE TO KOSOVO? THE BOSNIAN PRECEDENT
--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent: Fri, 21 May 1999 10:13:44 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:WILL THE UN BRING PEACE TO KOSOVO? THE BOSNIAN PRECEDENT
WILL THE UN BRING PEACE TO KOSOVO? THE BOSNIAN PRECEDENT
By ALAN BENJAMIN
The recent meeting of the G-8 (the group of the seven most
powerful capitalist countries plus Russia) concluded on May 6
with the call to find a "diplomatic solution" to the war in
Yugoslavia. The proposal is to place the United Nations and
Russia at the center of a process that would result in a United
Nations Security Council resolution for "a peaceful settlement."
If such a scenario is played out, would this represent the
beginning of a solution to the horrible suffering endured by all the
peoples of the region? Not by a long shot.
The so-called peace plan that is being drawn up for Kosovo
resembles almost line for line the "peace agreement" that was
signed - with the blessing of the UN (Security Council
Resolution No. 1031) - in Dayton, Ohio, on Nov. 21, 1995,
following the three-year war in Bosnia.
Such an agreement only enshrines the "ethnic cleansing" that
swept Bosnia-Herzegovina, while delivering the region wholesale
to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Though hailed
at the time as a "solution" promoting democracy and sovereignty
for the peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Dayton Accords are,
in fact, the opposite.
What have been the results, three and a half years later, of the
Dayton Accords?
Under the pretense of helping the Bosnian refugees return to
their homeland, 90,000 UN troops (60,000 IFOR troops and
30,000 SFOR troops) were deployed, becoming a de-facto
occupying force exempt from any control by the peoples of the
region. (The exemption from all customs reviews under Article 1-
1-b of the Accords, in fact, has given rise to countless accusations
by local authorities of drug-running by UN blue helmets.)
But what about the refugees from Bosnia? Where are they now?
This is what the European Commission on Foreign Relations
reports in a document published late last year: "Eighty-five percent
of the displaced people still have not returned to their country of
origin. Of those who have returned, 93% have been directed
to enclaves where they represent the ethnic majority. ...
Henceforth, Bosnia-Herzegovina is now made up for the most
part of regions that are ethnically homogeneous." ("The European
Union and Bosnia-Herzegovina," November 1998)
Bosnia, a country where peoples of all ethnic origins had been
intermixed for centuries, was now partitioned under the aegis of
the UN into ethnic enclaves - against the wishes of its people.
Families were divided arbitrarily, prevented from reuniting.
Equally revealing of the true aims of the Dayton Accords, the
Bosnian economy was placed on the auction block of wholesale
privatization.
A report by the Council of the European Union (June 8, 1998)
describes the mechanisms through which Bosnia-Herzegovina has
been delivered to the IMF and World Bank. It states, in part:
"Point 14: The introduction of a market economy is the best
means to bring prosperity to Bosnia-Herzegovina and its people.
This will necessitate a program of fundamental reforms as well
as agreements with the international financial institutions to
guarantee the reforms. As long as Bosnia-Herzegovina follows the
recommendations of the IMF, the European Union will continue to
disburse macro-financial assistance.
"The key elements of a program of structural reforms for 1998-
99 are the reform of the banking system, the beginning of
privatization of the state-owned enterprises, the reform of the
healthcare and social security programs, and the full liberalization
of trade. In addition, it will be necessary to ensure the
flexibility of the labor market and strict fiscal discipline."
The results of the IMF and European Union dictates were
spelled out in greater detail by the French business weekly
Entreprises et Carrieres on April 27, 1999. The article states:
"Bosnia-Herzegovina is about to launch this year a
comprehensive privatization drive, and expects to sell off all its
banks between now and August of 2000. Given the shattered state
of the economy, the banks will either be privatized or they will be
closed. The same will occur with the gas, telephone and electrical
public utilities. After this will come the privatization of the oil,
metal, and agro-processing industries."
Need more be said? Bosnia-Herzegovina has been delivered
lock, stock and barrel to predatory finance capital, primarily to
U.S. capital. The market economy will not bring "prosperity" for
the Bosnian people - any more than it has for the people of
Russia or any where else on the face of this planet.
There can be no doubt. The "peace settlement" brokered by the
UN in Dayton is
[PEN-L:7128] (Fwd) Canadian MP's travels through Kosovo
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 21 May 1999 11:46:54 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Canadian MP's travels through Kosovo The National Post Friday, May 21, 1999 LONE WALK OUT OF KOSOVO ENDS ROBINSON'S ODYSSEY MP says he was first Western politician inside since air strikes By Patrick Graham Blace, Macedonia - Svend Robinson arrived in Macedonia yesterday having travelled through the Balkans the hard way. After driving for two days through a devastated Kosovo accompanied by Serb government officials, the NDP's foreign affairs critic walked alone across the border. During what he claimed was the first visit to Kosovo by a Western politician, Mr. Robinson toured NATO bombing sites and Albanian villages emptied of their inhabitants. Sporting a tie and rumpled jacket and carrying a flight bag over his shoulder, he said: "I was shocked by what I saw. It was a humbling but overpowering experience.'' Less than an hour after crossing the border, Mr. Robinson was jumping aboard buses full of refugees waiting to be taken from Brazde refugee camp to Canada and welcoming them to the ''cold country with a warm heart.'' It is unusual, to say the least, for a citizen of a NATO country to drive from Belgrade to Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, and virtually unheard for someone to make the final leg through southern Kosovo to Macedonia. Mr. Robinson, a pugnacious parliamentarian at the best of times, clearly has grit. Leaving early on Wednesday morning in a convoy of two cars, Mr. Robinson drove on and off the main southern highway out of Belgrade to avoid bomb damage. He passed a UN convoy on his way to Pristina, where he spent the night. On the road to Macedonia yesterday, Mr. Robinson said he did not see a single person in the burned villages along the road. ''From Pristina to the border was devastating. Towns and villages were completely empty, houses burnt and destroyed,'' he said. Despite warnings from the Canadian government, Mr. Robinson made the journey in order to see for himself what was happening in Kosovo. His arrival surprised even Canadian diplomats who had been skeptical that Mr. Robinson would succeed both in gaining permission and navigating the dangerous routes where Yugoslav forces and NATO warplanes have systematically levelled the province. In his bag, Mr. Robinson carried a fragment of a NATO cluster bomb he found in a Kosovo village and that now serves, he says, as a symbol of the political message he intends to convey back home. Once a proponent of NATO air strikes on humanitarian grounds, Mr. Robinson now believes they are a failed tactic and ''profoundly inhuman,'' he said. ''My view is that the NATO bombing strategy has been a profound disaster, a human disaster, an environmental disaster, and a political disaster,'' said Mr. Robinson. ''It has succeeded in crushing and silencing a very fragile and emerging democratic movement.'' Mr. Robinson indicated a negotiated settlement will be possible without providing Slobodan Milosevic, the president, with immunity from a war crimes trial. Like many of the Western journalists who have been bused into Kosovo from Belgrade, Mr. Robinson was given a grisly tour of sites where NATO bombs killed civilians. This is the view of the war that the Yugoslav government wants to show the world even if it requires taking outspoken human rights activists like Mr. Robinson on a tour of areas clearly scarred by ethnic cleansing. Supervised by foreign ministry officials, Mr. Robinson had little unfettered contact with ethnic Albanians while in Kosovo. When Mr. Robinson stopped in the town of Podujevo, he was told ethnic Albanians had fled from NATO air strikes and the fear of ''terrorist'' attacks by the Kosovo Liberation Army. At a hospital in Pristina, Mr. Robinson angered his escort when he refused to see victims of NATO bombings unless he was also shown patients wounded by Yugoslav police and paramilitaries. A doctor told Mr. Robinson that there were no such victims there. In a chilling encounter at the Grand Hotel in Pristina, Mr. Robinson reported talking to six mercenaries working with the Yugoslav forces. The four Russians, one Israeli, and one Ukrainian were some of the hundreds of soldiers, many of them volunteers, who have arrived in Kosovo since the conflict began. ''One of the Russians said to me 'I'm here to kill Muslims,' '' said Mr. Robinson. ''I asked whether they had killed a lot Muslims and they said 'Yes we have killed a lot Muslims -- but only the men, we don't kill the women and children. All Muslim men are terrorists.' '' After
[PEN-L:7127] (Fwd) NATO looking at a fundamental switch of tactics - The Da
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 21 May 1999 12:06:37 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO looking at a fundamental switch of tactics - The Daily Telegraph The Daily Telegraph May 21, 1999 NATO CONSIDERS HALT TO BOMBING Looking at a fundamental switch of tactics By Toby Helm in Brussels and Christopher Lockwood, Diplomatic Editor NATO leaders are considering a fundamental switch of tactics whereby the bombing of Serbia could be halted before Slobodan Milosevic has met the alliance's five conditions for a ceasefire. The move, if agreed, would represent a significant climbdown from Nato's position that its demands must be met in full before the air campaign could end. Central to these are the withdrawal of all Serb forces from Kosovo and the intervention of a Nato-led peacekeeping force. As diplomatic efforts to find a solution intensified yesterday, Nato made it clear that it was seriously considering plans advanced by Massimo D'Alema, the Italian prime minister. These involved a cessation of bombing as soon as a United Nations Security Council resolution on a settlement had been merely drafted. The resolution, being prepared in Bonn by senior diplomats of the G8 countries, could be ready today. Under the Italian plan, bombing would stop before Milosevic had withdrawn any of his 40,000 troops and perhaps even before he had formally agreed to do so, and to allow in a Nato-led peacekeeping force. The bombing would halt before the UN resolution had been officially approved to get round the possibility of a Chinese veto. Following more shuttle diplomacy by Russia's Balkans envoy, Viktor Chernomyrdin, Belgrade stated yesterday that it was ready to accept a peace formula along the lines of the original G8 plan that now forms the basis for the UN resolution. After meeting Mr D'Alema at Nato headquarters in Brussels, Javier Solana, the Nato Secretary General, said the alliance would take his proposal "very seriously". It was "not in contradiction to the position we have taken in the alliance". The drafting of the resolution and the cessation of bombing could be carried out "practically simultaneously". Last night, Mr Solana flew to London to meet Tony Blair and for dinner with George Robertson, the Defence Secretary. The Italian plan was understood to be one of the main items for discussion. At yesterday's Nato briefing in Brussels, Jamie Shea, the alliance spokesman, hinted clearly that the D'Alema plan, or something like it, was under active consideration. Previously, Nato had rejected any such claims out of hand. Mr D'Alema, among the most dovish of the Nato leaders, said yesterday that if bombing was stopped and the Serbs failed to withdraw, Italy would support any military action the alliance wanted to take - including, the use of ground troops. However, he criticised Mr Blair's vocal support for ground troops, saying: "It is a totally useless exercise, a pointless exercise, which is useful only for our adversaries." Last night American sources in Nato were sceptical about the suggested tactical change. President Clinton said: "We will continue our military campaign until our conditions are met. I believe the campaign is working."
[PEN-L:7061] Rosaer on Kurds/Kosovo
Barkely, We have been through this a number of times, so this is my last post on this issue. (Definite, no further, finis, end!!! ;-)) You have demonized Milosevic from the begining. I have been neutral on this issue arguing that Milosevic, whatever, his negatives, was better than the alternatives. Well, we can debate this but, now you are demonizing him, not for what he has done, but what you think he might have done or what NATO argues he was going to do. This is not up to your standard of scholarship which is usually impecable. Milosevic was a conservative with regard to the Bosnian situation and, as we both know, had reached agreement on the political structure of Bosnia before your friend, Zimmerman, intervened and loosed the carnage of the Bosnial war. Don't blame Milosevic for this because the blame lies right in the American State Department. Furthermore, Milosevic was always a conservative in the carnage following the American precipitation of the Bosnian war -- if you look carefully, he tried to restrain the most vicious of the para-militaries (you know who I am talking about) and he was not a supporter of the extreme elements in Bosnia. In fact, his support of the Dayton agreement was a real come-down from so-called 'Serbian interests.' Of course he was rewarded by NATO by the worst ethnic cleansing that the region has ever seen, the expulsion of 50 Serbs from Krajina with the tacit and active support of your government, the Americans. So much for Serb co- operation with Americans who are obviously as trustworthy as a rattlesnake. So don't give me shit about how nasty Milosevic is. He is at least as honorable as your president and, probably, more dependable. I suggested that, given his history, there is no reason that Milosevic should be considered as supporting ethnic cleansing. Your response is, positively, amazing. "Yes but just because he expoused tolerance before, it doesn't mean he hasn't become a bigot since." You are absolutely right. But you do not give one iota of evidence that he has changed his position -- except regurgitate the NATO position that he is an evil man -- without evidence, without example, without any concrete evidence that there is the slightest element of truth in the NATO propoganda ( which we all know from other posts on this list are totally wrong and designed to be misleading.) Barkely, I have always respected your opinions and your knowledge of the Balkans. I don't know what it is that has made your assessment of the current crisis so 'bereft of reasonable judgement' that you have become almost hysterical in your demonization of Milosevic who, probably not a nice guy, would at least be as nice a dinner guest as Clinton, Albraith or Gore, and certainly a better dinner companion than the disgusting Blair and his vermin followers.
[PEN-L:7088] (Fwd) Race Drives Use of Death Penalty in U.S. Judicial System
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 19 May 1999 18:29:53 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Race Drives Use of Death Penalty in U.S. Judicial System, Amnesty International Report Finds MAY 17, 1999 5:00 PM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Amnesty International Christine Haenn, 202-544-0200, ext. 225; Gwen Fitzgerald, 202-544-0200, ext 289 Race Drives Use of Death Penalty in U.S. Judicial System, Amnesty International Report Finds WASHINGTON - May 17 - Application of the death penalty in the United States is racially biased -- and in some jurisdictions is reserved solely for non-white defendants -- a new Amnesty International report concludes. The report cites instances of bias against minority defendants at every step of the judicial process, and describes a U.S. justice system infected with racial prejudice. "Today, whether those charged with crimes in the U.S. live or die appears to be largely determined by the color of their own skin and the race of the victim," said Dr. William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), adding that "state authorities are unwilling to act because of the popularity of the death penalty." Killing with Prejudice: Race and the Death Penalty in the USA, released internationally in Ghana today to coincide with the Fifth African-African American Summit in Accra, notes that while racial discrimination is more subtle than in the past, it continues to play an equally deadly role in the U.S. legal system. Statistical evidence overwhelmingly shows that the judicial system values white life over black: defendants are far more likely to be executed for the murder of a white victim. Of the 500 prisoners executed between 1977 and 1998, more than 81 percent were convicted of the murder of a white, even though blacks and whites are the victims of homicide in almost equal numbers nationwide. The odds of a death sentence in cases in which blacks killed whites has been shown to be as much as 11 times higher than in the murder of a black victim by a white person. "Research confirms the experience of hundreds of condemned men and women -- once convicted of capital murder, being an African American becomes an aggravating factor and almost guarantees the death sentence," said Sam Jordan, director, Program to Abolish the Death Penalty, at AIUSA. Amnesty International has brought the racist use of the death penalty to the attention of U.S. authorities over many years, but findings have been ignored or denied. The organization continues to challenge U.S. authorities to ensure that the equal rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution become a reality for all its citizens. "Visibly racist symbols like the 1950s 'Whites Only' signs would today seem abhorrent to most people in the U.S., yet they silently witness a less visible form of racism: the ever-increasing number of executions of African Americans," Dr. Schulz said. The report cites numerous ways in which racial prejudice can infect a capital trial: prosecutors seek the death penalty more often, or in some cases solely, against blacks; jurors openly use racist terms while deliberating whether a defendant should live or die; prospective jurors are denied the opportunity to sit in judgement of their peers because of their color; judges make racist statements. Recent research into the attitudes of jurors in capital cases sheds a disturbing light on a process that is far less impartial than the requirements of justice demand. It shows that ethnic bias does not always stop at the door of the jury room. Comments made under anonymity by some jurors included: "He (the defendant) was a big man who looked like a criminalHe was big and black and kind of ugly. So I guess, when I saw him I thought this fits the part". "This refusal of the U.S. authorities to admit and address the fact that the death penalty is being applied on the basis of race, ethnicity and social status is a key indication of the extent of the problem," Schulz stressed. While the report primarily addresses prejudice against the African American community in the U.S., it also makes clear that discrimination in the criminal justice system also applies to Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans and others. Amnesty International leaders again called for the abolition of the death penalty. "What we want to highlight today is that racial discrimination pervades the U.S. death penalty at every stage of the process," Dr. Schulz said. "Any political leadership that ignores this reality cannot institute meaningful reforms." "We abhor the deadly relationship between race and executions, and we are convinced that simply maintaining the death penalty encourages discrimination on the basis of race," said Jordan. "Therefore, the best course for the nation is the complete abolition of the death
[PEN-L:7091] (Fwd) ANNAN TAKES CRITICAL STANCE ON U.S. ACTIONS IN KOSOVO -
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 20 May 1999 09:02:43 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:ANNAN TAKES CRITICAL STANCE ON U.S. ACTIONS IN KOSOVO - The New York Times The New York Times May 19, 1999 ANNAN TAKES CRITICAL STANCE ON U.S. ACTIONS IN KOSOVO Washington has not hidden its opposition to UN's efforts to help mediate an end to the conflict. By Judith Miller UNITED NATIONS -- Reflecting frustration over his organization's marginalization in Kosovo, Secretary General Kofi Annan criticized the United States on Tuesday for taking military action without Security Council blessing and China and Russia for having ignored the ethnic purging that led to NATO's bombing. In a speech at The Hague commemorating the centenary of the first International Peace Conference, Annan did not identify those Security Council members by name, but he warned that the inability of the 15-member council to achieve consensus on Kosovo and other critical issues threatened both the United Nations and international peace. "Unless the Security Council is restored to its pre-eminent position as the sole source of legitimacy on the use of force," Annan said, in the text distributed here on Tuesday, "we are on a dangerous path to anarchy." Equally important, he continued, unless the Security Council "can unite around the aim of confronting massive human rights violations and crimes against humanity on the scale of Kosovo, then we will betray the very ideals that inspired the founding of the United Nations." Annan said the "Council's unity and inaction in the face of genocide" in Rwanda was flawed, as was its "division, and regional action" in Kosovo. Both times, he said, U.N. members "should have been able to find common ground in upholding the principles of the Charter, and find unity in defense of our common humanity." A senior U.N. official stressed that Annan was not singling out the United States and its allies particularly for using force without Security Council sanction. The official cited at least six other conflicts in the last five years, most of them in Africa, in which individual states or regional groups resorted to force with explicit council authorization. Annan's speech, he noted, also criticized states for "flouting" Security Council sanctions and other unidentified states for failing to cooperate with the council in "disarmament and nonproliferation," or with efforts by the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to bring war criminals to justice. "This is not a blast at anybody," the official said. "It is a statement of concern about a growing trend -- the bypassing of the Security Council -- which he wants member states to think about." The official stressed that Annan was not abandoning his earlier qualified support for NATO's action. "After 55 days of bombing, he still says that the use of force was necessary," the official explained. Yet Annan's speech on Tuesday differed somewhat in tone and emphasis from his previous statements, which focused more heavily on the human rights abuses taking place in Kosovo. His speech also cited "the emergence of the single superpower and new regional powers" and "the preference for so-called coalitions of the willing" as having contributed to the increasing resort to unauthorized force. Officials at the U.S. mission agreed that Annan's remarks differed from his previous statements on the conflict, but declined to criticize him. "Let's just say we prefer his earlier speeches," one official said. "We share his disappointment that the council lacked consensus and was unable to take action against the Serbs' ethnic cleansing in Kosovo," James B. Foley, a State Department spokesman, said on Tuesday. "And we see as extremely positive his reaction that the bombing was necessary." But Washington has not hidden its opposition to Annan's efforts to help mediate an end to the conflict. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has made clear that negotiations with the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, should be handled through the Russian envoy, Viktor Chernomyrdin, and President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, who represents the European Union and has supported NATO's goals. Annan had considerable difficulty appointing two envoys, Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister, and Eduard Kukan, Slovakia's foreign minister, to help his mediation efforts. Diplomats here said that Washington was particularly unenthusiastic about Bildt's selection because of his critical comments about the NATO air strikes. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Kukan said he and Bildt would meet with Albright in Washington on Wednesday to discuss their role. The State Department, eager to avoid a proliferation of would-be mediators, has urged Annan and his envoys
[PEN-L:7094] (Fwd) IF NATO'S BRIEFINGS WERE HONEST - A Soldier's View
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 20 May 1999 11:50:22 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:IF NATO'S BRIEFINGS WERE HONEST - A Soldier's View The Vancouver Sun May 20, 1999 A Soldier's View: IF NATO'S BRIEFINGS WERE HONEST NATO spokesman Jamie Shea strings a predictable line at his daily performances. Here is what he should say but won't. By Lewis Mackenzie OTTAWA With hope, in the not too distant future, NATO's war with Yugoslavia will be over and we can get busy documenting the lessons learned during the conflict for the benefit of future leaders when they face a similar crisis. Come to think of it, that will probably not preclude those leaders from making the same mistakes, as too many of us turn a blind eye to history's lessons believing that somehow we must be smarter than our predecessors. Dumb conclusion. One lesson that I would put near the top of my personal list would state simply: "Do away with the daily NATO press briefing!" I do not know it for a fact but I suspect that as much discussion goes into preparing the daily briefing as is dedicated to the running of the war itself. Unfortunately, the repetitiveness of the script and the irritating, lecturing style of NATO spokesman Jamie Shea is counterproductive to NATO's cause. By now, those of us who force ourselves to watch the daily performance from NATO headquarters could answer just about every question asked by the media in exactly the same words used by Shea. His responses are so stereotypical they frequently lack credibility. To be fair, I think anyone who had to deal with the same subject and similar questions day after day would suffer the same fate. It's the media's responsibility to search out the real stories and not have them assigned on a daily basis by NATO. If the argument I've heard is true that the briefings are also a message to President Slobodan Milosevic then surely our diplomacy has hit an all-time low. A briefing a week, if there are any significant developments, would be fine. The briefer should be a senior member of NATO's civilian staff, a senior elected representative from one of the 19 member nations, or one of the alliance's military commanders. IBM, Microsoft, General Motors and others, have spokesmen. Military alliances don't need one. However, if NATO insists that it must employ one during peacetime, it should not place him front and centre during a war. Just once, I wish Shea would lose his carefully prepared, ap- proved script and talking points and tell it like it is. I can hear him now: "Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the umpteenth day of the war. We continue to degrade Milosevic's military, the very instrument that keeps him in power, but quite frankly things are not going particularly well. The 19 members of the NATO council met in special session for over 10 hours last night and this morning and I have been asked to pass on their conclusions. "Quite frankly we never expected that we would actually have to bomb Yugoslavia. We knew that Milosevic had cut his losses in Slovenia and Croatia in '91 and turned his back on the Serbs in Krejina and Bosnia four years later. He always compromised when his own position was threatened so we figured he would fold once we pre-positioned our aircraft around Yugoslavia. "When we started bombing we anticipated that he would capitulate after a day or two. I guess you could say that we misread his reaction to our bombing of Serbia proper. Regrettably, just about everyone in Yugoslavia that wanted to see the back end of Milosevic leaving office is now supporting him, not because they love him but because he is the leader of their country which is under attack by outsiders. "Because we expected an early victory we were caught with our pants down when hundreds of thousands of Albanian refugees crossed into Macedonia and Albania. It's a real mess because now there is almost no chance whatsoever that they will be able to return to Kosovo in the near future. "That being said, we have to get them ready for winter which is but six months away, a point reinforced a few days ago by Canadian General Maisonneuve, who just completed six months in the area. The presence of the refugees is putting a lot of stress on Macedonia and Albania and has great potential to destabilize the entire region. "At the same time, we are forced to get in bed with the Kosovo Liberation Army, which hasn't exactly been a paragon of human rights and virtues. Damn, I tell you, this situation gets worse by the day. "We are spending billions, yes billions, on the war and all we get is a bad press when we kill innocent civilians. I
[PEN-L:7093] (Fwd) WORRIED ALLIES KEEP EYES ON THE CLOCK - The Guardian
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 20 May 1999 11:51:24 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:WORRIED ALLIES KEEP EYES ON THE CLOCK - The Guardian The GuardianSunday May 16, 1999 WORRIED ALLIES KEEP EYES ON THE CLOCK Another weekend, another Nato disaster. On Friday, Korisa joined the lamentable list of targets hit by Western missiles and bombs by accident, with tragic results for innocent civilians - both Kosovan and Serbian - and calamitous consequences for Nato's ideological offensive. Once again Nato spent the weekend seeking to minimise the political damage from its latest bombing disaster, the killing of almost 100 civilians in Korisa. Underlying their efforts is the issue with which Western diplomats, politicians and military men alike are now obsessed - time. How much longer will Western public opinion tolerate these deaths and how much longer will they support Nato's hidden sixth war aim - the liberation of Kosovo without the death of a single Nato soldier or airman? The clock is now ticking fast not just on the diplomats, the humanitarian agencies and the generals - all of whom face the task of ensuring this conflict is resolved before the bitter Balkans winter. Diplomacy grinds staggeringly slow, especially since the collapse of the Russian government and the bombing of the Chinese embassy. Trying to strike a note of optimism yesterday, Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, reported that the G7 group of countries were well on the way to providing the text of a draft UN Security Council resolution setting out the terms of a peace settlement. But the Russians, possibly set to lose their Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, are in unpredictable mood and may yet veto the resolution on the grounds that Nato is continuing its bombing campaign. In the meantime it is likely that the US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and the Russian peace envoy Victor Chernomyrdin will go to Helsinki on Tuesday to confer with Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who as leader of a non-Nato country has become the new diplomatic link. They will try to persuade him to accompany Chernomyrdin to Belgrade when the time is right to talk to Milosevic. Ahtisaari's task will be to persuade Milosevic to accept Nato's plan for an international security force, the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo and its other conditions. The signals from Belgrade remain gloomy. There are no signs that Milosevic is yet willing to accept a large scale Nato presence in Kosovo. The only glimmer of hope is that he seems willing to let more refugee agencies work again inside Kosovo, especially the International Committee of the Red Cross. For, both the UN agencies and the military are now obsessed with one thing - the possibility that this crisis could be going on next winter. For the humanitarian agencies the task is to make sure tents are warm enough to withstand the Balkan cold. For the military the task is even more urgent. All the signs from Western capitals and the military leaders in the Balkans suggest the debate on ground troops has reopened. Lieutenant- General Mike Jackson, the leader of the Nato troops on the Macedonian border, has in public played down suggestions that final decisions must be made in the next fortnight if a ground force capable of invading Kosovo is to be assembled in time to defeat the Serbs by October. Cook yesterday acknowledged that time is now a factor. 'We all understand that winter will come round with the change of the seasons, and it also has a very clear military bearing. But it is wrong to say that on 30 May some shutter will come down. That is far too precise and does not do sufficient justice to the capability of the military to respond to emergency situations. We have had our best ever week of the air campaign against hard military assets in Kosovo. 'What is possible depends on what is happening in Kosovo, and in terms of the military campaign inside Kosovo, that is quite successful.' So for the moment, despite the civilian death toll, the air commanders are still insisting they can make remorseless progress in killing the Serb army on the border of Kosovo. The current estimate that Nato has destroyed more than 25 per cent of Yugoslav forces' heavy equipment marks a change from two weeks ago, when officials said they believed 10 to 20 per cent of tanks were destroyed. Nato has also been increasingly relying on B-52 bombers, carrying 51 bombs each containing 500 pounds of explosives, to pound Serb defensive positions along borders that are potential invasion routes for Nato troops. But in the end the decision to send in ground
[PEN-L:7095] Re: Re: L. Proyect on Albanian Kosovars
Louis, I think this is grossly unfair to Barkely. As you know, he and I don't agree on a number of issues but I think your portrayal of Barkely is uncalled for and off the mark. He has a profound knowledge of the Balkans to which I can attest. His interpretation of recent events both of us may question, but that is a different question. I have never understood his fixation with Milosevic and I have made that clear here many times. But he is right. The real issue now is to prevent a ground invasion which will produce a human tragedy on all fronts and most particularly for women and children. The ghastly bombing of the maternity hospital yesterday should make that readily apparent. It is obvious that Blair and Clinton don't care who they kill as long as they triumph. This is the real 'war crime'. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Date sent: Thu, 20 May 1999 18:52:00 -0400 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:7086] Re: L. Proyect on Albanian Kosovars Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Barkley wrote: Well since I've promised to say nothing demonizing about that nice charmer in Belgrade who undoubtedly cries at the opera, allow me to annoy a bunch of people on this list on another front... Look, I took off from work today to write what I wrote, most of it relying on Miranda Vickers, a passionate defender of Kosovar self-determination. Go ahead and write your own fucking version of what happened in Kosovo from WWII to 1989. Be my guest. In the meantime, most of the crap you write seems completely innocent of historical accounts, either pro or con Kosovar nationalism. I am starting to get the picture that the Internet is not a scholarly resource for you, but an escape from scholarship. Perhaps it is amusing like talk radio. "Let's hear from our next caller. Barkley from Virginia. What's on your mind, Barkley?" "I think Milosevic is rotten and the Kosovars are decent." "Anything else". "Nope, that's about it." "Okay, let's hear from our next caller, Benny from the Bronx..." Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:7089] (Fwd) Text of Rambouillet agreement available
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 19 May 1999 16:58:37 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Text of Rambouillet agreement available The full text of the Rambouillet agreement is available: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/dossiers/kosovo/rambouillet.html
[PEN-L:7092] (Fwd) WAS SHE A HUMAN SHIELD OR JUST A NATO MISTAKE?- The Guar
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 20 May 1999 11:51:10 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:WAS SHE A HUMAN SHIELD OR JUST A NATO MISTAKE?- The Guardian The Guardian Sunday May 16, 1999 WAS SHE A HUMAN SHIELD OR JUST A NATO MISTAKE? By Patrick Wintour and Ed Vulliamy in Washington Severe doubt was cast last night on Nato claims that it had attacked a legitimate military target when it dropped 10 bombs on the village of Korisa, killing 87 civilians and injuring a hundred more in the worst blunder of the air campaign. In an attempt to deflect political damage, Nato implied yesterday that Serb forces had either coerced or tricked a 500-strong refugee convoy, travelling through southern Kosovo, to park in a military compound turning them into a form of human shield. Expressing regret for the deaths, the Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said one death is one too many but insisted: 'There were real clear military targets on this site. There were 10 pieces of artillery, armoured personnel carriers, dug-in positions and a command post. 'The Serbs have to explain why so many civilians were so close to what was plainly a Serb military position.' But journalists taken to the area by Serb officals 24 hours after the attack - including The Observer's Lindsey Hilsum - said the site was an open field in which it seemed unlikely that Serb troops would have placed artillery. There was no sign of military activity around the targeted buildings. The only vehicles visible were tractors, and there was nowhere obvious in the vicinity to hide military equipment. One of the survivors told The Observer that the only Serbian officials present before the attack were police who guarded them after ordering them into the building. The villagers had been attempting to flee to Albania during a Serb military attack on supposed KLA supporters, when they were forced to return to their village, and herded into the buildings where many of them were to die. The eyewitness accounts will lend support to critics of the bombing campaign, much of which has been conducted from the relative safety of altitudes above 15,000 feet. A Nato spokesman, General Walter Jertz, said that as the site had been already confirmed as a legitimate military target, the pilot, operating just before midnight last Thursday, did not need to identify individual vehicles. He said: 'When the pilot attacked the target he had to visually identify it through the attack systems in the aircraft. It was night. He did see the silhouettes of vehicles on the ground, and as it was - by prior intelligence - a valid target, he launched the attack.' The furore over the deaths came as an attempt by President Slobodan Milosevic to negotiate himself immunity from prosecution by the International War Crimes Tribunal was summarily rebuffed by the West yesterday. Cook said: 'We cannot give such immunity. Who the War Crimes Tribunal indicts is a matter for the War Crimes Tribunal, and we cannot get into any bargaining that compromises its integrity or authority. Nato reinforced its message of resolve yesterday by announcing an extra 2,300 British infantry, gunners and engineers were being put on standby to reinforce the troops already in the Balkans. In the first sign that Nato may be considering a parachute drop as part of a Kosovo invasion, the Ministry of Defence said 680 of the troops would come from from the Parachute Regiment based at Aldershot. Prime Minister Tony Blair, interviewed by The Observer, yesterday refused to rule out the use of ground troops. 'Nato is busy updating planning for all contingencies,' he said. Asked if Nato soon faced a deadline by which it would have to make a decision on ground troops, he said:'We are all well aware of the harshness of the Balkan winter and the impact it has.' Blair, who is to visit refugee camps in Albania this week, denied he was the hawk within Nato or that he was laying his whole political reputation on the war's successful outcome. He said: 'The whole of Nato and Europe has staked its reputation on this. I believe politicians should do and say what they believe, regardless of consequences.' The latest bombing blunder is bound to increase Russian pressure on the G7 group of industrialised countries to agree a pause in the air campaign in order to open negotiations with Belgrade over a full withdrawal of Serb troops from Kosovo.
[PEN-L:7053] (Fwd) At the Crossroads--an urgent message to the anti-war mov
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 19 May 1999 11:27:56 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:At the Crossroads--an urgent message to the anti-war movement From: "iacenter" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 Subject: 5-18-99 Anti-War Bulletin--International Action Center International Action Center 39 West 14 Street, #206 New York, NY 10011 (212) 633-6646 fax: (212) 633-2889 http://www.iacenter.org email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] May 18, 1999 Anti-War Bulletin from the International Action Center At the Crossroads--an urgent message to the anti-war movement By Brian Becker, Co-Director, International Action Center Is the U.S./NATO leadership planning a ground war? Is the United States administration and the Pentagon now preparing for a ground war; that is, an invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia? There are conflicting signals and deep divisions within the U.S. political establishment about the direction of the war. But the anti-war movement needs to be made urgently aware of the very real prospect of a dramatic escalation. On its face, the ground war scenario may seem unlikely. Clinton could not even muster a majority in Congress to support the bombing campaign, which is designed to make sure that all the bleeding is done by Yugoslavs. Public opinion polls indicate deep skepticism and widespread opposition to the war effort. There are daily "hints" about a possible diplomatic resolution in the big business-dominated media like the New York Times and Washington Post. In a report released on May 17, Agence France Press reports that Germany will not back moves to send NATO ground troops into Kosovo without the consent of the Yugoslav government. The AFP story quotes German Foreign Minister Joschka Fisher as stating "There will be no majority in the Bundestag for sending ground troops." A photo of Fisher being splattered with red paint by angry members of the pacifist wing of the Green Party appeared on the front page of the New York Times and other dailies around the world on May 14. The massive demonstrations that almost turned into rebellions against U.S. government facilities throughout China, following the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, were a powerful signal of the opposition that exists in China against a further escalation. And anti-war protests continue to gather steam around the world. These are certainly deterrents to an escalation of the war into a ground war. But there are other indications that the maniacs in the Pentagon want all-out victory. On Sunday, May 16 the BBC radio reported that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had sent a letter to Defense Secretary William Cohen urging the preparation for a ground war. Newsweek magazine, on May 16, confirms the letter from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Newsweek quotes the Pentagon leaders as "saying that only ground troops would guarantee fulfillment of the administration's political objectives." Is the U.S. preparing a new Gulf of Tonkin "incident?" "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war," is what newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst told his frustrated photographer Fredric Remington, who had wired him from Cuba in 1898 that he could not find the war that he had been sent to cover. Hearst was an advocate of U.S. expansionism. He had wanted the war against Spain in 1898 so that the U.S. could grab Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines from the then failing Spanish empire. The purpose of sending a photographer was to publish heart-rending pictures of Cubans suffering under the boot of Spanish domination. Hearst was not a friend of Cuban freedom. He was an advocate of U.S. colonial expansion. The William Randolph Hearst story is not news. We all learn about it in grade school. It's safe to talk about such brazen manipulation of an event that is a century old. But it's important to remember how the wars of the past evolved, especially as we ponder the endless video footage of the horrific scenes of refugees fleeing Kosovo in recent weeks. And we should be on guard for new levels of manipulation if the Pentagon planners opt for a an expansion of the war with ground troops. It would be naïve to believe that public opinion could not be momentarily manipulated in order to win at least temporary approval for an invasion. At such moments the corporate-owned media normally fall in line, inundating the public with war propaganda. The war makers have always been able to create or utilize a major incident or "outrage" as a pretext to win a temporary support or acquiescence for a war. Often times, these "incidents" are complete fabrications created by the war makers themselves. The mysterious explosion of the battleship USS Maine in Havana harbor in 1898 was turned into the war slogan "Remember the Maine" and the anti-war sentiment that existed then was drowned out.
[PEN-L:7054] (Fwd) GREEK JUDGES' BOMBSHELL VERDICT AGAINST NATO
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 19 May 1999 11:28:05 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:GREEK JUDGES' BOMBSHELL VERDICT AGAINST NATO (located at www.znet.org) GREEK JUDGES' BOMBSHELL VERDICT AGAINST NATO Twenty members of the Council of State (Greece's supreme administrative court) have issued a statement deploring the international crimes against Yugoslavia, which inaugurate a «period of lawlessness» and bring us back to the «eras of the Holy Alliance and the Axis» NATO was found guilty of an unprecedented and barbaric attack against Yugoslavia in a statement signed by 20 high- ranking judges of the Greek Council of State, headed by its most senior vice-president Michalis Dekleris. In this important statement, the judges condemn the NATO bombardments, denounce the international crimes being committed by the NATO countries through this armed attack, and warn that any law passed deciding to involve Greece in this war will constitute a gross violation of the Constitution. For the first time since the bombing began, Greek judges have taken a stand and, citing legal arguments, point out that the NATO offensive against Yugoslavia has inaugurated a period of lawlessness in international relations, bringing us back to the eras of the Holy Alliance and the Axis. In fact, they pointed out that «this attack is accompanied by the revival of black propaganda that attempts to exploit the misfortunes of the refugees to draw public attention away from the violation of international law.» Following is the full text of the statement: 1. NATO's offensive against a sovereign European state, unprecedented in the post-war years, is an affront not only to the ethical principles of Greek and European civilisation, but also to the fundamental precepts of international law. This latter is a legal issue and should not be overshadowed by the moral revulsion that is justly provoked by this cowardly and barbaric attack. On the contrary, this issue is of primary importance and must be clarified in particular by those who have a competent opinion about the Law, since their duty is to serve it. 2. This inexcusable attack is taking place in flagrant violation of articles 1 and 2 of the United Nations Charter, which expressly prohibits the use of violence in international relations, and designates the Security Council (article 41 ff.) exclusively competent in international crises. According to these provisions, but also to the generally recognised precepts of international law, there is no room for self-appointed crisis managers, nor is it permitted, on any pretext whatsoever, for third countries to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. 3. But this attack even violates the NATO Charter, the exclusive purpose of which is collective defence of the area defined therein that coincides with the boundaries of its member states, and which has expressly committed itself in its international relations to refrain from the threat or use of violence in any way whatsoever that is incompatible with the principles and purposes of the UN (article 1). That is, by its own Charter, NATO has been placed under the rule of the UN Charter. And it could not have been otherwise, since no international organisation or alliance can be placed above the United Nations. 4. In addition, both the United Nations Charter and all generally recognised precepts of international law safeguard the equality and sovereignty of all peoples, irrespective of their numbers and power, and do not recognise any jurisdiction on the part of powerful nations to intervene in the internal affairs of weaker nations or to dictate solutions to their own liking. Consequently, however serious the crisis in Kosovo may be, it remains an internal Yugoslav affair and belongs to the exclusive jurisdiction of the sovereign Yugoslav state. Any humanitarian or other interest on the part of the UN, other international organisations or third countries may be manifested only in a peaceful way and by diplomatic means within the context of the UN Charter. 5. And, in this case, the United Nations, respecting these restrictions, remained within its jurisdiction, recommending to the lawful government of Yugoslavia that they fulfil their obligations (Security Council resolutions No 1160/31.3.1998 and 1199/23.9.1998). But behind the scenes, the NATO military alliance appeared in a self-appointed role, and without having - nor could it have had - any competence to become involved in this matter, having first dictated an insolent ultimatum disputing the very sovereignty of Yugoslavia, then launched an aggressive war against this state, demanding that it conform to NATO demands. This attack is accompanied by the revival of dark propaganda that attempts to exploit the misery of the
[PEN-L:7055] (Fwd) Depleted uranium: violence against women and children fo
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 19 May 1999 12:15:35 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Depleted uranium: violence against women and children for millenia to come Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 From: Herman de Tollenaere [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Depleted uranium: violence against women and children for millenia to come In your new newslist, PLEASE do not forget to mention the now confirmed NATO use of 'depleted' uranium in Kosovo/a. Aerolised ceramic DU is an alpha, beta and gamma emitter which can travel up to 20 km. and has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. This is a major nuclear disaster not only for the people of that region but, eventually, for the rest of all living things on earth. The people of Iraq are already suffering the terrible consequences of DU weapons use - birth deformities, cancers and 'lesser' illnesses. American GIs serving in the Gulf War (and their children) have also experienced the horrors of this kind of ionising radiation. Those wounded with DU shrapnel still had uranium in their semen, nine years later. Uranium oxide crosses the placenta and is carried throughout the body in the blood system. Once ingested in air, food or water it is quite capable of shredding DNA strands or doing other genetic damage if one of the particles hits reproductive cells. This is what the United States wants the Albanian refugees to return to! These military men are totally insane. Don't believe their lies about how 'harmless' it is because it is classified as 'low-level' radiation. These are weapons of mass destruction, and we in the peace movement have enormous responsibility for trying to get an emergency UN ban on their use as quickly as possible. Illuminating US congressmen wouldn't hurt, either, since the United States is totally ignoring the authority of the UN. --- Dr. Rosalie Bertell, the respected epidemiologist, writes that: "In 1996 this issue was brought before the Human Rights Tribunal in Geneva and the Tribunal condemned it as warfare. They actually called Depleted Uranium a weapon of mass destruction. I think it might be better called a weapon of indiscriminate destruction but they didn't really have a term for it. I say indescriminate because it will by choice affect women and children. Women have tisses that are more radioactively sensitive like the breast and uterine tissue. Children are closer to the ground; they're growing; they'll incorporate more uranium into their bones when they grow and they also have a longer life span so that the cancers that have a longer latency can be expressed. So it selects out women and children. "Anyway it was condemned by United Nations Human Rights Commission and they have appointed a rapporteur to prepare a brief for the United Nations. It's not completed yet. "The World Health Organization has sent a team into Iraq to look at the aftermath of war but they just went in last fall and they expect to spend two years in study. "So I think you can see that the forces for good here are slow compared to the extent at which this is being used and the rapidity with which it is being used not only in Iraq but Bosnia and Kosovo. "So I would call this to your attention and I would ask you to make this known." Source: Transcript of audio tape of Dr. Bertell's presentation at the University of Tornoto, 6 May 1999. http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11531
[PEN-L:7057] (Fwd) Letter by former prosecutor at Nuremberg war crimes tria
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 19 May 1999 11:35:13 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Letter by former prosecutor at Nuremberg war crimes trials re: Kosovo (Published in the Chicago SunTimes last week -- this version found at www.znet.org) U.S. AGGRESSION Letter by Walter J. Rockler, Former prosecutor, Nuremberg war crimes trials As the bombs, smart and dumb, fall ceaselessly on Serbs, Montenegrins and sometimes Albanians, on bridges, waterworks, electric generation plants and factories, and on trains, trucks and homes, the remorseless crusade for "humanitarianism" presses forward to the applause of journalistic and academic shills. To paraphrase the Roman historian Tacitus, we are busy creating a desert, which we can then call peace. For the United States, alias "NATO," the planning and launching of this war by the president heightens the abuse and undermining of warmaking authority under the Constitution. (It seems to be accepted that the president can order his personal army to attack any country he pleases.) The bombing war also violates and shreds the basic provisions of the United Nations Charter and other conventions and treaties; the attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked Poland to prevent "Polish atrocities" against Germans. The United States has discarded pretensions to international legality and decency, and embarked on a course of raw imperialism run amok. Our alleged concern with human rights borders on the ludicrous. We dropped twice as many bombs on Vietnam as all the countries involved in World War II dropped on each other. We killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in the course of that war. Very recently, in Central America, we sponsored, trained and endorsed the local armies--Guatemalan, Salvadoran, and Nicaraguan Contras--in the killing of at least 200,000 people. We encouraged the Pinochet coup in Chile with the resulting killing of another few thousand or so people, including the democratically elected president. We saw nothing wrong with the Croat slaughter and expulsion of 200,000 Serbs from the Krajina area. We have taken very little stand on the monumental slaughters of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in Africa. We have restrained the Iraqis from attacking Kurds but see nothing amiss in Turks attacking Kurds. We cannot even agree to abandon the use of land mines. In reality when we, the self-anointed rulers of this planet, issue an ultimatum to another country, it is "surrender or die." To maintain our "credibility," we must crush any semblance of resistance to our dictates to that country.
[PEN-L:7058] (Fwd) BOMBINGS REIGNITE NUCLEAR WAR FEARS
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 19 May 1999 08:47:32 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:BOMBINGS REIGNITE NUCLEAR WAR FEARS The Victoria Times-Colonist 13 MAY 1999 page A15 BOMBINGS REIGNITE NUCLEAR WAR FEARS by Dr. Mary-Wynne Ashford I am writing with an enormous sense of urgency and dread. I have just been at a seminar in Moscow, followed by one at the Olof Palme Institue in Stockholm. The meetings have convinced me we are on the brink of nuclear war by the unintentional escalation of the war against Yugoslavia. Only western press and television coverage does not portray the significance of the change in Russian policy regarding nuclear weapons. The media imply that Russian warnings of a looming world war, and their refusal to ratify START II, are the usual political threats to gain concessions from the U.S.A. and loans from the International Monetary Fund. This analysis does not reflect the profound change in public opinion expressed even by Moscow members of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. One of our long-term IPPNW doctors, Dr. Davidenko, has changed from advocating nuclear disarmament to advocating nuclear deterrence for Russia. Our meeting with Aleksander Arbatov, deputy chairman of the Defence Committee of the Russian State Duma, left us deeply concerned. Arbatov stated that U.S.-Russian relations, in the wake of NATO's bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, are at the "worst, most acute, most dangerous juncture since the U.S.-Soviet Berlin and Cuban missile crises." He states that START II is dead, co- operation with NATO is frozen, co-operation on missile defence is out of the question, and Moscow's willingness to co-operate on non-proliferation issues is at an all-time low. Moreover, anti-U.S. sentiment in Russia is real, deep and more wide-spread than ever, and the slogan describing NATO action - "today Serbia, tomorrow Russia," is "deeply planted in Russian's minds." Arbatov was bitter about 10 years of wasted opportunities on both sides, with disarmament talks completely stalled even before this crisis. Scientist, politicians, doctors and generals all told us the same thing, that NATO bombings of Serbia have set back disarmament 20 years. Some said that India and Pakistan are safe now they have nuclear weapons and that other states like North Korea will step up their nuclear weapons programs. Officials from Minatom, the Russian atomic energy agency, have indicated their great concern about some 22 nuclear reactors in the region of conflict. A bomb hitting a reactor by accident would cause a catastrophe worse than Chernobyl. Government spokesmen told us repeatedly that Russia will not allow the bombings to continue for another month, and that because their conventional forces are in tatters, Russia must rely on its nuclear weapons. I must ask, "if these are idle threats, what distinguishes them from real threats?" The credibility of the people we spoke with has convinced me that the threats are serious. Opinion is divided in most countries, even in peace organizations, about whether the NATO bombings were a humanitarian effort to stop a genocide or an act of aggression by NATO, but their impact on nuclear weapons policy is an extremely serious development. Most worrisome to us was the consistency of the statements from speakers at the Moscow seminar and those we met later in ministries of foreign affairs and health. The single exception was Dr. Evgenie Chazov. He said we must renew our efforts for nuclear disarmament in this very dangerous situation. Dr. Chazov said we are back where we were in 1981 when he and American cardiologist Dr. Bernard Lown founded IPPNW, but our work will be more difficult now. The Russian speakers deplored ethnic cleansing and did not support Milosovic, but Dr. Serguei Kapitsa, a scientist famous for his weekly television show, stated that Russians feel a sense of betrayal by the West and a profound loss of confidence in treaties and in the United Nations because NATO took this action outside the UN. Previously confident that Russia was moving toward integration with Europe, they focused their security concerns only on their southern and eastern boundaries. Now they perceive their primary threat from the West. Officials in Foreign Affairs (Arms Control and Disarmament) told us that Russia has no option but to rely on nuclear weapons for its defence because its conventional forces are inadequate. When I said that if Russia used even a single nuclear weapon the U.S.A. would respond with hundreds or thousands of missiles, they nodded and said "Yes, it would be suicidal, but how else can we defend ourselves?" As I left Moscow, I felt the
[PEN-L:7060] (Fwd) Urgent! Peace Mission to Yugoslavia
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 18 May 1999 15:01:02 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Urgent! Peace Mission to Yugoslavia From: "End the Arms Race" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Urgent! Peace Mission to Yugoslavia Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 Humanitarian and Fact-finding Mission to Yugloslavia End the Arms Race, working in conjunction with a medical mission from St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church, is sending a team to Yugoslavia later this week. The team will travel throughout the country delivering medicine and medical supplies to nine hospitals in the Kosovo and Serbian regions. End the Arms Race President, Peter Coombes, along with documentary videographer, Mary Frymire, will document the destruction of the war against Yugoslavia. They will meet with and interview people with the assistance of their guide, Dr. Sanja Savic Kallesoe. The team will be entering Yugoslavia and carrying a message of peace on behalf of all of us who are opposed to this war. They are making the trip at great personal risk - because of their deep commitment to peace, their concern for the well-being of the people of Yugoslavia, and their firm belief that we must take control of our own information gathering so that the full truth about this war can be captured on video and known to people throughout the world. We need your help and support for this mission. If anyone can help us to locate a geiger counter, water testing equipment or vials for transporting water samples, or a global positioning monitor, we would deeply appreciate your guidance or assistance. If you have any suggestions on other tests or activities that could be undertaken on this trip, please let us know ASAP. A mission of this nature is costly - and funds will be required to edit and produce the video upon the team's return. If you or your organization are able to make a contribution towards this mission, please send it to: End the Arms Race, 405 - 825 Granville Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6Z 1K9 Tel: (604) 687-3223 Fax: (604) 687-3277. All of those making contributions of $100.00 or more will be listed in the video produced by End the Arms Race as supporters of the project (i.e. both the mission and the video). We sincerely hope that we can count on your support for this important project. Jillian Skeet Coordinator P.S. For those of you who do not know, End the Arms Race has produced two highly acclaimed videos: Deep Water Danger (narrated by David Suzuki) and Bombs Away (narrated by Murray Dobbin). We also produced a short 5 minute video of the Citizen's Weapons Inspection of the Bangor nuclear base in Washington state.
[PEN-L:7059] (Fwd) Urgent Action appeal from Amnesty International
Obviously we should bomb Mexico City! --- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 18 May 1999 14:42:41 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Urgent Action appeal from Amnesty International Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 Subject: UA 111/99 Mexico From: Marilyn McKim [EMAIL PROTECTED] Essential accents for this email version: Acute (/) accent on a in Vazquez, a in Sanchez e in San Jose first e in Tellez second e in Rene, a in Juarez (Governor) I in Diaz, I in Garcia (Attorney General) e in Mexico PUBLIC AI Index: AMR 41/08/99 UA 111/99 Fear for safety/Extrajudicial execution 17 May 1999 MEXICO Francisca Santos Pablo (f), 33 Victoriana Vazquez Sanchez (f), 50 Community of Barrio Nuevo San Jose Killed: Antonio Mendoza Olivero, 12 Evaristo Albino Tellez, 27 Amnesty International is calling on the Mexican authorities to protect the entire Mixteca indigenous community of Barrio Nuevo San Jose, in Guerrero state, after members of the Mexican armed forces apparently summarily killed two men and raped two women from the community. According to reports on 21 April 1999, Evaristo Albino Tellez and Antonio Mendoza Olivero left Barrio Nuevo San Jose, part of the autonomous municipality of Rancho Nuevo Democracia, to harvest their crops. As they had not returned home the following day, Francisca Santos Pablo, Evaristo's sister in law, and Victoriana Vazquez Sanchez, Antonio's grandmother, went to look for them. Near their plots of land the women found a military. The women tried to run away, but report that the soldiers caught and raped them. Both women managed to return to Barrio Nuevo San Jose, and told community leaders what had happened. Because they feared further attacks, members of the community were only able to visit the site of the camp on 28 April 1999, once the soldiers had left. They apparently found bloodstained military gloves and sandals that belonged to either Antonio or Evaristo. On 27 April, members of the community attempted to report what had happened to both the State and National Commissions of Human Rights. The State Commission warned them not to pursue the case, which they interpreted as a threat. For two days a lower court judge refused to accept their request to obtain the equivalent of a writ of habeas corpus, demanding that both Antonio and Evaristo be presented before the authorities. On 7 May, a full 17 days after they had last been seen, the State Commission for Human Rights apparently informed Evaristo and Antonio's relatives that they had been killed by soldiers, who claim the two attacked them with guns. The Public Prosecutor's Office in Ometepec, Guerrero, where the army took the bodies, knew of the deaths long before the families and community members were told. When the families went to the Servicio Medico Forense (SEMFO), Forensic Medical Service, in Acapulco, Guerrero to retrieve the bodies, they found that Antonio had apparently died of blood loss from a single bullet wound to the leg. Amnesty International has received reports of increased troop movements near Barrio Nuevo San Jose since 8 May, increasing fears for the safety of the community and others living in the region. BACKGROUND INFORMATION Reports of violence by the Mexican security forces in Guerrero, including attacks on Mixteca activists campaigning for autonomy, date back to the Aguas Blancas massacre of June 1995, when 17 peasants were killed in an ambush set by state police and government officials. In a 1998 report the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concluded that "the emergence of new dissident armed groups of various types has led not only to a resumption of measures of control by the security forces but also to the indiscriminate repression of social organizations and leaders". RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send telegrams/faxes/airmail letters in Spanish or your own language: - asking the authorities to take adequate measures to guarantee the safety of Francisca Santos Pablo, Victoriana Vazquez Sanchez and all the Mixteca indigenous community of Barrio Nuevo San Jose; - calling on the Governor of Guerrero to open an independent and thorough investigation into the involvement of members of the armed forces in these events, suspend from duty those under investigation, make all results and prosecute those found responsible in a civil court; - calling on the authorities to clarify any irregularities in due process that occurred surrounding the notification, investigation and forensic procedures in this case; - reminding the Mexican authorities that in August 1998 the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities called on them to combat "the impunity of perpetrators of serious human rights violations,
[PEN-L:7056] (Fwd) BRITISH INTERNATIONAL LAW EXPERT DRAFTS ARTICLES OF INDI
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 19 May 1999 12:29:38 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:BRITISH INTERNATIONAL LAW EXPERT DRAFTS ARTICLES OF INDICTMENT FOR WAR CRIMES BY NATO LEADERS http://www.counterpunch.org/warcrimes.html BRITISH INTERNATIONAL LAW EXPERT DRAFTS ARTICLES OF INDICTMENT FOR WAR CRIMES BY NATO LEADERS CAMBRIDGE, May 3 - A British international law expert from the faculty of social and political sciences at the Cambridge University, has drafted articles of indictment against some of the NATO leaders for waging war on Serbia. Glen Rangwala, whose coordinates are enclosed below, is soliciting input from all parties who can help him embellish his case for criminal prosecution of NATO leaders who are prosecuting this illegal war against Serbia. So far, Mr. Rangwala has drafted the following submission to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, requesting the indictment of Prime Minister, Tony Blair, Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, and Defense Secretary, George Robertson, of the United Kingdom: To Part I of the submission: Background, The Accused, General Allegations, and General Legal Issues To Part II of the submission: Counts 1-3 To Part III of the submission: Counts 4-6 Please note that this submission is still at the draft stage. More information about NATO atrocities is required before a viable brief can be submitted. For specific requests for information see this page: http://ban.joh.cam.ac.uk/~maicl/info.htm This submission is in accordance with Article 18(1) of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: Any readers who have FIRST-HAND, EYEWITNESS-type information which can help bring the NATO war criminals to justice are encouraged to contact: Glen Rangwala, International Lawyer Faculty of Social and Political Sciences Cambridge University Free School Lane Cambridge CB2 3RQ, ENGLAND Tel: 44 (0)1223 334535 Fax (shared): 44 (0)1223 334550 Home Tel: 44 (0)1223 462187
[PEN-L:6990] Re: Re: Re: Re: Rosser on Kurds/Kosovars
Barkley, A couple of points. I don't believe that Milosevic ever had any intention of cleansing Kosovo of Albanians. I believe that is all NATO propaganda. Indeed, when some of the opposition to him proposed expelling Albanians and Croats from Serbia, Milosevic opposed it. Besides which, could he really think he could do it without precipitating UN sanctioned war and occupation of Yugoslavia. Nah, this is just a pipe dream invented by NATO to justify its criminal ways. You still evidently believe this invasion was motivated by humanitarian concerns which virtually everyone has demonstrated is a crock. The second point I would make: Assume you are leader of Yugoslavia (or Serbia) and you were fighting against a terrorist insurgency who are trying to expell the resident Serbs and destroy the country and who use the local population as a source of supplies and as a human shield against attempts to quell the insurgency. Now along comes NATO and says: you must a. stop trying to suppress the insurgency; b. agree to break up the country; c. allow us to take over your economy and occupy you (and you will pay the cost of the occupation) or we will bomb you into submission until you agree to those conditions and we occupy the country. Now we all know that the conditions were set at a level that guaranteed that Yugoslavia could not and would not agree meaning that NATO all along planned an invasion first by air, then followed by occupation when the Serbs threw in the towel. What would you do. I would hunker down and prepare to defend my territory. How would I do that? I would clear a corde sanitaire between the potential aggressor by land and my main base of population -- that is I would scorch the earth between Albania and Serbia which would make it possible to make any invaders pay dearly for land gains. I would also remove all the population from my defensive positions that could potentially aid or act as human shields for the aggressor. Can you think of any alternative since NATO refused to consider the alternative offered by the Yugoslav parliament of a UN force and autonomy for Kosovo within the Yugoslav federation? In other words, what else could the Yugoslavs do that would be militarily defensible? What would you have done? You, yourself, point out that there has been little or no cleansing in the North which, itself, should be sufficient evidence that the Yugoslav strategy is defensive and not offensive. Finally, a small footnote on the question of Yugoslav economic aid for Kosovo and its relatively poor economic performance. First, given the figures I posted earlier, there was little *relative* decline in economic performance in Kosovo over the post-war period. Tito, by the way, held to the motto "a rising tide lifts all boats" and so made less effort to specifically help Kosovo and the south generally (Montenegro and Macedonia, Bosnia and even souther Serbia). The fault line in economic development falls more or less along the line of the longest standing Ottoman/European line of influence, a point made to me (documented by figures) by a Beograd economist who was, incidently, a strong political opponent of Milosevic. After Tito died, increased efforts were made to funnel funds into Kosovo and the other poorer republics and provinces through the "Fund for the more rapid development of the slower development republics and provinces" (or some such equally awkward and long name. I have their annual reports somewhere here but it is not important.)Indeed, by 1989, this was one of the last federal economic functions, financed by customs duties and republic taxes payable to the federation and very minimal at that. In fact the Fund was a thorn in the side of the Slovenians and Croations who basically refused to pay any more money to those backward and unthankful "neighbours to the south". Indeed, the sentiment in Slovenia and Croatia was to let Kosovo go -- good riddance to bad rubbish. Serbia was the defender of Kosovo, but it was one of the issues that ultimately triggered the breakup. Why did Kosovo remain so backward? Three factors come immediately to mind. Their education system did not favour technical and scientific/vocational education. As one university professor complained to me, "how can you get economic development when 80 % of the university students are studying Albanian language, literature and history?" Secondly, was the birth rate which was high even by third world standards. Third, was the treatment of women. In the rural areas women were still placed behind 8 foot walls so that they were not visible to men. The story I was told was of one women who was elected head of her workers council. The next day she resigned after showing up at work black and blue. When asked why, she said when her husband had heard she had been elected to the workers' council, he beat her demanding
[PEN-L:7000] (Fwd) NATO GROUND TROOPS NEEDED - PENTAGON REPORT
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 18 May 1999 11:38:58 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO GROUND TROOPS NEEDED - PENTAGON REPORT Reuters May 17, 1999 PENTAGON REPORT: NATO GROUND TROOPS NEEDED There is a growing sense in the military that time is running out. Washington Pentagon chiefs have warned the Clinton administration that it cannot achieve its aims in Yugoslavia without the use of ground troops, Newsweek magazine reported Sunday. The Joint Chiefs of Staff sent a letter to Defense Secretary William Cohen a few weeks ago saying "that only ground troops would guarantee fulfillment of the administration's political objectives," said the report in the current issue, which goes on sale Monday. The Pentagon had no immediate comment on the report. NATO, which launched an air campaign against Yugoslavia on March 24, is seeking to oust Serb troops from Kosovo and secure the return of ethnic Albanians to the Serbian province. Newsweek reported that "there are some in the Pentagon who see the letter as just a classic case of the brass covering its collective backside." "But there is a growing sense in the military that time is running out," the report added. Pentagon sources estimate that there are 600,000 people living out in the open in Kosovo, and 200,000 under shelter but displaced from their homes, according to Newsweek. "A ground war would have to commence by the beginning of August, and the forces required must start assembling by the beginning of June," the magazine said, apparently citing the same Pentagon sources. In London, British officials said Sunday there was no truth to reports of a split between Britain and the United States over the conduct of NATO's campaign against Yugoslavia. "It is a work of fiction," a spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said of a Sunday Times newspaper report that Blair felt "a deep sense of frustration" with President Clinton after failing to persuade him to commit ground troops to Kosovo.
[PEN-L:7002] (Fwd) NATO IS ABOUT TO LOSE THE WAR
While a lot of this is imperialist shit, it is worth reading. (The National Post is Canada's most right-wing jingoistic rag.) --- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 18 May 1999 11:39:42 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO IS ABOUT TO LOSE THE WAR The National PostTuesday, May 18, 1999 NATO IS ABOUT TO LOSE THE WAR By Graham N. Green The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is about to lose the war against Yugoslavia. Unless the alliance immediately changes its tactics and demonstrates clearly its determination to win, Operation Allied Force will go down in history as one of the most colossal military and political failures of the 20th century. As the world's most powerful military alliance with the best trained personnel using the most sophisticated weapons ever developed, it should have been no contest between NATO and the Yugoslav armed forces. But being the most powerful has not made NATO the strongest side in this war. A strong alliance needs strong leadership, and NATO has shown clearly these past two months how weak and cowardly its leaders really are. While much of the criticism for this leadership failure has been directed at U.S. President Bill Clinton, other alliance leaders, including Prime Minister Jean Chretien, must share the blame. Blame for spouting principled rhetoric while being afraid to commit all the military assets needed to uphold that rhetoric. Blame for allowing their original principles to be weakened by Moscow and Beijing, even though those concessions make it less likely the Kosovo refugees will ever go home again. And blame for pursuing an exclusively air campaign when all NATO's top military officers have made it clear air strikes alone will not reverse ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. NATO's political leaders are also to blame for allowing this war to be fought in the name of the alliance when all its major decisions are made in Washington, not Brussels. This was highlighted in a private exchange between Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema and Mr. Clinton before the air strikes began. D'Alema reportedly asked what the United States would do if Yugoslavia refused to back down in the face of NATO bombing, to which Sandy Berger, the national security advisor, responded: "We will continue the bombing." And so we have. In nearly two months of bombing, NATO aircraft have flown more than 6,000 strikes on more than 500 target areas, destroying oil refineries and storage facilities, most of the bridges over the Danube River, two-thirds of Yugoslavia's fleet of MiG 29 fighter jets, more than 40 other aircraft, 450 pieces of Serbian equipment such as tanks, artillery and armoured personnel carriers, and the main studios of Serbian radio and television. Despite this, Serbia remains defiant, seemingly prepared to hunker down and take the punishment while continuing its ethnic cleansing of Kosovo and waiting for NATO solidarity to collapse. More than 700,000 ethnic Albanians have been forced into exile while the bombs keep falling. NATO's response? More bombing. Never mind that the Pentagon's chief spokesman has admitted that nobody ever believed air power would be able to stop the depopulation of Kosovo. And never mind that the exclusive reliance on smart bombs dropped from five kilometres above their targets has resulted in several high-profile "mistakes" -- including the destruction of the Chinese embassy -- killing hundreds of innocent civilians and weakening public support in some NATO countries for continuing the war. According to the "Berger Doctrine," you just keep on bombing. And bombing. With no end in sight and with China threatening unspecified retaliation for the destruction of its embassy, NATO leaders are still afraid to commit ground troops to the war. Instead, the alliance has turned to Russia and Finland to try to broker a peace agreement with Belgrade, even though a negotiated settlement will mean even more compromises to NATO's original objectives. But further compromises, particularly on the crucial issue of a credible international security force to guarantee the safety of returning refugees, will mean that almost none of the refugees will ever go home again. Let us be clear about this. The sell-out of the Kosovar Albanian refugees has begun and it is all because alliance leaders have not shown the courage of their convictions to do what is necessary, right, and just to win this war. NATO may be the most powerful military alliance in the world, but it is increasingly revealing itself to be weak and cowardly in the face of a tyrant whose ethnic intolerance has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of displaced persons in three Balkan wars this decade. Unless NATO leaders summon up the courage to do whatever it takes to defeat Serbia's ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, we can
[PEN-L:7003] (Fwd) POLL: MOST AMERICANS WANT NEGOTIATIONS
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 18 May 1999 11:39:19 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:POLL: MOST AMERICANS WANT NEGOTIATIONS The Washington Post Tuesday, May 18, 1999; Page A18 POLL: MOST AMERICANS WANT NEGOTIATIONS First significant decline in support for military action in Yugoslavia since crisis began; German polls show public there has turned against war. By Richard Morin, Staff Writer Public support for the air war in Yugoslavia is softening and a majority of Americans believe the United States and its NATO allies should negotiate a settlement with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end the fighting, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. But the country remains divided over exactly what concessions the United States should grant Milosevic in exchange for peace in the Balkans. Half the public agrees that NATO should not stop the bombing until the Serbs allow a NATO-led peacekeeping force into Kosovo but nearly as many say this NATO peace requirement should be open to negotiation. In other ways, the latest Post-ABC News poll suggests that the war for public opinion on Kosovo has entered a new, complicated and more risky phase for President Clinton and the NATO allies. Only about half the country says NATO should continue to bomb Yugoslavia. Nearly as many say the United States and its allies should suspend the air attacks as a way to encourage Serbian forces to leave Kosovo an option that has been repeatedly and forcefully rejected by Clinton and NATO commanders. Since the bombing of the Chinese embassy and air strikes that have killed civilians, the proportion of Americans who say the allies are "not being careful enough to avoid civilian casualties" has increased from 19 percent to 32 percent. The poll also found that in public perception of his handling of the Kosovo crisis, Clinton has suffered somewhat in recent weeks. Barely half of those those interviewed 53 percent say they approve of the way he is handling the situation in Kosovo, down from 56 percent three weeks ago and 60 percent during the first week in April. The proportion of Americans opposed to Clinton's management of the crisis has increased from 36 percent to 41 percent in three weeks. A total of 761 randomly selected Americans were interviewed Sunday for this Post-ABC News poll. Margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus 4 percentage points. The survey suggests that war fatigue has set in after seven weeks of bombing strikes by the United States and its western allies. While the erosion in support remains modest and perhaps only temporary, it signals the first significant decline in public support for military action in Yugoslavia since the crisis began. American support for the war, however, remains strong compared to that of several key NATO members. In Germany, polls show the public has turned against the war effort and in Italy, Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema is under increasing political pressure to work for a political solution to the Kosovo crisis. The percentage of Americans who back the air campaign has dropped from 65 percent in late April to 59 percent in the latest survey. Opposition grew from 30 percent to 38 percent during the same period. Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed say NATO should negotiate with Serbia on terms to end the conflict, while 38 percent say the allies should require Serbia to accept existing NATO requirements for peace a view expressed by equally large proportions of Republicans, Democrats and independents. Six in 10 say Milosevic should be required to remove most of his troops from Kosovo a key NATO peace condition while nearly four in 10 said troop withdrawals should be up for negotiation. Fifty-four percent say the return of all refugees to Kosovo should not be open to negotiations, while 42 percent say it should. But 55 percent say a settlement allowing Kosovo limited self-rule should not be a requirement for peace. The survey revealed that the American public is backing away from sending combat troops into Kosovo. Barely half of those interviewed 52 percent say they favor sending in soldiers if the air campaign fails to produce peace, down from 56 percent in a Post-ABC News poll conducted three weeks ago. At the same time, the proportion who oppose the use of ground troops increased from 40 percent to 46 percent, with most of the jump in opposition coming from independents. Among these voters, opposition to bombing increased by more than 10 percentage points. For the first time in Post-ABC News surveys, a clear majority of Americans 56 percent say they would oppose sending ground troops into Kosovo if it meant that the United States would suffer "some" casualties. Clinton has acknowledged that Americans may
[PEN-L:7001] (Fwd) A PUZZLE IN ONE YUGOSLAV VILLAGE
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 18 May 1999 11:39:32 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:A PUZZLE IN ONE YUGOSLAV VILLAGE The International Herald TribuneParis, Tuesday, May 18, 1999 A PUZZLE IN ONE YUGOSLAV VILLAGE ''As an Albanian, I am convinced that the Serbian government and security forces are not committing any kind of genocide'' spokesman for Kosovo Democratic Initiative, ethnic Albanian political party opposed to KLA By Paul Watson Los Angeles Times Service SVETLJE, Yugoslavia - Something strange is going on in this Kosovo Albanian village in what was once a hard-line guerrilla stronghold, where NATO accuses the Serbs of committing genocide. About 15,000 displaced ethnic Albanians live in and around Svetlje, in northern Kosovo, and hundreds of young men are everywhere, strolling along the dirt roads or lying on the grass on a spring day. The presence of so many fighting-age men in a region where the Kosovo Liberation Army fought some of its fiercest battles against Serbian forces poses a challenge to the black-and-white versions of what is happening here. By their own accounts, the men are not living in a concentration camp, nor being forced to labor for the police or army, nor serving as human shields for Serbs. Instead, they are waiting with their families for permission to follow thousands who have risked going back home to nearby villages because they do not want to give up and leave Kosovo. ''We wanted to stay here where we were born,'' Skender Velia, 39, said through a translator. ''Those who wanted to go through Macedonia and on to Europe have already left. We did not want to follow.'' Mr. Velia, his wife, Hajiri, their three children and his mother, Farita, 56, were among as many as 100,000 Kosovo Albanians who fled the nearby northern city of Podujevo in the early days of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's air war, which began March 24. Some said the Serbs had driven them from their homes, while others said they had simply been scared and left on their own. They all moved from one village to another, trying to escape fighting between Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas and Serbian security forces. A foreign journalist spent two hours in Svetlje during the weekend, his second visit in less than a week, without a police or military escort or a Serbian official to monitor what was seen or said. Just as NATO accuses Yugoslav forces of using ethnic Albanian refugees as human shields, the Serbs say Kosovo Liberation Army fighters hide among ethnic Albanian civilians to carry out ''terrorist attacks.'' Mr. Velia and other ethnic Albanians interviewed in Svetlje said they had not had any problems with the Serbian police since being allowed to come back. ''For the month that we've been here, the police have come only to sell cigarettes, but there hasn't been any harassment,'' Mr. Velia said. Kosovo Albanians continue to flee Yugoslavia, often with detailed accounts of atrocities by Serbian security forces or paramilitaries. Yet thousands of other ethnic Albanians are coming out of hiding in forests and in the mountains, hungry and frightened, and either going back home or waiting for police permission to do so. While the Serbian police seize the identity documents of Kosovo Albanians crossing the border into Albania or Macedonia, government officials in Pristina, Kosovo's provincial capital, issue new identity cards to ethnic Albanians still here. The Kosovo Democratic Initiative, an ethnic Albanian political party opposed to the Kosovo Liberation Army's fight for independence, is distributing aid, offering membership cards and gathering names of Serbs accused of committing atrocities. ''As an Albanian, I am convinced that the Serbian government and security forces are not committing any kind of genocide,'' Fatmir Seholi, the party's spokesman, said Sunday. ''But in a war, even innocent people die. In every war, there are those who want to profit. Here there is a minority of people who wanted to steal, but that's not genocide. These are only crimes.'' His father, Malic Seholi, was killed Jan. 9, 1997, apparently for being too cooperative with Serbian authorities. The Kosovo Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the slaying, Mr. Seholi said. Asked whether he thought NATO's bombing was helping or hurting, Mr. Velia shifted at the wooden desk where he was sitting in one of the school's classrooms. ''My blood is the same as yours,'' he said. ''I just want the situation stabilized. People are not very interested in what is going on with big political discussions here and there. They are just interested in going home.'' Despite the mass exodus, several hundred thousand Kosovo Albanians remain in the province, many of them still hiding without proper food, medicine or shelter. After
[PEN-L:6934] (Fwd) Human rights monitor with the OSCE Kosovo Verification M
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 17 May 1999 11:57:23 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Human rights monitor with the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) offers a view from the ground in Kosovo The DemocratMay 1999 FAILURE OF DIPLOMACY Returning human rights monitor with the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) offers a view from the ground in Kosovo by Rollie Keith Canada is currently participating in the NATO coalition air bombardment of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, ostensibly to force compliance with the terms of the Rambouillet and subsequent Paris "Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo". The justification for this aggressive action was to force Yugoslavian compliance and acceptance to the so-called "agreement" and to end the alleged humanitarian and human rights abuses being perpetrated on the ethnic majority Kosovar Albanian residents of the Serbian province of Kosovo. The bombardment then is rationalized on the basis of the UN Declaration of Human Rights taking precedence over the UN Charter that states the inviolability of national sovereignty. While I am concerned with human rights abuse, I also believe many nations, if not all, would clearly be vulnerable to this criticism; therefore, we require a better mechanism to counter national human rights violations than bombing. What, however, was the situation within Kosovo before March 20, and are we now being misled with biased media information? Is this aggressive war really justified to counter alleged humanitarian violations, or are there problematical premises being applied to justify the hostilities? Either way, diplomacy has failed and the ongoing air bombardment has greatly exacerbated an internal humanitarian problem into a disaster. There were no international refugees over the last five months of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) presence within Kosovo and Internal Displaced Persons only numbered a few thousand in the weeks before the air bombardment commenced. As an OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) monitor during February and March of this year, I was assigned as the Director of the Kosovo Polje Field Office, just west of the provincial capital of Pristina. The role of the 1380 monitors of the KVM, from some 38 of the OSCE's 55 nations, including 64 Canadians, was authorized under UN Security Council Resolution 1199 to monitor and verify cease-fire compliance, or non-compliance, investigate cease-fire violations and unwarranted road blocks, assist humanitarian agencies in facilitating the resettlement of displaced persons and assist in democratization measures eventually leading to elections. The agreement which was the basis of the KVM (I refer to it as the "Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement") was signed on October 16, 1998, ending the previous eight months of internal conflict. Given its international composition, the KVM was organized and deployed quite slowly and was not fully operational on a partial basis until early in 1999. By the time I arrived, vehicles and other resources along with the majority of international monitors were arriving, but the cease- fire situation was deteriorating with an increasing incidence of Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) provocative attacks on the Yugoslavian security forces. In response the security forces of the Ministry of Internal Security police supported by the army were establishing random roadblocks that resulted in some harassment of movement of the majority Albanian Kosovars. The general situation was, though, that the bulk of the population had settled down after the previous year's hostilities, but the KLA was building its strength and was attempting to reorganize in preparation for a military solution, hopeful of NATO or western military support. Consequently the October Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement restraining the Internal Security police and army was not strictly adhered to, as unauthorized forces were deployed to maintain security within the major communities and internal lines of communication. In my estimation, however, the KLA was left in control of much of the hinterland unchallenged, comprising at least some fifty per cent of the province. In addition the parallel Albanian government of the Kosovo Democratic League (KDL) continued to provide some leadership to the majority of the Albanian Kosovars. This low intensity war since the end of 1998 had resulted in a series of incidents against the security forces, which in turn led to some heavy- handed security operations, one being the alleged "massacre" at Racak of some 45 Albanian Kosovars in mid-January. [NOTE: the "Racak massacre" was so identified by William Walker, an American diplomat leading an
[PEN-L:6937] (Fwd) WTO Leadership Race Exposes Deepening Polarisation Over
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 17 May 1999 14:29:05 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:WTO Leadership Race Exposes Deepening Polarisation Over Globalisation MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE USE 16 May 1999 GATT WATCHDOG, PO BOX 1905, CHRISTCHURCH, NZ. PH (03)3662803 WTO Leadership Race Exposes Deepening Polarisation Over Globalisation "There is a message to be learnt from the acrimony surrounding the unresolved Mike Moore-Supachai Panitchpakdi race for the World Trade Organisation top job that ardent free traders like the New Zealand government ignore at their own peril. It signals a very real sense of marginalisation and frustration among a growing number of countries who question just who gets the goodies from globalisation and makes the rules for world trade," says GATT Watchdog spokesman, Aziz Choudry. "Many developing countries have long been sceptical of the supposed benefits of trade liberalisation and warn that a new negotiating round with new issues will further marginalise them. With the next round of negotiations due to start at the Third WTO Ministerial Meeting in Seattle later this year, there is likely to be pressure from 'developed' nations to expand the GATT/WTO agriculture and intellectual property agreements, introduce issues like competition policy, government procurement, and possibly attempt to resurrect an MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment)-type agreement." "Many countries were told during the GATT Uruguay Round that a brave new world of borderless trade leading to increased prosperity awaited if only they committed themselves to a global free market agenda now advanced by the WTO. Over four years after its birth, and despite its claims to operate by consensus, the WTO maintains the dominance of the most powerful players in the global economy - countries and companies - over the rest." "Look at the USA's track record on trade - one of Mr Moore's strongest backers. It bullies the rest of the world to open up their markets, yet refuses to follow the same economic recipe itself. That is the reality of the WTO - protection for the powerful - market discipline, regardless of the costs, for the rest." "When former WTO Director-General Renato Ruggiero was in New Zealand in 1996 he spoke of a stark choice that countries had to make - globalisation or war. Yet globalisation and the narrow economic dogma that it promotes is contributing to conflicts around the world, from the US-EU banana dispute, to the spread of communal violence in many countries hit by austerity measures and economic liberalisation, to the ongoing conflict in Chiapas, Mexico in the wake of NAFTA. Many of them have their roots in the increasing global economic instability and inequity between and within nations as a result of the acceleration of the globalisation process. Regardless of how much longer it takes to resolve the WTO Director-General position, those tensions will continue to impact on APEC and WTO negotiations." "And that will be a good thing. Maybe then we can let the facts get in the way of a good story for a change and take a long hard look at the poverty of evidence in support of the claims in favour of further economic liberalisation." However, GATT Watchdog stands by its tactical support for Mr Moore's WTO bid, announced last year. "Picture the consternation and confusion among delegates from the 134 member countries listening to simultaneous translations of Mr Moore's descriptions of critics of unrestricted trade and investment as "grumpy geriatric communists.. . a mutant strain of the left who tuck their shirts into their underpants" and "primitives who if they had their way would plunge our nation and the region into chaos and depression". To have such a zealous free trader in the WTO top job could blow the whole thing apart." "The New Zealand Government continues to put itself on the extreme edge of trade and investment liberalisation and blind faith in a free market model which has failed to deliver benefits to any but a small handful, at great human costs." "Instead of pushing for the inclusion of new issues in the upcoming WTO round we need a comprehensive, in-depth review and assessment of the existing agreements and a moratorium on introducing new issues. But the New Zealand government is so besotted with the free market, it does not believe that such assessments are necessary". "Recent correspondence with several ministries about government support for further liberalisation of trade in forest products confirms this view. There has not been any assessment of the likely impacts of such agreements on New Zealand and the region's forests, nor are there any plans to carry one out. Yet the New Zealand government is vigorously pushing to conclude a forest product
[PEN-L:6938] (Fwd) WHO IS REPRESENTED BY NATO? By Osvaldo Croci and Brian K
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 17 May 1999 11:33:04 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:WHO IS REPRESENTED BY NATO? By Osvaldo Croci and Brian K. MacLean The Sudbury Star Thursday, May 14 1999 WHO IS REPRESENTED BY NATO? Osvaldo Croci and Brian K. MacLean Reading the press releases flowing from NATO headquarters, it is hard to ignore the frequency with which NATO claims to be waging war against Yugoslavia on behalf of the "international community." Constant references to the "international community" have a reason. NATO leaders know that the only legal basis for NATO action is the claim that when human rights are somehow judged to have been sufficiently violated by a country, then the "international community" has the right to attack that country with as much force as it deems necessary. The shakiest part of this claim is the idea that NATO, a military alliance of 19 countries in Europe and North America, represents an "international community" having about 170 other countries from three other continents, including an estimated 4.7 billion people in the less-developed world. Some of these other countries do support NATO bombing, though they are not necessarily ones associated with liberal humanitarianism. By far the strongest levels of support for NATO bombing come from Croatia and Albania. The same is true for Malaysia, where Islam is the country's official religion, and for the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In the Islamic countries of the Middle East, despite considerable dissension, some have supported the bombing. But the governments of a great many countries have quite clearly expressed their opposition to NATO war-making, including some of the most populous ones such as China (1.26 billion people), India (967 million), and Russia (147 million), all three of which possess nuclear arsenals. On May 8 China's position as a defender of Yugoslavia became clear to all. China denounced NATO's missile attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, in which three Chinese were killed and about twenty injured, and called for an unconditional end to bombing. The embassy bombing sparked massive demonstrations in numerous Chinese cities and even demonstrations by Chinese outside of China, such as in Toronto on May 9, when Chinese-Canadians joined Serbian-Canadians for an anti-NATO demonstration of more than 1,500 people. The U.S. called the bombing a regrettable accident, an explanation the Chinese have yet to accept, presumably on the grounds that if you respect a foreign power you make it your top priority to avoid bombing its embassies by "mistake." Rather than offer to punish the culprits and thereby accept some responsibility, Deputy U.S. Ambassador Burleigh blamed it on Yugoslavia for having brought about NATO's bombing campaign. The Russians naturally viewed this as irresponsible finger-pointing: expressing regret for your actions without accepting responsibility for them does not constitute an apology. Russian Ambassador Lavrov rejected Burleigh's claim, saying the big picture was that NATO's "military adventurism" was threatening to "destroy the present world order." Russian President Yeltsin repeated warnings of "very harsh consequences" should the bombing continue, adding that "responsibility for those consequences fully rests with those who masterminded this venture." Opinion polls have shown Russian public support for NATO bombing at about 2 percent. From India, the Foreign Minister claimed that the Chinese embassy bombing was "proof that NATO was mistaken in trying to use force to bend Yugoslavia to its will." He echoed views expressed weeks earlier by the Indian Prime Minister: "We oppose the use of force as such actions violate the sovereignty of a nation." China, India, and Russia are respectively the world's first, second, and sixth most populous countries. Indonesia -- the world's fourth most populous country (210 million) and the world's largest Islamic country -- has not been as vocal as these other population giants, but it has called for a quick return to diplomacy. Brazil, the world's fifth most populous country (168 million), has criticized NATO's bypassing of the United Nations and has called for a negotiated solution, as has South Africa (42 million), Africa's leading democracy, in a strong statement issued on March 26 by the Foreign Affairs department. Opposition to NATO's attack on Yugoslavia can also be found in NATO countries. Polls have shown substantial opposition to NATO bombing of Serb military installations from citizens in Germany and France; strong opposition in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Italy; and fierce opposition in Greece. And these are polls taken when Yugoslav targets were what NATO now describes as "purely military targets" and those polled had no idea that
[PEN-L:6939] (Fwd) NATO BOMBING UNLEASHES ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE IN EURO
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 17 May 1999 11:57:01 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO BOMBING UNLEASHES ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE IN EUROPE International Action Center 39 West 14 St., #206 New York, NY 10011 (212) 633-6646 fax: (212) 633-2889 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: www.iacenter.org For immediate release Contacts: Deirdre Sinnott, Brian Becker Attention: assignment editor(212) 633-6646 May 14, 1999 NATO BOMBING UNLEASHES ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE IN EUROPE Spokespeople for the International Action Center announced in New York today that their group was taking actions to document NATO's bombing as a war crime against the environment of the Balkans and Europe especially in light of the Pentagon's recent admission it was using depleted uranium weapons against Yugoslavia. The Pentagon and other NATO armed forces use the extremely dense depleted-uranium to reinforce large-caliber bullets and shells. This element increases the shells' ability to penetrate armor, but it leaves toxic and radioactive particles of uranium oxide that endanger humans and pollute the environment. IAC co-director Sara Flounders was heading to Yugoslavia May 14 to investigate and bring back first-hand evidence and documentation involving NATO's use of DU weapons and its attacks on chemical and pharmaceutical plants, plastics factories, refineries and other targets. This bombing creates environmental devastation that will impact on millions of people and for generations to come. The delegation will be led by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who traveled to Yugoslavia in the first week of the bombing with videographer Gloria La Riva, whose videos on Iraq have won international awards. La Riva is currently working on a video on NATO's war on Yugoslavia. Jeremy Scahill of Pacifica Radio's national program Democracy Now, also part of the delegation, will provide daily news coverage on NATO bombing targets. His coverage will particularly focus on the long-term environmental disaster that is unfolding. Flounders is a co-editor of Metal of Dishonor: Depleted Uranium, a 1997 book exposing the dangers of DU-reinforced shells and its link with Gulf War Syndrome. Metal of Dishonor's other co-editor, John Catalinotto, will be speaking at forums on Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands on May 15, and Bonn, Germany, on May 17 about these environmental issues and their link to NATO's war against Yugoslavia. These issues have gained importance due to the turmoil within the European Green parties whose leadership has abandoned its traditional pacifism and defense of the environment to support NATO's war. This is especially seen in the German Greens, which form part of the current government. On May 13 in Bielefeld, Germany, rank-and-file Greens at a party congress were accusing their leader--current German Foreign Minister Joshka Fischer--of betrayal and demanding an immediate end to NATO bombing. Flounders discussed the NATO strikes that did the most damage to the environment. "NATO planes bombed the pharmaceutical complex in Galenika, the largest medicine factory in Yugoslavia. This attack on a vital civilian target released dangerous, highly toxic fumes immediately, and will undermine the ability to provide medicine in the future. "On April 15, NATO forces bombed plants of the petrochemical complex in Pancevo, directly hitting installations and equipment of the Vinyl Chloride Monomer plant and Ethylene plant and damaging others. According to a report from the plant's director, Dr. Slobodan Tresac, fire broke out and huge quantities of chlorine, ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride monomer flowed out. Workers at Pancevo, fearing further bombing attacks that would blow up dangerous materials, released tons of ethylene dichloride, a carcinogen, into the Danube. "That same night, NATO also hit the Ammonia and Power Supply divisions of HIP-AZOTARA Fertilizer Company and completely destroyed them, also in Pancevo. "In a May 7 news release, the Worldwide Fund for Nature warned that an environmental crisis is looming in the lower Danube river and the Black Sea due mainly to oil slicks. The river is a source of drinking water for 10 million people. "Of course NATO bombing is also the cause of immediate human suffering in Yugoslavia," said Flounders, "but we don't want to neglect its long-term criminal impact on the environment. "In an open letter from Belgrade, the Yugoslav minister of agriculture, Nedelijko Sipovac, wrote in early May that these bombings have caused ecological catastrophe `not only on the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia but on the territories of all Balkan, Danube basin, Mediterranean and European countries as well.' Sipovac noted an increase in radioactivity which he attributed to the use of depleted
[PEN-L:6940] (Fwd) Dr. Rosalie Bertell on Canada's role in producing deplet
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 17 May 1999 12:03:54 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Dr. Rosalie Bertell on Canada's role in producing depleted uranium weapons "CANADIAN URANIUM IS BASICALLY PROVIDING THE MATERIAL FOR THESE WEAPONS. And I really would ask you to make this an issue in the front / centre and STOP IT NOW AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN !! -- Dr. Rosalie Bertell --- http://www.interlog.com/~nealm/index.htm AUDIO TRANSCRIPT -[prepared by Janet M. Eaton] of remarks by: DR. ROSALIE BERTELL speaking on DEPLETED URANIUM [DU] WEAPONS and CANADA'S central ROLE in the PRODUCTION of these weapons. Dr. Bertell was one of nine prominent Canadians speaking at: An Unjust and Illegal WAR: Leading opponents of the War against Yugoslavia speak out: A public meeting held at Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto May 6 1999. Dr. Rosalie Bertell is one of the world's leading authorities on health effects of low level radiation. For a decade she worked for the US National Cancer Institute and for 30 years has been in the forefront of research on the effects of low level radiation on human health. In 1984 she founded the International Institute of Concern for Public Health in Toronto. For further background on Dr. Bertell see : "Dr. Rosalie Bertell - A Great Humanitarian Scientist" http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11275 All the best, Janet M. Eaton, PhD Audio Transcript: I'd like to talk about a little known factor in this war and that is the kind of ammunition which is being used. It's called Depleted Uranium [DU] but don't let that fool you - it doesn't mean it's harmless. Depleted Uranium is basically radioactive waste. It's the waste from uranium enrichment. When the uranium is taken out of the ground most of it is Uranium 238 but they like the fissioning of 235 which is less than 1 percent of the whole - so when they do uranium enrichment they basically try to increase the proportion of the uranium 235 that fissions and the rest of the uranium, and a lot of it, is considered waste. For a long time in 70's there was an effort to declare this waste - scrap metal and use it in our refrigerators and stoves and bicycles and automobiles and many of us were out there protesting this and we actually won and they stopped talking about that but very quietly on the side they gave this uranium free of charge to weapons manufacturers. And what they discovered was its more dense than lead which means it so goes through a tank or an armored car, or a bullet proof vest. It's what's called auto pyrophoric which means it can burst into flame and when it does it becomes an aerosol and also - you know how when you make pottery if you put in a kiln and fire it you get a glass - well that's what happens to uranium when you ignite it in battle. This was actually used for the first time by the Russians in Afghanistan but on a very small scale. The first time used on a very large scale was in Iraq in Gulf War and it was used extensively by the US and the UK. According to the Pentagon 400,000 American veterans were exposed to this depleted uranium aerosol in the Gulf War. About 200,000 of these men and women have sought medical care since the war and about 115,000 have been diagnosed as having Gulf War Syndrome. Now one would think in the United States of America given this new weapon and this massive exposure and these sick veterans that they would have tested the veterans for Depleted Uranium. I was in Washington DC 10 days ago and I found that not one American veteran had been tested for Depleted Uranium in the 9 years since Iraq war. We actually have tested some of the veterans here in Canada and we have found Depleted Uranium in their urine at quite a high level and remember this is 9 years after their exposure which means that the amount that they are now excreting is nothing compared to what the original dose was. There has been quite a dispute, which some of you may know, since the war is on in Kosovo whether or not Depleted Uranium ammunition was being used. In a sense this adds to the problem but you should know that every Cruise missile contains Depleted Uranium ballast and when that missile impacts that ballast is again aerosolized into very small particles of uranium glass that can be breathed in and it will stay in body 10 years or more and it keeps irradiating the tissue around it wherever it is in the body!! Canada has been an international leader against land mines but this depleted uranium is worse than land mines and it will stay around for thousands of years after the war is over. It is incorporated into the farm land; it can be picked up by the vegetables; the schrapnel can
[PEN-L:6936] (Fwd) The FINANCIAL TIMES - World's richest 6m get richer
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 17 May 1999 15:43:46 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:The FINANCIAL TIMES - World's richest 6m get richer The FINANCIAL TIMES May 17 1999 World's richest 6m get richer By George Graham, Banking Editor The world's estimated 6m millionaires have shrugged off the effects of last year's financial turmoil and are getting richer by the day. New research by Merrill Lynch, the investment bank, with Gemini Consulting, a management consultancy, found the wealth held by high net worth individuals with more than $1m of financial assets grew last year by 12 per cent to $21,600bn. The World Wealth Report produced by the two firms projects a steady rise to $32,700bn by the end of 2003 - a growth rate which is expected to attract more firms into the lucrative market for private banking and wealth management services. This year's estimates suggest the rich are, in fact, richer than had been thought. Estimates have been revised upwards by around $2,000bn, in the light of new data from the US and Germany showing wealth is concentrated in fewer hands than was supposed. Although Asian and Latin American millionaires suffered from the turbulence which hit their domestic markets last year, the rich were, in general, able to survive the crisis with their wealth intact. "Most high net worth individuals remained relatively calm and rode out the stock market storm," said Christopher Humphry of Gemini. Wealthy clients reduced the equity portion of their portfolios, moving more money into cash deposits and fixed income bonds. In Asia and the Middle East, too, some clients shifted assets from local currency to the US dollar. "There was much less wholesale liquidation of portfolios than in past periods of volatility...In aggregate, clients would now probably be 5 per cent higher in cash than in the middle of last year," said Michael Giles, chairman of Merrill Lynch International Banking. The crisis passed quickly, and by the end of 1998 wealthy Latin Americans, who had moved offshore were already moving back into fixed income securities in their domestic markets. Last year's movements into cash and offshore appeared to represent a reversal in the long-term trends towards equities and onshore investments which most analysts have found in the private banking arena. But Mr Humphry did not think this reversal was more than a temporary diversion. "We would hold that these two trends remain true despite what happened last year."
[PEN-L:6759] (Fwd) ALBANIANS TRY TO TAKE OVER KOSOVARS' CRIME NETWORK - S.F
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 12 May 1999 14:46:13 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:ALBANIANS TRY TO TAKE OVER KOSOVARS' CRIME NETWORK - S.F. Chronicle The San Francisco Chronicle Tuesday, May 11, 1999 ALBANIANS TRY TO TAKE OVER KOSOVARS' CRIME NETWORK War leaves drug, arms traffic up for grabs By Frank Viviano, Chronicle Staff Writer In the shadows of the war in Kosovo, a ferocious upheaval is reshaping the criminal landscape of Europe. As NATO bombs and Serbian troops disrupt a Kosovar crime network that has dominated the narcotics trade across the continent, underworld clans from neighboring Albania are making a powerful bid to take over. They are the real government of Europe's poorest -- and most lawless -- nation, and by some estimates even more dangerous to the Allied campaign than the tanks and anti-aircraft systems of Yugoslavia. "Albania has become the leading country in a wide variety of trafficking, in clandestine immigration, in prostitution. It ranks as a top exporter of narcotics," the nation's own former president, Sali Berisha, charged in a January speech accusing his successors of corruption and links to criminal syndicates. "Until recently, our heroin abusers got their supplies from Kosovars based in Zurich," Chief Jean-Bernard Lagger of the Geneva police brigade told investigators from Geopolitical Drug Watch (OGD), Europe's most respected narcotics surveillance organization. "But now, Albanian traffickers have moved into Geneva to deliver drugs to their doorstep." Police officials say that the clans, known as "fares" in Albanian, have even begun contesting turf with South American cartels in the European cocaine market. "The criminal mentality in certain fares existed before the war, but it was relatively small-time," says Michel Koutouzis, senior researcher at OGD and Europe's leading expert on organized crime in the Balkans. "What the Kosovo crisis and the war have done is to elevate that mentality enormously, to push it to a much higher level." The clans have embraced what police officials call the "Sicilian model" of criminal organization. Put simply, this model works on the solidation of a firm power base at home, with deadly influence on the political structure, from which domestic crime syndicates gradually build international operations. By the time NATO and hundreds of thousands of Kosovar refugees arrived in Albania two months ago, the consolidation was well under way. "Whole districts and towns are actually under the utter control of the gangs," former president Berisha says. In the countryside surrounding the cities of Vlore and Durres, according to the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur and other European periodicals, refugee convoys from the war zone have been held up by armed bands in the past two weeks, with young Kosovar women singled out and abducted. Elsewhere in the country, humanitarian workers and journalists from many Western news services report highly organized war profiteering -- including the diversion of aid shipments into the black market, bribery demands by customs agents processing the shipments in Albanian ports, and gang-run "taxi firms" charging as much as $120 to transport exhausted refugee families less than eight miles from the Kosovo border to the Albanian town of Kukes. The normal fee is $4. An unheated room for aid workers in Kukes today rents for $300 per night, in ramshackle houses that sold outright for less than $1,000 before the NATO bombings began. "It's like the Klondike during the Gold Rush," Albanian journalist Frrok Cupi told the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche, describing the profits being reaped from foreign military and humanitarian operations. Men claiming to be sales agents for the national telecommunications company have asked as much as $3,000 for the computer card necessary to connect a cellular phone with the satellite network. "We should know from experience -- from places like Rwanda and Somalia and Bosnia -- that humanitarian agencies must deal with the local mafias in a war zone," says Koutouzis. "There is no other way to get to the victims." Those who try to sidestep the clan syndicates do so at their own peril, in a land where the number of illegally owned Kalashnikov automatic assault weapons in some cities is greater than the number of residents. On April 30, the Associated Press reported that "almost every journalist" who has gone to the refugee camp at Bajram Curri in northern Albania has been robbed, including a team from the Associated Press. The Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, which
[PEN-L:6698] (Fwd) 'ATTACKS ON BELGRADE ARE DRIVING US MAD'
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 11 May 1999 12:00:16 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:'ATTACKS ON BELGRADE ARE DRIVING US MAD' The Daily Telegraph May 7, 1999 'ATTACKS ON BELGRADE ARE DRIVING US MAD' Prof Miroslav Milicevic, Chief of Surgery at Belgrade University Hospital, has lived through the bombing of Belgrade. In extracts from a letter to a friend with whom he worked for two years at Imperial College, London, he describes his experiences. He has never been a suppporter of President Milosevic and carries no political affiliation, according to his friend. Tuesday, May 4. Dear colleague, Hope you and the kids are doing OK. My father told me that you called and that you said that you have been trying to reach me for some time but that it proved impossible. I am not surprised, it is a miracle that phones are working at all, not to mention international lines. I really thank you both for inquiring about us. What can I say about the way we live. Whatever I say is not terrible enough and does not portray the present situation in its extreme horror. When the bombing started, Lepa and the kids were here for two days. I have a bomb shelter in the house where I live and we spent practically two nights there. The sirens, the blasts and the general feeling really deranged my kids (they are only 5 and 7) and Lepa could not take it at all. It was like a nightmare. My kids really suffered greatly and after a few days I had to decide to move them out of the country, which was not easy at all. There was really no choice since they would definitely have been psychologically damaged for life. I made up my mind in two hours and arranged for a minibus to drive my family and the families of two of my friends to Budapest. We were driving behind the minibus to make sure they made it across the bridges. Can you imagine how it feels when you are speeding down the road and 700 metres to your left you have screeching aircraft piloted by morons bombing the airfield in Batajnica? Can you imagine how the kids feel? We knew that it was an opportunity to get our families to safety and that we had to take it no matter what the risk was. Believe me Nagy, that we only hoped that if someone had to die it was us and not our children. They made it to Budapest, thank God. From there Lepa and the kids went to Moscow. It is fortunate that I have a brother there and he has been taking care of them since. What has been happening since. Utter madness. We do very little surgery, only what is inevitable and have emptied the hospital for eventual casualties. We are low on supplies, and you can imagine how surgeons that do not operate feel. We have 24 hour shifts every few days (several teams headed by a professor) as spare teams for the Emergency Centre teams. There is depression and anger everywhere you turn. No one can do anything smart - we just exist. I cannot write or read. Friends (since most families are in exile) meet and spend their time together. I am relieved when I operate - it keeps my mind off my family and the unbelievable reality. Can you believe that 500 million of the richest and most powerful people in the world (the largest fighting force ever) has attacked 10 million people that have been devastated by sanctions and a European capital is being bombed at the end of the second millennium. People do not smile any more, survival is the only preoccupation. It is only important that our kids do not suffer. I have stopped watching satellite news. I cannot stand the propaganda telling me that I belong to a nation that does not deserve to live. Believe me that what you see in the news has nothing to do with how really terrible things are. More than 80 per cent of the bridges have been destroyed, most railroads and roads. Both refineries have been destroyed, there is no gasoline at all, and we practically do not drive cars any more. More than 300 schools and university buildings have been damaged. More than 1 million pre- school, school and university students do not go to school any more. The semester has been concluded one month ago. My daughter has not learned to read properly in first grade and she is already in the second grade. The whole generation will be crippled. Believe me, I have lived through some of the most difficult days in my life, I am tough and I do not break and will not break. In Belgrade practically no one sleeps at night any more, since the main bombings take place from 22:30 to 04:30. It is enough to hear enemy planes fly over your cities, the cruise missiles (they fly low and slow), to hear and feel the explosions. When planes do not fly you still think you hear them. It is hard to stay sane.
[PEN-L:6697] (Fwd) MISTAKES OF THE BLITZ ARE BEING REPEATED
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 11 May 1999 12:04:22 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:MISTAKES OF THE BLITZ ARE BEING REPEATED The Daily Telegraph Tuesday 11 May 1999 MISTAKES OF THE BLITZ ARE BEING REPEATED By John Keegan, Defence Editor The Defence Secretary, George Robertson, was right to reprove me for suggesting that Nato's Supreme Allied Commander should be replaced. A political leader must stand by his military men. Nevertheless, the word is that Gen Wesley Clark is not up to the job. He certainly gives no impression of leadership, as Gen Norman Schwarzkopf so strikingly did during the Gulf war. Meanwhile, President Milosevic's stature grows by the day. Given the way Nato has decided to run this war, that is not surprising. Unsuccessful air wars make the target country and its leader look good, while making whoever is launching the bombs look bumbling, if not bullying. That was certainly the effect of Germany's bombing campaign against Britain in 1940, with which analogies can increasingly be drawn. History does sometimes repeat itself, if the same factors apply. The factor of geographical inaccessibility was as important to Mr Churchill's survival in 1940 as it is to Milosevic's today. The Battle of Britain rightly remains a national epic. It was, moreover, a genuine victory, in which the RAF defeated the Luftwaffe, so successfully defending this country against German invasion. It is important, however, to remember what the RAF was defending. Its own airfields, of course, and the fighting power of the Royal Navy. Yet in the last resort it was defending the English Channel. As long as the RAF's fighters flew over the Channel, the Germans dared not launch their enormous army on to the waves. The more the Germans bombed, moreover, the worse they made themselves look in the eyes of neutrals, particularly in American eyes, and the better - because braver - they made the British look. The better they made Mr Churchill look also. He was not, in 1940, a world figure, merely a recently appointed Prime Minister in a precarious position. It was his magnificent articulation of Britain's determination to resist the Luftwaffe's bombing which both inspired his own people to do so and won him moral superiority over his much stronger political opponent. Yet it was in Britain's inaccessibility that his real superiority lay. Milosevic also enjoys geographical inaccessibility. It is provided not by the sea, for Serbia is landlocked, but by the Balkan mountains. Yet, by Nato's analysis, the mountains are equivalent to a sea: a sea of ambush places, natural anti-tank obstacles, fire traps and every other sort of terrain favourable to Serb defence and unfavourable to Nato attack. So Nato, in its understandable anxiety to check Serb aggression against Kosovo's Albanians, decided to bomb. It is still bombing and still insisting that bombing will break the will of Milosevic and the Serbs, without the necessity to commit ground troops. This seems, again by analogy with 1940, a faulty analysis. The English Channel was only an obstacle to the German army as long as it was defended by the RAF. Had the RAF been beaten, the military problem would have become equivalent to no more than "a large river crossing", as the plan for Operation Sealion put it. Whatever Nato's warplanes do, however, the Balkan mountains will remain a formidable obstacle to any invader who shrinks from incurring casualties. So, in a sense, Milosevic and the Serbs have to do nothing. They are in an even stronger position than the British in 1940. They do not have to maintain an active defence, as the RAF did. Their mountains are an instrument of effective passive defence and will remain so as long as Nato prepares no ground offensive. What makes everything more lamentable is that a thoroughly bad man is being transformed, in public view, into a symbol of stern, even admirable national resistance, by the exercise of the very means that was supposed to topple him from power. Should Nato's air war drag indecisively on, and more of its bombs go astray, a time will come when phrases like "We can take it", "We shall fight them in the hills" and perhaps even "We shall never surrender" will begin to issue from Belgrade. They will sound fine to the Serbs, and perhaps to a wider audience. Who on Nato's side can speak up with a voice of real leadership?
[PEN-L:6696] (Fwd) ALLIES PAINTED AS BUMBLING BULLIES
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 11 May 1999 12:00:25 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:ALLIES PAINTED AS BUMBLING BULLIES The Daily Telegraph May 11, 1999 ALLIES PAINTED AS BUMBLING BULLIES By Christopher Lockwood, Diplomatic Editor The bombing of the Chinese Embassy has been seized upon by all those opposed to the NATO campaign - from die-hard anti- Americans in Beijing to politicians and press within the alliance. Arriving in the Macedonian capital of Skopje yesterday, Oscar Scalfaro, the Italian president, said: "It is necessary for the bombing to stop because we are very worried to see that the raids are apparently moving away from military targets and are being directed towards civilian targets." The Italian press has been more scathing. La Repubblica asked: "To err is human, to persevere is diabolical - aren't we persevering beyond every limit?" Spain has been one of the most reliable NATO countries in the crisis but even the conservative El Mundo wrote: "The measures used by NATO to make Milosevic yield are absurd, bungling and irresponsible. The alliance's leaders are truly incompetent." In Greece, the Eleftherotypia, which usually backs the government, said: "The phrase 'war criminals' is the most lenient characterisation that one can attribute to NATO which is indiscriminately causing death in Serbia." With protests across Asia - in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Pakistan and Singapore - the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder took his forthcoming visit to China back to the drawing board and postponed a EU-Sino summit. More than 100 protesters in Taiwan threw paint and eggs at the US mission and burned US flags. In Hong Kong, Martin Lee, the pro-democracy leader, led a march to the US and British consulates. He said: "It would be very sad indeed if such good relations were to be ruined by a single act of atrocity. That's why we call upon the US government, the leader of the NATO forces, to apologise unreservedly and pay compensation." In Islamabad, Pakistani riot police blocked about 150 Chinese marching to the US Embassy. And in Thailand, a tape broadcast hourly on Business Radio said: "Keep watch on the dangerous and ugly American who is cited as our best friend." Demonstrators in Tokyo held up photos of the three victims and signs saying: "NATO is a killer."
[PEN-L:6618] (Fwd) POST-WAR DISILLUSIONMENT AHEAD
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 10 May 1999 13:08:12 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:POST-WAR DISILLUSIONMENT AHEAD The National Post Monday, May 10, 1999 POST-WAR DISILLUSIONMENT AHEAD We've reached such a level of callousness that our media barely notice NATO's accidental murder of scores of civilians in one incident after another. After the war ends, we'll surely question the barbarism into which we've descended. By Michael Bliss The idealists who support NATO's war against Yugoslavia will suffer multiple disillusionments in its aftermath. The ability to mobilize idealism has been the key to the public support NATO's attacks on Yugoslavia have enjoyed. Important legal and strategic issues have been swept aside by the claim that the Milosevic regime represents radical evil, that it is pursuing a genocidal policy of ethnic cleansing, which, according to NATO and many Western politicians, includes systematic rape, mass executions, and other atrocities. We are fighting a regime that commits crimes against humanity, we are told, a government that ranks with Hitler's or with the murderous regimes of Cambodia and Rwanda. Our side has no aim in the war except to stop the evil. We desire no territory, and we are promising to spend billions after the war rebuilding Yugoslavia and neighbouring countries. Even if the war isn't going very well, we can at least take comfort in knowing that our intentions are honourable. It's all OK, Gwynne Dyer told Canadians early on in The Globe and Mail, because "at last," we were involved in "a good war." The editors of the National Post seem to take the same consolation. Canadians are a particularly idealistic people when it comes to world affairs, and this explains why we are one of the more hawkish NATO warriors. Our Parliament is far more supportive of the war than the U.S. Congress (A cynic might note the Americans are expected to do most of the fighting and dying in the good war.) When Opposition leader Preston Manning cited the "moral imperative" in justification of the war and began reciting biblical commandments, those of us who had hoped for tough parliamentary debate knew it would not happen. The good people who take a black and white view of the war will become disillusioned on as many as three levels. First, there is no doubt that NATO is already working very hard to find a way of making a deal with the devil. When a diplomatic settlement is reached, it will leave Milosevic's government in power. He will not be indicted, let alone tried, as a war criminal. This will obviously be disillusioning, for the logic of Hitlerizing Milosevic is that the war must not end until he is captured or dead - - found, if necessary, in a bunker in the ruins of Belgrade by invading NATO armies. The American idealist William Safire is already forecasting a disillusioning settlement, a Clinton sell-out of the humanitarians, that would be "a triumph for mass murderers everywhere." The second level of disillusionment will be triggered when the NATO governments try to head off just such charges by downplaying the "mass murderer" theme. The wild accusations of genocide, mass executions, rape camps, et cetera, will suddenly end. The official spokesmen who spread the atrocity stories will remind us that they always said they were unconfirmed. Politicians such as Tony Blair, Art Eggleton, and Lloyd Axworthy will admit they exaggerated a bit in the heat of the moment. We will be told that Madame Justice Louise Arbour's court has standards of evidence so high they cannot realistically be met. Also that there seem to have been illegalities on both sides, such as the little matter of KLA terrorism, and they sort of cancel out, and it's best to put such matters behind us and get on with the job of rebuilding. Idealism having served its purpose, being realistic will become the mode again. The third level of disillusionment will set in when, after the war if not as it continues, we realize what NATO has wrought. Our humanitarians gave the professional destroyers in the military a mandate to force the Milosevic government back to the bargaining table and to help the Kosovars. The NATO strategists quickly found they could not do the latter because the Yugoslavian army could hide, escape from, or otherwise avoid the air strikes. If anything, according to The New York Times, NATO has managed to upgrade the image of Milosevic's army. A previously discredited, demoralized force is now seen as the protector of the motherland. Since NATO's air campaign cannot destroy the Serb military, it has turned to trying to destroy Serb morale. It has gradually escalated its
[PEN-L:6619] (Fwd) YUGOSLAV ARMY TELLS UNITS TO START KOSOVO PULLOUT
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 10 May 1999 13:08:21 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:YUGOSLAV ARMY TELLS UNITS TO START KOSOVO PULLOUT Reuters Monday , May 10, 1999 YUGOSLAV ARMY TELLS UNITS TO START KOSOVO PULLOUT BELGRADE The Yugoslav army Supreme Command said Monday it had ordered some of its forces to start withdrawing from Kosovo after ending operations against separatist guerrillas, the official Tanjug news agency reported. "In view of the fact that activities in Kosovo and Metohija against the so-called KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) have ended, the Supreme Command has ordered parts of its army and police units to start withdrawing from Kosovo and Metohija," Tanjug said, quoting an army statement. It said the decision took effect from 10 p.m. (4 p.m. EDT) Sunday. Withdrawal of Yugoslav troops and police that the West accuses of driving ethnic Albanians out of Serbia's southern province in a mass exercise of "ethnic cleansing" is one of the key NATO conditions for halting its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. However in early reactions both the United States and Britain said the Yugoslav move failed to meet NATO's conditions for a halt to the bombing. The army statement said forces could be reduced to levels they were at before the beginning of NATO air strikes on March 24 once agreement was reached with the United Nations on sending a U.N. mission to Kosovo. It said security forces "at a peacetime level" would be able to prevent any attacks by ethnic Albanian "terrorist gangs," Belgrade's usual description of KLA guerrillas fighting for an independent Kosovo. It did not explain what a peace-time level should be, but previous references to this have meant the deployment of troops agreed at talks with U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke in October. Earlier Monday former U.N. envoy Yasushi Akashi said after talks with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic that the Yugoslav leader appeared to rule out a complete withdrawal of his security forces. "He felt that the security and police of Yugoslavia (in Kosovo) should be kept at the level of before the bombing started, in other words, it should be reduced but he felt that a minimum might be needed," Akashi said. There was no indication of the make-up of what the statement called a U.N. mission to Kosovo. While the West insists that any agreement on Kosovo must include the deployment of a substantial international force of some 28,000 built around NATO to guarantee the safe return of ethnic Albanian refugees, Belgrade says it will only accept a small, lightly- armed force under U.N. control. Milosevic told Akashi he was prepared to negotiate an end to the Kosovo crisis on the basis of recent proposals by the Group of Eight major powers. But Akashi, former U.N. envoy to ex-Yugoslavia, said after meeting Milosevic that the Yugoslav leader was "very firm" on wanting a small, lightly-armed U.N.-controlled force. Akashi who said he was on a private visit, told Reuters he and Milosevic had discussed the makeup of future international civil and security presences for Kosovo outlined by the G8 last week but did not go into the specifics of size or armaments. "He seems to be quite open to negotiations on the basis of the G8 statement," Akashi said. Milosevic felt that heavy arms were not needed and that any mission should be similar in size to the previous Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Kosovo Verification Mission, which numbered about 1,500, he added. The OSCE mission, which was unarmed, withdrew from Kosovo in March to make way for NATO's air strike campaign, launched after a truce collapsed and Milosevic rejected an international peace plan for Kosovo including foreign troops. Akashi said Milosevic did not reject NATO involvement per se but said he did not want any countries which had participated in NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia involved in peacekeeping.
[PEN-L:6557] (Fwd) _Was_ there ethnic cleansing in Kosovo before March 24?
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 18:02:45 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:_Was_ there ethnic cleansing in Kosovo before March 24? "I did not witness, nor did I have knowledge of any incidents of so called 'ethnic cleansing' and there certainly were no occurrences of 'genocidal policy'. NATO has caused the catastrophic Kosovo population displacement to occur." ROLAND (ROLLIE) KEITH, 32-year career Canadian Military Officer (Ret.), former Director of Kosovo Polje Field Office of the Kosovo Verification Mission, 99.
[PEN-L:6558] (Fwd) 'CHANCELLOR OF WAR' FACES TIDE OF DISSENT - The Times (
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 18:22:38 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:'CHANCELLOR OF WAR' FACES TIDE OF DISSENT - The Times (London), May 4 The Times (London) May 4, 1999 'CHANCELLOR OF WAR' FACES TIDE OF DISSENT Former Finance Minister launches scathing attack on NATO campaign By Roger Boyes, Inside Germany The tide of German opinion is shifting rapidly against the NATO war in Yugoslavia. Popular opponents have found a voice in the form of Oskar Lafontaine, the former Finance Minister, who at the weekend relaunched his political career with a scathing attack on the NATO campaign. "We are stuck in a dead-end street," Herr Lafontaine told a May Day rally. "More and more innocent people are becoming victims of this bombing. I urge those responsible to work towards ending the bombing, to return to the negotiating table." Before the speech, Herr Lafontaine was urged by nervous Social Democratic colleagues to curb any direct attack on Gerhard Schroeder, the Chancellor. Yet the target was clear; Herr Lafontaine, former Social Democratic chairman, is convinced that he can feel the pulse of his party better than anyone. "Oskar," said a friend of the difficult, often edgy Saarlander, "regards it as his duty to alert the Chancellor to the public discontent about the war." Herr Lafontaine could well be reading the mood correctly. The May Day rallies were one useful pointer. Rudolf Scharping, Defence Minister, hailed by the media, was greeted with chants of "Killer, killer". At the Lafontaine rally, somebody hoisted a placard showing Herr Schroeder as Adolf Hitler. A section of the crowd shouted abuse at the "war Chancellor". Every trade union speaker at the weekend urged NATO to stop the bombing. In eastern Germany - where opposition is strongest - the Social Democratic prime minster of Brandenburg, Manfred Stolpe, won loud applause when he shouted: "Put an end to this bombardment." Even the Green Environment Minister, far from happy with German involvement in the war, was pelted with eggs. These protests were more than just ritualised left-wing grumbling. The Government is a Social Democrat-Green coalition. The demonstrators make up the Government's basic constituency. Their demands go beyond stopping the war. They want a commitment that Germany will not put itself on a collision course with Russia, and guarantees that Germany will not be flooded by refugees. Growing legions of German critics accept the Serb propaganda that Kosovans are fleeing NATO bombs rather than ethnic cleansers. The Forsa Opinion Poll Institute shows 52 per cent now favour an immediate unilateral interruption of the NATO campaign. "The consensus machine is beginning to break down," says Ernst- Otto Czempiel, politics professor. Modern German politicians have no experience of sustaining support for a long war. They have already deployed the familiar techniques to mobilise public opinion - pictures of massacres, accusations of Serb concentration camps - and are quick to remind Germans that their post-Holocaust moral obligation is to act against injustice rather than stand aside. But these devices are no longer working. Germans have stopped believing in a meaningful victory on the battlefield. They are looking for a speedy diplomatic face- saver. The release of three US soldiers appeared to open the way for some new thinking about postwar political and economic reconstruction of the Balkans - a campaign, they believe, that can be won. Germany is on the margins of the military offensive. In the postwar climate, it can take the lead with America on a Marshall- style aid package, financial support for democratic governments and backing for a European Union-backed stabilisation plan. Germany does not have the patience to wait for a natural military turning point: it wants reconstruction now. This tension between fidelity to the Alliance's military and political aims and erosion of domestic support for military action make Bonn look like a mansion with dry rot. The Government has reached its psychological limit; it could not take part in a ground-troop offensive or even a policing action. Nor would Germans willingly agree to an escalation of airstrikes.
[PEN-L:6559] (Fwd) NATO's actions causing human rights catastrophe - UN H
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 18:03:00 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO's actions causing "human rights catastrophe" - UN Human Rights Commissioner The Toronto StarMay 7, 1999 A HUMAN-RIGHTS CATASTROPHE Large numbers of innocent civilians have been killed by NATO's actions; parallels to situation in Iraq. By Richard Gwyn The comments made a few days ago by Mary Robinson, the United Nations' Chief Commissioner for Human Rights, about what is going on in Yugoslavia, were exactly those you'd expect someone in her position to make. "A human-rights catastrophe" was unfolding, said Robinson. "Large numbers of innocent civilians have been killed." This is much the same as many commentators have been saying. Except for one critical fact. The innocent civilians Robinson was referring to were the Yugoslavs in Belgrade and elsewhere, who night after night are being pounded, and sometimes killed, by NATO's now six-week-old bombing campaign. Robinson's comments about what is being done in Kosovo by the Yugoslav army and special police were far more severe. "We are seeing terrible violations to vulnerable people week after week," she said. But her observations about what NATO is doing were stinging. "Civilian installations are being targeted on the basis that they are or could be of military application. And NATO remains the sole judge of what is or is not acceptable to bomb." Most stinging of all was Robinson's comments that, "What we are in effect seeing is that war-making has become the tool of peacemaking." All newspapers carried reports of Robinson's speech, made to the closing session of a meeting of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva. But if you'd blinked, you could easily have missed it. There were no front-page headlines. There were no follow-up interviews of Robinson. Her anguished plea was like a pebble dropped into the water that made a small splash before being quickly covered over by NATO spin doctors. Robinson isn't alone in her anguish about NATO's strategy. Pope John Paul II has appealed for an end to the bombing. So has Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the author and dissident whose attacks upon the Soviet system were once so widely applauded in the West. Instead, not only has NATO's bombing continued and intensified but its targeting of civilians has now become its explicit policy. After new graphite bombs destroyed the Yugoslav electrical power system - putting hospital patients at grave risk - NATO spokesperson Jamie Shea declared, "NATO has its finger on the light switch now. We can turn the power off whenever we want." There is something obscene about a war being fought for humanitarian purposes that is itself becoming an inhumane war. That this inhumanity is mindless, rather than the deliberate brutality that has been wreaked upon the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo by the Yugoslav army and special police, does not in any way mitigate the criminality of the act. The 500 dead Yugoslav civilians (so far) are as dead as the slaughtered ethnic Albanians. Indeed, before long the number of dead Yugoslav civilians will equal the number of Kosovars killed in the year-long civil war that justified NATO's declaration of war on Yugoslavia. Nor is the conduct entirely mindless. NATO's decision not to fight a ground war represented a conscious preference for civilian Yugoslav casualties rather than for military casualties of both the Yugoslav army and of NATO contingents. All air wars reduce civilians to anonymous objects. Which makes them easy to kill. As well, the demonization of the enemy and the personalization of their leader - acts that democracies always undertake to muster up public support for their wars - further distances those pressing the button from those on whom the cruise missiles fall. The parallel is with Iraq. There, neutral observers like Amnesty International have estimated that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children have died of malnutrition and of common diseases for which medicines are no longer available, while the U.S. and its allies continue to hurl bombs at the country and to blockade it with sanctions. The terrible truth is that democracies can be as violent, if in a sterile, surgical way, as more repressive and less-advanced societies. Hiroshima and Dresden are evidence of this. Because of the entirely legitimate disgust and outrage in the West at Serbian atrocities, public disquiet about the inhumanity of our own war has been muted. But it is beginning to reveal itself. In Germany,
[PEN-L:6560] (Fwd) AS INNOCENTS DIE FROM NATO'S BOMBARDMENT, WHERE ARE THE
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 18:39:09 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:AS INNOCENTS DIE FROM NATO'S BOMBARDMENT, WHERE ARE THE VOICES OF PROTEST? - Tom Hayden The Los Angeles Times Wednesday, May 5, 1999 AS THE INNOCENT DIE, WHERE ARE ALL THE VOICES OF PROTEST? The liberals' silence on the NATO bombing and its 'collateral damage' is keeping us from talking about alternatives. By Tom Hayden Where are the voices of protest against the suffering inflicted on civilians and children by our bombardment of Serbia? The moral rationale provided by the Clinton administration at the outset of the bombing was that the brutal ethnic cleansing of Kosovo could be stopped in a short military campaign. That promise was either a deception or a delusion. The war has turned into a horrific quagmire, and yet even liberal Democrats remain strangely tongue-tied about the suffering, which our government lamely calls "collateral damage." Every day seems to bring news of civilians being killed and the White House apologizing. Worse, according to the Wall Street Journal, President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair pushed in mid-April for a wider definition of targets that would increase the danger to civilians. The result is the death of cleaning ladies and bus drivers, evacuation of 85,000 people from Belgrade neighborhoods poisoned by toxic chemicals, the unemployment of 100,000 Serbs and laying waste of Serbia's civilian infrastructure with what the New York Times calls "greater effects on the gross domestic product than the Nazi and, then, the Allied bombing of Yugoslavia" during World War II. And the silence continues. Perhaps the silent ones think these are all regrettable accidents, or that war is hell, or that bombing Serb civilians who have opposed Milosovic in the past will help them to overthrow him now. What then of the intentional indiscriminate infliction of shrapnel wounds on children? Unexploded cluster bomb units are turning whole areas of Yugoslavia into a "no man's land," wounding large numbers of children in the process. According to the Los Angeles Times, the director of Pristina's hospital says he has never done so many amputations as he has since victims of the weapon started coming in. I keep an early model of the cluster bombs used in Vietnam on my shelf as a reminder of the evil done in the name of good intentions. The bombs are dropped over a broad landscape, where they explode via timers or the simple vibration of a passerby. The blast causes up to 300 pieces of deadly shrapnel to scatter in all directions. The shrapnel is very difficult to remove because of its deliberately jagged design. Liberal silence on these issues allows Pentagon and NATO spokesmen to systematically and routinely utilize doublespeak and refuse to discuss the kinds of weapons they are using. There seem to be two reasons for the Democratic war fever. First, invocation of the Holocaust analogy has led many to accept Ted Koppel's admonition to "get used to the idea of civilian casualties." But is this the Holocaust or is it intervention in a long- standing Balkan religious and ethnic war? Whatever the answer, is there no level of civilian suffering that makes the bombing unjustifiable? And most important, isn't the U.S. and NATO military commitment to stop ethnic cleansing in the Balkans even slightly suspicious given the ethnic cleansing that they tolerate in Tibet, Turkey, Guatemala, Rwanda and Angola? Is this war really about human rights or about consolidating the U.S. and NATO as an alternative to the United Nations? Second, the fact that President Clinton and his European social democratic allies started the bombing leads a majority of Democrats to rally behind their party leader. This was acceptable when the issue was belittling the president's sexual indiscretions to avoid impeachment, but it is quite something else to become apologists for the killing of children with anti-personnel bombs to shore up Western "credibility." The Democratic Party's domestic agenda will be unraveled by the new liberal militarism. Already the Republican Congress has forced Clinton to accept $13 billion in military funds, twice what the president requested. By contrast, the president will ask for just $1 billion this year for new teachers and $5 billion over five years for school overcrowding. I want to continue deepening and expanding the president's domestic agenda of investing in schools and jobs in the inner city, providing health care and restoring the natural environment. Three decades ago, I was pursuing the same agenda when the Democratic Party started the Vietnam War
[PEN-L:6561] (Fwd) G-8 KOSOVO PRINCIPLES - A N O T H E R P E A C E P
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 18:30:38 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:G-8 KOSOVO PRINCIPLES - A N O T H E R P E A C E P L A N F R A U D P r e s s I n f o # 6 7 G 8 K O S O V O P R I N C I P L E S - A N O T H E R P E A C E P L A N F R A U D May 7, 1999 "The G8 foreign ministers' declaration of principles to resolve the Kosovo "crisis" is a mishmash of face-saving elements for the West and addresses none of the root causes of the conflict or the failure of the West as a mediator," says TFF director Jan Oberg. "This declaration may be used to justify continued bombing and, if implemented, promises a very sad future for the Balkans. But 'conflict illiteracy' abounds, so leading media call it a peace plan - repeating their treatment of Rambouillet." Here follows the full G8 text of principles as published by BBC on May 6. - - - - - "The following general principles must be adopted and implemented to resolve the Kosovo crisis: * Immediate and verifiable end of violence and repression in Kosovo. * Withdrawal from Kosovo of military, police and paramilitary forces. * Deployment in Kosovo of effective international civil and security presences, endorsed and adopted by the United Nations, capable of guaranteeing the achievement of the common objectives. * The establishment of an interim administration for Kosovo, to be decided by the Security Council of the United Nations to ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants for Kosovo. * The safe and free return of all refugees and displaced persons and unimpeded access to Kosovo by humanitarian aid organisations. * A political process towards the establishment of an interim political framework. An agreement providing for substantial self-government for Kosovo, taking full account of the Rambouillet accords and the principles and sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and other countries of the region and the demilitarisation of the UCK. * Comprehensive approach to the economic development and stabilisation of the crisis region." - - - - - "Here are 10 reasons why this declaration can be seen as another peace plan fraud: 1. The ministers call this a "crisis" and not a "conflict" or a "war." That indicates that their purpose is to create a face-saving formula for the crisis created by NATO's Balkan bombing blunder. People in Yugoslavia (FRY), the Kosovars in particular and the surrounding countries see it as a conflict that exploded in war and aggression. The principles grasp none of the deep roots of the conflict itself and focus on none of the needs of the peoples living in the region. 2. They avoid reference to NATO's bombing and under what conditions it would stop. 3. The ministers begin with withdrawal of FRY forces (which, all or some, from where to where?) and ends with a general reference to (later) demilitarisation of the UCK under the point "political process." This continues the lack of balance - introduced last year by ambassador Holbrooke - in dealing with two fighting parties/forces in a civil war. 4. It does not state whether all or some FRY forces shall be withdrawn. It mentions 'demilitarization' of UCK, but can there be an Army without weapons? If so, is this an endorsement of the KLA-dominated 'government' recently formed outside the constitution and political framework of Kosova? 5. The ministers avoid defining the international "presences;" but the wording 'international civil and security' does represent an important move away from "NATO alone" over "NATO lead" and "international security force with a NATO core." Good that the UN is, finally, to play a role, but will it be as leader or as a hostage holding the rubber stamp? 6. Reference to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of FRY is not enough. The declaration does not mention that FRY shall be consulted about its own future. The UN Security Council shall decide about an interim administration and the interim political framework shall take full account of the Rambouillet accords. But they violated the integrity and sovereignty of FRY and were no 'accords.' 7. The ministers seem to believe that it is an 'interim administration for Kosovo' rather than a socio-psychological, people-based peace-building process which will bring peace to the region. This continues the disastrous top-down 'engineering' or 'managerial' approach to conflict where a shift to consultation, trust-building, and regeneration of civil society is much needed. 8. The declaration is most interesting for what it does not say a word about, namely: a) local and regional trust- and confidence-building, b) consulting with FRY and KLA/UCK and Dr. Rugova, c) negotiations between the conflict's core parties, and d) a Balkan regional approach and process. 9. The
[PEN-L:6562] (Fwd) UPSTAGED BY JESSE JACKSON
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 18:02:13 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:UPSTAGED BY JESSE JACKSON THE TORONTO SUN Tuesday, May 4, 1999 UPSTAGED BY JESSE JACKSON Despite Jackson's success and President Slobodan Milosevic's peace feelers seeking terms other than those the West tried to impose at Rambouillet, the U.S. has recommitted to this illegal, immoral and undeclared war. By Michael Harris OTTAWA -- With Jesse Jackson playing the president, and Bill Clinton Dr. Strangelove, the undeclared war in Yugoslavia just got curiouser and curiouser -- Alice in Wonderland with bombs and beau gestes. How strange that the man who rallied black America behind the president during Clinton's impeachment agonies should so stunningly upstage Bubba in the current circumstances. How telling that the man who brought home the three U.S. soldiers should be rewarded for his moral leadership by Clinton's refusal to give him the one thing he asked for -- a single day's stop to the cold-blooded destruction of Yugoslavia. From NATO's, i.e., Clinton's perspective, the most humiliating thing about Rev. Jackson's diplomatic coup is that it brought results. The alliance has merely added to the body count of both Serbians and Kosovar Albanians. Jackson accomplished with words what a thousand NATO warplanes have made harder and harder to achieve with their "smart" bombs and dumb strategy. Despite Jackson's success and President Slobodan Milosevic's peace feelers on any terms other than the shotgun wedding the West tried to impose at Rambouillet, France, America has recommitted to this illegal, immoral and undeclared war. U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen said that not only will NATO pursue the bombing of this sovereign nation and UN member that began on March 24, it will intensify the carnage. War crimes I guess he meant what he said. Balancing Milosevic's alleged atrocities, NATO's list of war crimes is growing by the air raid. First it was a convoy of refugees mistaken for the "enemy," then a passenger train that somehow found itself in an F-18's bomb sites, next it was journalists who got the death penalty for putting out the news as they saw it, and most recently it was 47 civilians who died outside Luzane in Kosovo because one of our bombs wasn't smart enough to know the difference between a tank and a bus. Having brazenly violated Article 51 of the UN Charter, America is feeling its oats. Unbelievably, the once defensive alliance turned into a motorcycle gang by Clinton is laying plans to enforce an embargo of Yugoslavia-bound oil, even though the enterprise is clearly another illegal act. Worse, the general in charge of NATO's technocide against the Serbs, (not Milosevic the dictator and brute, but against the Serbs) blurted out recently that NATO should bomb any Russian ships that venture into the Mediterranean Sea with oil for Belgrade! A White House flack tried to slough off Wesley Clark's musings by saying the general needed sleep. What he needs is a new assignment that would include a hospital stay until he gets better. The one thing NATO has on its side, besides enough firepower to wipe out an enemy who is fighting back with the equivalent of sling shots, is the short attention span of North American audiences. When the war began, it was big news if a civilian died in Yugoslavia as a result of NATO bombing. Now 47 die and that makes Page 12, while Page 1 is devoted to three well-treated and released U.S. prisoners of war. I will never understand why a life lost to violence in a distant country is any less important than a life lost at Columbine High, but it is. In a way, I guess that's the problem. A failure of the imagination and the heart. Which sums up Canada's role in this sorry mess. We have become the whited sepulchres of the international community -- a country historically committed to peacekeeping, but not averse to blowing up innocent civilians from the air when our American masters dip a little too deeply into the Viagra and need a few bum boys to legitimize an enterprise that the UN never would. It's pathetic to see our foreign affairs minister in Mozambique for mutual backslapping over last year's treaty banning land mines, while Canadian pilots are wiping out human life in Yugoslavia as though it were all a video game. Is it any wonder the Russians weren't anxious to return phone calls from the Canadian government, which wanted to talk peace while it was helping to turn Yugoslavia into a 24-hour fly-through where death is the only thing on the menu? Axworthy disgusting Equally disgusting is Axworthy's heartfelt hope the United Nations can broker a
[PEN-L:6565] (Fwd) CITIZENS MUST ARRIVE AT INDEPENDENT JUDGMENTS OF THIS WA
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 18:02:27 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:CITIZENS MUST ARRIVE AT INDEPENDENT JUDGMENTS OF THIS WAR The Boston GlobeMay 4, 1999 CITIZENS MUST ARRIVE AT INDEPENDENT JUDGMENTS OF THIS WAR Ours is now an air war against the civic society of Yugoslavia; it has become a crime against humanity. Now that Jesse Jackson and Viktor Chernomyrdin have provided an opening in the Balkans stalemate, President Clinton should move through it. In his recent interview with UPI, Slobodan Milosevic went on record with these proposals: a cessation of all military activities; the simultaneous withdrawal of NATO troops from Yugoslav border areas and the reduction of Serb forces in Kosovo to a normal garrison level; the return of all refugees; continued negotiations aiming at ''the widest possible autonomy for Kosovo within Serbia;'' free access of refugee relief teams from the UN and the Red Cross; an economic recovery plan for the three Yugoslav Federation states. A seventh point, made clear in the interview, was Milosevic's acceptance of an international peacekeeping force, armed with weapons of self-defense. Here is the heart of the Serb leader's proposal. ''The UN can have a huge mission in Kosovo, if it wants. They can bear witness to the legal behavior of our law-enforcement agencies, and to the fact that everything is now peaceful.'' Administration officials dismissed the Milosevic proposals as ''propaganda spewing from the highest source,'' and the Milosevic approach through Jesse Jackson as ''a PR stunt.'' It is not clear yet what yesterday's meeting between Chernomyrdin and Clinton will lead to, but the initial dismissals of this new attempt to open negotiations is not promising. We citizens must arrive at independent judgments of these developments. In order to do that, we must return to the basic question: What is the purpose of the NATO air war? If it is the vindication of NATO, coupled with the humiliation of Milosevic, then this new set of initiatives must be rejected. But if NATO's purpose is the protection of Kosovar civilians, those hundreds of thousands at the mercy of Serb forces, and, now, of disease and hunger, then Chernomyrdin must absolutely be enabled to build on the Milosevic proposals. These openings offer a way to stop the rapes, murders, and further ''ethnic cleansing,'' and they offer the hope of a substantial reversal of that ethnic cleansing. ''A huge UN mission in Kosovo'' right now is exactly what is required. On the crucial point of whether that force is armed or not, Milosevic has already reversed himself, backing down from his prior rejection even of sidearms. His distinction between ''defensive'' and ''offensive'' weapons can be read more as face-saving than as a deal-breaker. What counts now is the prompt introduction of many thousands of UN peacekeepers, to stand with the vulnerable Kosovars, to bring the eyes and ears of the world back into the killing fields, to ''bear witness,'' exactly, that the atrocities have stopped. NATO insists that any such presence be mainly made up of its own forces, but what difference does it make to terrorized Kosovars whether the helmets of their protectors are green or blue? Whatever happens, this is a turning point in the war. Until now, there has been a painful division between those who see the conflict as a tragic but necessary campaign to stop savage human-rights abuses, and those who see it as a terribly misguided, if initially well- intentioned, effort to stop one kind of unacceptable violence with another. But a resolution to the killing phase of this conflict - a precondition to political resolution of the intractable problems remaining - is now possible. Such are the horrors facing the fugitive population of Kosovo that everything must be put second to the urgent task of rescuing them. Alas, despite the rhetoric of ''Never again!,'' NATO and the White House seem to have lost sight of the endangered human beings they set out to save. Having made the humiliation of Milosevic the central meaning of this war, NATO now seems to be defining negotiation with Milosevic as its own humiliation. If NATO clings to this refusal, we the American people in whose name this war is being waged must understand what it means. From here on out, any pretense that the violence is justified by a defense of human rights is gone. Every woman raped, every village burned, and every refugee dead of starvation or disease will be on the conscience of the West. Meanwhile, NATO's savage air war escalates into its ''domination phase,'' which makes the true
[PEN-L:6563] (Fwd) The U.S. and NATO's New World Disorder in Kosovo - Misha
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 18:03:20 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:The U.S. and NATO's New World Disorder in Kosovo - Misha Kokotovic, Asst. Professor, UC San Diego The U.S. and NATO's New World Disorder in Kosovo Misha Kokotovic, Asst. Professor UC San Diego Presentation to the World Affairs Council of San Diego May 5, 1999 I would like to start by thanking the World Affairs Council and its program co-chair Mr. Fred Nathan, as well as the San Diego Union Tribune, for organizing and sponsoring this event. And I want to thank all of you for coming tonight. We are a month and a half into a devastating U.S. and NATO war on Yugoslavia, and while there has certainly been plenty of media coverage, there have not been enough opportunities like this one for Americans to discuss the objectives, methods, and consequences of the war being waged in our name. As is perhaps obvious from my name, I am originally from Yugoslavia, though I have not been back there for at least 20 years. I have, however, closely followed the destruction of my country of origin over the last 10 years, and have kept in touch with relatives there, most of whom are currently in Belgrade undergoing NATO bombardment. They, and I, have consistently opposed Slobodan Milosevic since he rose to power, and we hold him largely (though not solely) responsible for the destruction of Yugoslavia over the last decade. So, my opposition to the U.S. and NATO war on Yugoslavia should in no way be construed as support for Milosevic, his government, or its policies. Tonight I would like to address five points. I will begin by briefly summarizing the situation on the ground in Kosovo in the months before the NATO air war began. That is, the situation which has been used to justify the war. Second, I want to raise the question of the need for foreign military intervention in Kosovo. Third, I will argue that if such intervention was required, only a body representative of the entire international community could have legitimately authorized it, and only a force with a consistent record of defending human rights might have had the moral authority to carry out it out. The U.S. and NATO, unfortunately, meet neither of these conditions. Fourth, I want to review the officially stated "humanitarian" objectives of the war, and compare them to its actual effects so far. And finally, I have a few comments about the new global role the U.S. is attempting to define for NATO, in part through the war on Yugoslavia. I The situation on the ground in Kosovo was much messier than U.S. and NATO war propaganda would have us believe. NATO intervened in an internal armed conflict between Yugoslav security forces and the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army, which is estimated to have several thousand well armed fighters. In 1997 and 1998, the KLA repeatedly attacked Yugoslav security forces as well as civilians, both Serbs and those Albanians it considered Serb "collaborators." By the summer of 1998 the KLA had gained control of 40% of Kosovo, and the Yugoslav Army responded with an offensive of its own. In pursuit of their war against the KLA guerillas, Yugoslav security forces drove some 200,000-300,000 Albanian civilians from their homes, making them internal refugees. In addition, there is general agreement that about 2000 people were killed in the year before the U.S. and NATO began bombing. Sources differ, however, as to whom this total of 2000 dead includes. Does it include all those killed on both sides, Yugoslav soldiers and police as well as KLA guerillas? Or does it refer, rather, to the civilian dead only? Or just to the Albanian civilians killed? Either way, it was a human rights nightmare, but sadly not a unique one. II The question is, did this internal conflict, horrible as it was, require foreign military intervention? Was such outside intervention justifiable? I do not pretend to have a definitive answer for you, but I do believe that more effort should have been put into negotiations before resorting to violence. What went on at the Rambouillet talks was more of an ultimatum than a negotiation. Whatever one might think of Milosevic and his government, no head of state could reasonably have been expected to sign a document like the one presented to Yugoslavia at Rambouillet, which authorized NATO occupation not only of Kosovo, but of the entire country. I would also point out that if Kosovo required foreign military intervention, then there are several other regions in the world where we should be intervening as well, for Kosovo is hardly a unique situation. Turkey's repression of its Kurdish minority and its war against the Kurdish separatist guerillas of the PKK are quite comparable. Yet instead of intervening in Turkey on behalf of the PKK,
[PEN-L:6566] (Fwd) KLA LINKED TO ENORMOUS HEROIN TRADE; POLICE SUSPECT DRUG
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 18:02:53 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:KLA LINKED TO ENORMOUS HEROIN TRADE; POLICE SUSPECT DRUGS HELPED FINANCE REVOLT - San Francisco Chronicle The San Francisco Chronicle May 5, 1999 KLA LINKED TO ENORMOUS HEROIN TRADE; POLICE SUSPECT DRUGS HELPED FINANCE REVOLT By Frank Viviano, Chronicle Staff Writer Officers of the Kosovo Liberation Army and their backers, according to law enforcement authorities in Western Europe and the United States, are a major force in international organized crime, moving staggering amounts of narcotics through an underworld network that reaches into the heart of Europe. In the words of a November 1997 statement issued by Interpol, the international police agency, "Kosovo Albanians hold the largest share of the heroin market in Switzerland, in Austria, in Belgium, in Germany, in Hungary, in the Czech Republic, in Norway and in Sweden." That the Albanians of Kosovo are victims of a conscious, ethnic-cleansing campaign set in motion by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is clear. But the credentials of some who claim to represent them are profoundly disturbing, say highly placed sources on both sides of the Atlantic. On March 25 -- the day after NATO's bombardment of Serb forces began -- drug enforcement experts from the Hague-based European Office of Police (EUROPOL), met in an emergency closed session devoted to "Kosovar Narcotics Trafficking Networks." EUROPOL is preparing an extensive report for European justice and interior ministers on the KLA's role in heroin smuggling. Independent investigations of the charges are also under way in Sweden, Germany and Switzerland. "We have intelligence leading us to believe that there could be a connection between drug money and the Kosovo Liberation Army," Walter Kege, head of the drug enforcement unit in the Swedish police intelligence service, told the London Times in late March. As long as four years ago, U.S. officials were concerned about alleged ties between narcotics syndicates and the People's Movement of Kosovo, a dissident political organization founded in 1982 that is now the KLA's political wing. A 1995 advisory by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration warned of the possibility "that certain members of the ethnic Albanian community in the Serbian region of Kosovo have turned to drug trafficking in order to finance their separatist activities." If the drug-running allegations against the KLA are accurate, the group could join a rogues' gallery of former U.S. allies whose interests outside the battlefield brought deep embarrassment and domestic political turmoil to Washington. In 1944, the invading U.S. Army handed the reins of power in Sicily to local "anti-fascists" who were in fact Mafia leaders. During the next half century, American governments also turned a blind eye to, or collaborated with, the narcotics operations of Southeast Asian drug lords and Nicaraguan Contras who were allied with the United States in Indochina and Central America. In each case, the legacy of these partnerships ranged from global expansion of the power wielded by criminal syndicates, to divisive congressional inquiries at home and lasting suspicion of American intentions overseas. The involvement of ethnic Albanians in the drug trade is not exclusively Kosovar. It includes members of Albanian communities in Europe's three poorest countries or regions -- Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania -- where the appeal of narcotics trafficking is self-explanatory, even without a separatist war to fund. The average 1997 monthly salary in all three communities was less than $200. In Albania, it was less than $50. According to the Paris-based Geopolitical Drug Watch, which advises the governments of Britain and France on illegal narcotics operations, one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of heroin costs $8,300 in Albania, which lies at the western terminus of a "Balkan Route" that today accounts for up to 90 percent of the drug's exports to Europe from Southeast Asia and Turkey. Across the border from Albania in Greece, the same kilo of heroin can be sold for $30,000, yielding an instant profit equal to nine years' normal income in Macedonia and more than a third of a century in Albania or prebombardment Kosovo. The Balkan Route is a principal thoroughfare for an illicit drug traffic worth $400 billion annually, according to Interpol. Although only a small number of ethnic Albanian clans profit directly from the trade, their
[PEN-L:6564] (Fwd) NATO LOSSES AND THE MILITARY COSTS - Defense Foreign A
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 13:58:48 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO LOSSES AND THE MILITARY COSTS - Defense Foreign Affairs report Defense Foreign Affairs April 1999 NATO LOSSES AND THE MILITARY COSTS [The Defense Foreign Affairs Group of Publications (USA), which started in 1972, circulate exclusively to senior government, defense, intelligence and industry officials in more than 170 countries worldwide.] "It is clear from the amount and quality of intelligence received by this journal from a variety of highly-reputable sources that NATO forces have already suffered significant losses of men, women and materiel. Neither NATO, nor the US, UK or other member governments, have admitted to these losses, other than the single USAF F-117A Stealth fighter which was shown, crashed and burning inside Serbia. The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff had denied, about a month into the bombing, that the US had suffered the additional losses reported to Defense Foreign Affairs. By April 20, 1999, NATO losses stood at approximately the following: * 38 fixed-wing combat aircraft; * Six helicopters; * Seven unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs); * "Many" Cruise Missiles (lost to AAA or SAM fire). Several other NATO aircraft were reported down after that date, including at least one of which there was Serbian television coverage. The aircraft reportedly include three F-117A Stealth strike aircraft, including the one already known. One of the remaining two was shot down in an air-to-air engagement with a Yugoslav Air Force MiG-29 fighter; the other was lost to AAA (anti-aircraft artillery) or SAM (surface-to-air missile) fire. Given the recovery by the Yugoslavs of F- 117A technology, and the fact that the type has proven less than invincible, the mystique of the aircraft a valuable deterrent tool until now for the US has been lost. At least one USAF F-15 Eagle fighter has been lost, with the pilot, reportedly an African-American major, alive and in custody as a POW. At least one German pilot (some sources say two men, implying perhaps a Luftwaffe crew from a Tornado) has been captured. There is also a report that at least one US female pilot has been killed. In one instance in the first week of the fighting, an aircraft was downed near Podgorica. A NATO helicopter then picked up the downed pilot, but the helicopter itself was then shot down, according to a number of reports. Losses of US and other NATO ground force personnel, inside Serbia, have also been extensive. A Yugoslav Army unit ambushed a squad climbing a ravine south of Pristina, killing 20 men. When the black tape was taken from their dog-tags it was found that 12 were US Green Berets; eight were British special forces (presumably Special Air Service/SAS). This incident apparently occurred within a week or so of the bombing campaign launch. It is known that other US and other NATO casualties have, on some occasions, been retrieved by NATO forces after being hit inside Yugoslavia. At least 30 bodies of US servicemen have been processed through Athens, after being transported from the combat zone. At least two of the helicopters downed by the Yugoslavs were carrying troops, and in these two a total of 50 men were believed to have been killed, most of them (but not all) of US origin. Certainly, the US has lost to ground fire and malfunction a number of Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. At least some of these have been retrieved more or less intact, and the technology has been immediately reviewed by Yugoslav engineers. More than one told this writer that the technology was now readily able to be replicated in Yugoslavia. The war has cost Alliance members in other ways, too. There is enormous disaffection with the US Armed Forces. For a start, to prosecute even the smallest expansion of the war requires the call-up of Reserve and National Guard units. The personnel from these units have civilian jobs, and, as with the US involvement in S-FOR in Bosnia- Herzegovina, being called up for active duty in the Balkans seems to be an open-ended thing. This is not the type of national emergency for which most of them signed-on. On top of that, there are questions about the wisdom of the orders they are receiving, and a total lack of clear strategic (let alone military) objectives. One serving career mid-level military officer in the US told this writer: "I am incredibly appalled at this war, or whatever it is, and the lack of strategic thought; the bungling, stumbling blind policies which have led to this [situation], and the murderous impact on not just the Serbs and Kosovars, but on the concepts of
[PEN-L:6524] (Fwd) NATO'S COMPROMISE ON TERMS FOR ENDING STRIFE SIGNALS DI
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 12:22:07 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO'S COMPROMISE ON TERMS FOR ENDING STRIFE SIGNALS DIPLOMATIC RETREAT The Globe and Mail Friday, May 7, 1999 NATO'S COMPROMISE ON TERMS FOR ENDING STRIFE SIGNALS DIPLOMATIC RETREAT By Marcus Gee The Kosovo peace plan announced by Russia and seven Western powers yesterday appears to represent a significant diplomatic retreat by NATO. Trapped in a war that they seem incapable of winning with air power alone, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's leading countries have compromised on some of their major conditions for ending the conflict, from the composition of a postwar occupation force to the shape of a postwar political order. They have also shifted position by inviting the participation of Russia and the United Nations in any solution. After initially shunning the UN and brushing aside Russia's objections to the bombing of Yugoslavia, NATO now sees both as crucial to the success to any peace plan. "NATO began all this saying that it was the only effective organization to stand up against this schoolyard bully [Yugoslav President] Slobodan Milosevic," said University of Toronto scholar Aurel Braun. "Well, 40 days later, the schoolyard bully is just fine and NATO is running to the UN." Under the G8 agreement, concluded in Bonn yesterday, the UN would oversee the deployment of a peacekeeping force in Kosovo and the establishment of an interim administration. Russia's support would ensure the passage of the plan through the UN Security Council. All this takes NATO a long way from the position held when it began bombing Yugoslavia on March 24. At that time, the alliance said it would stop the bombing only if Belgrade agreed to halt its attacks on Kosovo Albanians, withdraw its military forces from Kosovo, accept the Rambouillet peace plan for a postwar settlement and accept a NATO peacekeeping force that would protect returning refugees. NATO still demands an end to the attacks, the safe return of all refugees and the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces. But on the other two points, its position has softened. Consider them in detail: * Postwar occupation force: NATO originally insisted that it would lead any postwar peacekeeping force in Kosovo. When it became clear that NATO leadership was a deal breaker for Belgrade, NATO said Russia and other countries could take part, as long as the force had "NATO at its core." The G8 agreement softens NATO's position still further. It calls for "the deployment in Kosovo of effective international civil and security presences." There is no mention of NATO. The omission was a deliberate attempt to secure the help of Russia, which has supported Belgrade in its insistence that the NATO "aggressors" should not be part of any peacekeeping force in Kosovo. Questioned about the change, Canadian Foreign Affairs spokesman James Wright told reporters yesterday that "NATO core participation" must still be a key element in any peacekeeping force. But that fact that NATO was left out of the document was significant. It seemed to indicate that alliance countries might participate under the UN flag, as they do in neighbouring Bosnia. * Postwar settlement: The G8 agreement calls for "the establishment of an interim political framework agreement providing for a substantial self-government for Kosovo, taking full account of the Rambouillet accords and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other countries of the region, and the demilitarization of the UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army)." Notice that the agreement does not demand the acceptance of the Rambouillet peace accords, which called for wide-ranging autonomy in Kosovo and an eventual vote on independence. That is not new. NATO has acknowledged for some weeks that Rambouillet might have to be altered because of what has happened since the bombing started. But the phrase "taking full account" of Rambouillet appears to be a climbdown from NATO's early position that a final agreement would have to be concluded "on the basis" of Rambouillet. It's significant, too, that the agreement explicitly acknowledges the sovereignty of Yugoslavia and the disarming of the Kosovo rebels. Though both were provided for in the Rambouillet accords, it's no mistake that the agreement underlines these points. Belgrade's greatest fear is that foreign troops in Kosovo would give cover to the rebels and prepare the ground for the secession and independence of the Kosovo. Whether this is enough to satisfy Yugoslavia is far from clear. Helpful as it is
[PEN-L:6526] (Fwd) PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF BOMBING DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOIN
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 11:53:27 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF BOMBING DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING The ProvinceFriday 7 May 1999 Opinion PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF BOMBING DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING The question is not whether something should be done but what. The organization with the responsibility for "doing things" is the UN Security Council. By Rafe Mair An open letter to President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair -- and, I suppose, if I'm writing the organ grinders I might just as well send a copy to the monkey, Prime Minister Chretien. Now gentlemen, recognizing that you are set in authority over us I shall watch my language and manners and simply ask this: What the hell made you ever suppose you could bomb people into submission? And why, oh why do you continue adverting to Munich in 1938, Neville Chamberlain, and all that stuff? Is it possible that you don't know that Munich was about carving up one sovereign state in favour of another? That it was this which distinguished it, at least in law, from Hitler invading the Rhineland in 1936 contrary to the Treaty of Versailles and made it different, though less so, from the forced Anschluss with Austria in 1938? The Rhineland belonged to Germany and Austria, judging by the joyous maidens strewing Der Fuehrer's path with garlands, consented to the arrangement. Can it possibly be that you don't understand that the Gulf War eight years ago was again about a tyrant taking someone else's country? And that whatever you might wish to be the case, Kosovo is part of Yugoslavia. Perhaps it ought not to be. Maybe a referendum on self determination of peoples is appropriate, But at this moment, gentlemen -- and I repeat myself because, with respect you seem slow learners -- Kosovo is legally a province of Yugoslavia. Now everyone agrees that Slobodan Milosevic is a very bad actor -- the only one in the area nastier is his wife. And he has been active in ethnic cleansing, following the example set by Croatia when they ethnic cleansed the bejabbers out of Serbians. The question is not whether something should be done but what. The organization with the responsibility for "doing things" is the United Nations Security Council. I need not remind any of you gentlemen of that because your nations are all members. Now I understand that you thought of going that route but that two permanent members, China and Russia, wouldn't go along with the use of force. Is it your position that because you couldn't get your way with the Security Council you were then entitled to find some other organization to do your bidding? That somehow this made it quite appropriate to convert NATO, formed as and hitherto a defensive organization, into an offensive outfit? Did it not occur to you that China and Russia might be right? Each of them has had their hands full trying to force people to do their will -- indeed Russia is especially experienced in that regard -- and probably had some sage advice that you would have done well to heed? Do you not know that Yugoslavia held down 600,000 German soldiers during World War II and that the reason Stalin permitted the late President Tito to break out of the Iron Curtain in 1948 was not some passing liberal fancy, but the clear knowledge that the Red Army would be occupied forever in fighting Yugoslav partisans if he invaded? Gentlemen, have any of you been to Yugoslavia? I don't mean by first-class jet travel to Belgrade or perhaps a hop into Sarajevo for some skiing -- I mean have you driven around the place as I have? It is, as a wag well put it, Viet Nam with mountains. There can hardly be on the face of this planet a better place for guerrillas to hold down a modern army and a modern air force. If NATO sends ground troops into the Balkans it will be Chechnya, Viet Nam and Afghanistan all rolled up into one with Tibet and Mongolia thrown in. That may well be what Russia and China were trying to tell you. I really hate risking turning this subtle bit of soft diplomacy of mine into a screed but are you heads of government telling us mere mortals (who must weigh your words, so carefully screened though spin doctors into the CNN mikes) that you didn't realize that by bombing hell out of Serbia you would create a living hell for the very people you set out to save -- the poor Kosovars? I have nothing to add, gentlemen, except that once more you prove, as if more proof were necessary, that Mair's Axiom I is unassailable: You make a very serious mistake assuming that people in charge know what the hell they're doing.
[PEN-L:6525] (Fwd) NOW COMES THE HARD PART: MAKING PEACE IN KOSOVO
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 11:53:18 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NOW COMES THE HARD PART: MAKING PEACE IN KOSOVO The Vancouver Sun Thursday, May 6, 1999 A Soldiers Story NOW COMES THE HARD PART: MAKING PEACE IN KOSOVO Ignoring military advice, NATO's political leaders proceeded with the air campaign; in doing so they accelerated and intensified the humanitarian crisis that continues unabated, oblivious to air strikes. By Lewis Mackenzie While the U.S. public's attention over the past few days has been focused on the release of their "POWs," whose main deprivations seem to have been the lack of TV and good old American hamburger, the media has neglected to report on an increased degree of optimism on the streets in Belgrade. As mentioned before, successful diplomacy is usually quiet diplomacy and not played out for public consumption on CNN, or CBC for that matter. The word on the street in Belgrade suggests that talks going on in Vienna are more substantial than is being reported and that a pause in the bombing is nigh. Naive wishful thinking? The end of the war will probably happen with a whimper not a bang (apologies to T.S. Eliot). When there is a cessation of hostilities, the challenge for the West begins with the five conditions demanded by NATO. Mind you, the alliance changes the wording of those conditions daily. For example: * "Withdrawal of all Yugoslav military and security" the word "all" has quietly disappeared. * "A NATO-led force to implement any ceasefire" has evolved into "a multi-activated peace keeping force" a much more practical condition in my opinion. The desire to grant autonomous status to Kosovo within the former Yugoslavia and the disarming of the Kosovo Liberation Army leaves only the "Immediate return of Kosovo Albanian refugees to their homes" to fill out the last of the five conditions laid down by NATO as the minimum criteria for peace. I'm quite sure that collectively NATO's five conditions will not bring peace to Kosovo. We were told by NATO that we had to bomb Yugoslavia to preclude a humanitarian disaster. Ignoring honest military advice, the political leadership of NATO decided to proceed (and I certainly endorse their right to do so even if it was a really bad decision) with the air campaign and in doing so accelerated and intensified the humanitarian display that continues unabated and oblivious to the air strikes. After the first NATO bomb fell, the Kosovo Albanians became the enemy in the eyes of the Serbs and the forceful deportation began. A significant number of the refugees will not want to go "home" for a number of reasons. They no longer trust Serb security forces and as long as the Serbs make up a percentage of the security apparatus in Kosovo, refugees will look elsewhere for quality of life. A significant number of relocated refugees will want to stay in their new homes. After all, for a large number of families having a son or daugh- ter work abroad was already a constant goal. Those who have lost everything and must rebuild will seriously question starting again in Kosovo. Those in Albania might stay in their mother country. Lastly, as the makeup of the Kosovo international security force is announced with its expected Slav Orthodox component, including Russia and Ukraine, the refugees will lose confidence that their safety will be guaranteed. We have yet to be told by our political leadership the full im- plications of deploying Canadian troops into Kosovo on a peacekeeping mission. Is the deployment not thought through and therefore unacceptable? If we are intentionally being kept in the dark, that too is un- worthy of a democratically elected government with a mandate to serve the interests of the Canadian people. When some baby born today in the Ottawa Civic Hospital be- comes a 20-year-old Canadian soldier on "peacekeeping" duty in Kosovo, we might well reflect on our eagerness to help the Eu- ropeans sort out yet another of their problems. Surely after 54 years they can deal with a crisis in a geographical area the size of Algonquin Park. Significantly the KLA will not disarm. Their stated "policy" is to resist any attempts to disarm them in spite of what some of their representatives agreed to in Rambouillet. Considering the West's record of "guaranteeing security" in northern Iraq and Vietnam you can't really blame them. The KLA's objective of fighting for nothing less than independence and ultimately union with Albania to create a Greater Albania should be a red flag for any western leader who thinks the Kosovo crisis ends once
[PEN-L:6490] Re: Svend Robinson Statement and Trip
Finally, the NDP has realized the stupidity of their position and, against the wishes of the Liberal Government, are going to investigate the carnage that they, along with the government and NATO have caused. Yet the NDP still refuses to recognize that they are party to war crimes and a cause of the death, destruction and creation of the refugee problem by going along with -- indeed supporting -- bombing without the slightest evidence that there was any ethnic cleansing or genocide going on before the bombing -- but rather that it was us (NATO and Canada) that precipitated the cleansing and atrocities that followed from our most stupid policy. Our Prime Minister and Foreign Minister both claim they had no idea what would follow bombing. This is patent nonsense as I know of several personally who had e-mailed them to to warn them exactly what would follow but they, of course, ignored such advice. In fact, like Clinton, Canada and the US exhibited incredible ignorance of the situation in the Balkans because they were too preoccupied with defending they sexual honour or, in Cretian's and Axworthy's case, their lap dog acceptance of scraps at the White House Banquet Table. As far as I am concerned, there is nothing the NDP can now do to salvage their honour and intregity, no matter how many trips they take to Yugoslavia to view the scene of their crimes. Still, if it does anything to bring the NATO carnage and killing of civilians to an end, we should be gratefull for small blessings. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Date sent: Thu, 06 May 1999 13:40:21 -0500 From: Ken Hanly [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: pen-l [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:6479] Svend Robinson Statement and Trip Sven Robinson is Foreign Affairs Critic of the Federal NDP. Initially, he and the party supported the bombing. Cheers, Ken Hanly
[PEN-L:6319] (Fwd) A WAR AGAINST ALL OF THE SERBS
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 13:32:25 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:A WAR AGAINST ALL OF THE SERBS The Chicago Tribune April 29, 1999 A WAR AGAINST ALL OF THE SERBS It's hard to justify a policy whose chief achievement and possiblyits main purpose is to make life miserable, frightening and dangerous for people who have no control over what is going on in Kosovo. By Steve Chapman War is to morality what the desert is to fish: a uniformly inhospitable clime. That's true even if the war is small and limited. The air campaign in Yugoslavia was conceived as a brief, surgical strike on Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and his murderous military and paramilitary forces. But in five short weeks, it has expanded into a war on one group of his victims: the Serbian people. After bombing and re-bombing all the strictly military sites it could find, without inducing Milosevic to surrender, NATO expanded its list to include facilities whose destruction will do the most harm to civilians. NATO Allied Supreme Commander Gen. Wesley Clark, an advocate of what is known as "bringing the war home to Belgrade," finally got permission to take out mainstays of the Serbian economy, including the nation's electric power grid. Purely economic facilities were originally off-limits, but The Wall Street Journal reports that this "restriction is slipping almost daily." NATO is also planning a naval blockade to cut off Serbia's oil supplies. Even many of the attacks on "military" targets have had far less effect on Milosevic's campaign of terror than on the daily life of his long-suffering populace. Rail lines have been severed, industrial plants flattened and bridges demolished. Often, bystanders have found themselves classified, posthumously, as "collateral damage." Travel is hazardous, and just getting to work can be nearly impossible. Last week, at least 10 employees were killed when allied warplanes blasted a most unmilitary target--the official state television station in Belgrade. Why? Because "it has filled the airwaves with ... lies over the years," said a NATO spokesman. Well, so has Bill Clinton, but NATO hasn't fired any cruise missiles at the White House. The alliance deserves some credit for clearly going out of its way to minimize direct civilian casualties. It also can be excused if some strikes unavoidably kill non-combatants. But it's hard to justify a policy whose chief achievement--and possibly its main purpose--is to make life miserable, frightening and dangerous for people who have no control over what is going on in Kosovo. The apparent goal is to inflict so much pain as to force Milosevic to change his policies or to force his people to change rulers. "We're holding civilians hostage," says DePaul University political scientist Patrick Callahan, an expert on just-war theory. He may not get an argument from German Gen. Klaus Naumann, chairman of NATO's military committee, who says Yugoslavia has been set back economically by 10 years and figures that the air campaign could eventually turn the clock back half a century. Naumann warns that if Milosevic doesn't retreat, "he may end up being the ruler of rubble." NATO, in short, plans to reduce a country that is home to 10 million people to a huge pile of worthless debris. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, the most fervent supporter of the air war, endorses that approach, telling the Serbs, "Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1398? We can do 1398, too." Why stop at 1398? Why not revive the idea, proposed but never adopted in Vietnam, of bombing the enemy all the way back to the Stone Age? If the aerial onslaught continues month after month, as threatened, some civilians will be blown up, but many more will be endangered by the secondary effects--food shortages, lack of fuel, loss of medicines, destruction of water, sewage and sanitation systems, poorly functioning hospitals, and the like. In Iraq, the international economic embargo already has had these consequences, causing some 90,000 deaths a year, by United Nations estimates. In Yugoslavia, as in Iraq, it's unlikely that punishing the villain's subjects will advance our larger purpose. Disrupting transportation hasn't stopped or even slowed the Serb offensive in Kosovo: Milosevic has more soldiers there today than he did when the bombing began. Interrupting state TV didn't weaken his grip. Curtailing oil supplies will cause no more than modest inconvenience to Serbian military forces: They'll get whatever fuel is available, while
[PEN-L:6321] (Fwd) UNARMED CIVILIAN U.N. MISSION OKAY FOR KOSOVO - BELGRADE
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 12:37:24 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:UNARMED CIVILIAN U.N. MISSION OKAY FOR KOSOVO - BELGRADE; MILOSEVIC'S OFFER "INADEQUATE": WHITE HOUSE Agence France-PresseApril 30, 1999 UNARMED, CIVILIAN U.N. MISSION OKAY FOR KOSOVO: BELGRADE BELGRADE Yugoslavia could accept a United Nations peace mission in Kosovo if it is civilian and unarmed, foreign ministry spokesman Nebojsa Vujovic said Friday. "I'm not talking about a (military) force," Vujovic said on CNN. "We are speaking about a UN international mission -- not a force, (but) an unarmed and civilian mission." Such a "presence" would be similar to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mission that was previously in Kosovo, he said. Vujovic's statement on CNN clarified remarks he made earlier Friday, in which he said Yugoslavia could accept an international force for Kosovo if such a presence was decided by the UN Security Council. Vujovic said Russia and China, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, supported a plan worked out between Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin on April 22. "Russia is a member of the Security Council, also China... the countries supportive of the seven-point principles," developed by Chernomyrdin and Milosevic, Vujovic said. Asked whether an international armed force with a UN mandate would be acceptable to Belgrade, the spokesman said: "As long as the Security Council moves in the direction of implementing those principles, we would be supportive." NATO leaders have insisted that the alliance should have a commanding role in any peace implementation force that would be deployed in the Serbian province. Chernomyrdin and Milosevic launched a fresh round of talks earlier Friday, after the Russian envoy's visit to Bonn and Rome Thursday. Milosevic's Serb-dominated government is fiercely against the deployment of foreign troops in Kosovo, particularly those from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). But NATO members insist that the alliance lead a multi-national peacekeeping force in Kosovo that would protect the Serbian province's ethnic Albanian majority. The OSCE mission came out of an agreement in October that Milosevic made with US envoy Richard Holbrooke, but it pulled out from Kosovo just before NATO air strikes began March 24. But in the time it was deployed, the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission could only watch the October ceasefire unravel as Serbian forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) skirmished. __ Agence France-PresseApril 30, 1999 WHITE HOUSE BRANDS MILOSEVIC'S OFFER "INADEQUATE" WASHINGTON The White House vowed Friday that NATO military strikes on Yugoslav targets would continue until all military aims are met and rejected as "inadequate" reports from Belgrade that it will accept a UN-sanctioned international force in Kosovo. Asked about reports from Belgrade that a Yugoslav foreign ministry spokesman said Belgrade might accept an international force sanctioned by the UN, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said "it's something that's clearly inadequate." "We've been very clear: all their forces need to leave," he said, referring to Milosevic's troops in the war-torn province. "The way out is clear," he added. NATO has demanded Milosevic withdraw his forces from the war-torn province, allow the return of refugees driven from Kosovo, and allow an international peacekeeping force to enter the province.
[PEN-L:6328] (Fwd) NATO's War Hits the West Itself (Part B)
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 13:10:22 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO's War Hits the West Itself (Part B) P r e s s I n f o # 6 6 N A T O ' s W A R -- B O O M E R A N G A G A I N S T T H E W E S T ( P a r t B ) April 30, 1999 12. An increasingly authoritarian West Look at the 'Letters to the Editor' section of various influential Western dailies, watch debates on television, listen to new questions being asked by journalists. Surf Internet, read list servers, websites and discussion groups and one thing is abundantly clear: ordinary citizens throughout the West are increasingly skeptical. They see the ever widening gap between NATO and State Department news and other news. Many feel that bombing innocent civilians is just not right; common sense also tells that this is not the way to create trust between Albanians and Serbs - or for that matter between any conflicting parties. It all militates against all we know about human psychology. The longer it takes, the more likely the momentum of that public protest. NATO country citizens will begin to ask: if a mistake like this could be made in this important field, are other mistakes also lurking in, say, globalization, in the more or less forced democratization, in the zeal with which Western human rights are used as a political tool? If we can't trust NATO, can we trust the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, can we trust our own governments after this? Can we believe in security a la NATO and in further NATO expansion if this is what NATO does? Government decision-makers meet these challenges either with silence or with counterattacks: we are at war, this is not the time to question and split our own ranks, fifth column activity cannot be tolerated. We must achieve our goals, no matter the cost. Too much is at stake. In short, democracy, the freedom of expression and the open society, the public discourse itself could well be curtailed in the West as this situation becomes more and more desperate. Quite a few media people already seem to practise self-censorship. Also, let's not forget that those who say that Milosevic is a new Hitler are leaders of countries which actively seek a kind of world dominance (economically, militarily, politically and culturally), which violate international law, which demonize a nation (Serbs, not Jews), and which possess mass destructive weapons. They commit aggression against a country that has not done to them what they do to it. They kill innocent civilians. They use propaganda and call it information. Blaming others for doing that is what psychologists call 'projecting.' NATO as an organization is beyond - and actively defies - any world democratic control. Truth is that no other organization, no government and no UN or other world body can force NATO to stop if its members want to continue. All this could be seen as more threatening to international peace and world order - as simply more dangerous for the world - than whatever a (comparatively) petty authoritarian leader such as Milosevic and the separatist KLA/UCK do in the province of Kosovo. 13. Ever more weakening of the UN, OSCE and NGOs The more NATO attempts to take over (see point 15), the less space and resources will be available for other actors. It remains to be seen what will be the longterm consequences for the mentioned organisations. If NATO fails in this mission, one way or the other, they might actually be strengthened. But where NATO has so far gone in, others have gone out. This is not good for the world, it is particularly bad from the point of view of the middle-sized and small nations. 14. Ruining the peace-making that has allegedly been achieved The West is proud of the Dayton process. However, if it keeps on bombing FRY, the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina will hardly feel any obligation to remain there. If they see also that Kosovo-Albanians are, for all practical purposes, being helped to achieve their own state by NATO force, they will say goodbye to the Dayton process and to Bosnia. In addition, Republika Srpska has lost its most important economic ally, FRY, and social unrest already threatens throughout RS. The West has been very proud because of the successful policy of 'preventive diplomacy' in FYROM/Macedonia. With the UN having been squeezed out there, with NATO having entered arrogantly and forcibly converted Macedonia to a FRY-hostile actor with 20.000 foreign troops there, the West has already destabilized the country, its delicate ethnic balance and its economy and violated its sovereignty as well as its good neighbourly relations - a case of 'provocative diplomacy' instead. It should also be crystal clear by now that FRY will not accept NATO the peacekeeper after having been visited by NATO the destroyer. 15. Imperial overextension, the
[PEN-L:6327] (Fwd) NATO's War Hits the West Itself (Part A)
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 13:09:59 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO's War Hits the West Itself (Part A) P r e s s I n f o # 6 5 N A T O ' s W A R -- B O O M E R A N G A G A I N S T T H E W E S T ( P a r t A ) April 30, 1999 "NATO's war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) is not comparable with the Vietnam war, with bombing Iraq or throwing cruise missiles on Sudan or Afghanistan. In a more fundamental way, it threatens major Western institutions, economies and Western leadership. With that much at stake, Western governments have long forgotten what the original problem was. Perhaps this is the reason why NATO now defines itself as a player that does not negotiate and thus has only the hammer left in its toolbox. That's the opposite of statesmanship," says TFF director Jan Oberg. "Whether or not we support NATO's bombing, we must be aware of the risks and potential costs to the West itself. Our politicians seem not to be aware of how big they could be. Therefore, I believe it's time to show some civil courage and engage in solid damage-limitation both for the Balkans and for ourselves, otherwise this could go madly wrong," Oberg warns. "The critical 'boomerang' effects I mention in this PressInfo and PressInfo # 66 do not have to happen, but they are probable enough to merit serious consideration - and more so with a ground war approaching." 1. NATO's credibility seriously impaired After March 24, there must be serious doubts about NATO's identity as a defensive alliance, as an organization for peace and stability. - Instead of seeing military targets, the Western audience sees bridges, schools, villages, media stations, factories, government houses etc. being destroyed. - NATO has handled its information dissemination in a way that makes even convinced pro-NATO people and media skeptical. - The successive calling in of more planes, helicopters and forces indicates a lack of advance planning, and there is no unity in the alliance about what to do after bombing. - The alliance created the humanitarian catastrophe it aimed to prevent, it ignored warnings that NATO bombs would make Serbs expel every Albanian they could find. - Europe, if not the entire international system, is indisputably less stable after March 24 than before. 2. NATO's expansion may come to a halt Whether in public or not, the youngest NATO members now ask themselves at least four questions: 1) How may this crisis draw us ever deeper into a quagmire we never expected or wanted to be part of? 2) What will it cost us to be in solidarity with NATO's leadership while having little influence on it? 3) What protection can WE actually expect now when we see that the West is not willing to deploy ground forces or otherwise make sacrifices for the noble cause of saving people and protecting human rights? How safe are we actually in NATO should we be attacked? And 4) What compensation will we get for letting NATO use our territory, for respecting sanctions and now an oil embargo? New and prospective members see the treatment of Macedonia as a frightening example. 3. US leadership questioned Few are able to see the goals, the means-end relations and the place of this war within an overall consistent US foreign policy concept and strategy. There is a nagging feeling that the West has made a blunder, that President Clinton was 'distracted' by the Lewinsky affair when NATO's war was discussed, that CIA misjudged that Milosevic would give in after a few days. - The Rambouillet process is now revealed worldwide to have been a purely manipulative operation aimed at getting NATO in and further demonizing Yugoslavia - If the US intended to support the Kosovo-Albanian project of Kosova, that project is now slowly but surely being physically destroyed. - If this goes wrong it could even decide who will be the next president of the United States. - While President Clinton points his fingers at 'hopeful' splits in the Yugoslav government, he is having a hard time obtaining support from Capitol Hill. 'Stop the Bombing' demonstrations worldwide fundamentally question the wisdom of NATO's policies. 4. EU's common foreign and security policy tattered NATO's war could well decide the fate of several European governments, too. The stated 'resolve' and 'rock hard' unity in the EU and NATO sounds more like invocation than reality. Greece, Italy, France, Germany have considerable inner conflict; the splits will grow with the number of days this continues. Public opinion is mobilizing. Since 1990 the European Union has used former Yugoslavia as a kind of guinea-pig for its 'common foreign and security policy' concept. And since the witless, premature recognition of Slovenia and Croatia that policy exhibits a string of pearls of conflict-management failures. Where is
[PEN-L:6325] (Fwd) MILIC WENT TO FETCH LUNCH. WHEN HE RETURNED HIS FAMILY W
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 12:46:37 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:MILIC WENT TO FETCH LUNCH. WHEN HE RETURNED HIS FAMILY WERE DEAD The Guardian (UK) Thursday April 29, 1999 MILIC WENT TO FETCH LUNCH. WHEN HE RETURNED HIS FAMILY WERE DEAD There is no sign of the soldiers and trucks NATO may have been seeking in Surdulica. By Maggie O'Kane in Surdulica What is left of the 12 children of Jovina Street is piled on four metal trellis tables in the back room of a white-tiled morgue. Their street was named after a childrens' poet, Zmaj Jovina, who took to writing stories after he lost his seven children to tuberculosis. Now Jovina Street has 12 more children to mourn. On Monday, between noon and 1pm - nobody seems to remember exactly when - they died when a NATO missile burrowed into their hiding place in a cellar. 'They were aged between five and 11,' said Dr Alexander Nicolic, though it was impossible to tell the ages from the four heaps of human remains on the table. Most were from the Voyislav family. They had been waiting for their grandfather to come back. He had gone to fetch a salad from his sister's garden for lunch. Milic Voyislav liked to make himself useful when he was at home on holiday. For 31 years he had worked in a car factory in Cologne, raising his children on the wealth of German industry. This holiday he was fulfilling a long term promise: the Voyislav family were finally getting a satellite dish. Dragan came at lunchtime to put it up. That's when the two planes came in, high above the suburban spread of Surdulica. There, most of the 300 houses are built from the money of migrant fathers; plain two-storey homes built in the 70s and 80s, each with a car in the driveway. When the NATO planes had finished, the white four-door saloon in Milic Voyislav's driveway was crushed into a pancake - its number plate VR633-52 just discernible - and at least 20 people, 12 of them children, were dead. It is night and the earth movers are still working by the electric arc lights. Men in navy boiler suits, white hats and rubber gloves are picking between the rubble for more bodies. An old man, his jeans covered in dust, finds his sheepskin rug and a pair of his trousers in the debris. He shakes them, folds them and carefully lays them to one side. Next to him, Ilica Srebena is saying: 'My sister is here somewhere, she's here somewhere. I don't understand it. What were they trying to hit? The barracks have been empty since the beginning and they blew it up on April 6. There was nothing more here, we didn't expect them to come back.' There is no sign of the soldiers and trucks NATO may have been seeking in Surdulica. The road to the town, 300 miles south of Belgrade, is a ghost highway. Once the trucks of Germany, Austria and Hungary ploughed through Serbia on their way to Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. Now there is nothing. Further south, the great highway becomes a mud track through a village, winding under 16th century bridges and past mountain lodges. Soldiers are silhouetted in the doorways of their commandeered houses, their trucks stowed in farmers' barns or untidy garages with corrugated iron roofs. They are far from military barracks in towns like Surdulica and the streets where the Voyislavs live. In Britain, Surdulica's medical facilities would be called a cottage hospital, an ordinary place where women give birth and the old die. But late on Tuesday night it was not a place that belonged to humans. In the first room of the morgue, under hard electric strip lights, a giant white table cloth held a mass of human flesh - the parents and grandparents of the children of Jovina Street. Body parts were mixed with shredded carpet, newspapers, torn flesh and raw bone. Three generations of Milic Voyislav's family are here. Somewhere among them perhaps is Dragan, the man who had come to put up the long-awaited satellite dish. Dragan's friend stood in the morgue. 'He was putting it on the roof of Milic's house,' he said. 'I saw him up there, then it hit and when I turned my head I saw that there was no Dragan and no roof.' Milic Voyislav, a grandfather in his 60s who worked all his life in Cologne, had come home to visit his family - now there is no one left. Somewhere in the morgue are his wife Vesna, his daughter Llijana, his son Dladica, his grandchildren Jana, Marina and Sash, his brother Alexander and Alexander's wife, Stamena. 'I went to my sister's to get the salad for lunch,' said the old man, 'and when I got to the front of my house I saw what had happened and then my neighbour
[PEN-L:6326] (no subject)
[PEN-L:6322] (Fwd) ANGRY GREEKS HIT NATO SUPPLY LINES - The Guardian (UK)
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 12:51:37 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:ANGRY GREEKS HIT NATO SUPPLY LINES - The Guardian (UK) The Guardian (UK) Friday April 30, 1999 ANGRY GREEKS HIT NATO SUPPLY LINES Protests: Trains blocked and strikes threatened By Helena Smith in Athens Greek opposition to Nato's campaign intensified yesterday as protesters targeted British troops, tanks and trucks travelling to join allied forces in neighbouring Macedonia. Some 200 British trucks carrying containers, and military vehicles found themselves being pelted with fruit and vegetables after demonstrators moved Nato road signs and redirected the convoy to an outdoor market in Salonika. The northern city's port is the alliance's major transit point. 'We wanted to show in a humorous way that across Greece people don't like what Nato is doing,' said Agapis Sahinis. 'The Serbs are our friends.' Earlier, protesters blocked rail lines to stop a Skopje-bound train carrying 72 British tanks and 31 light armoured vehicles from leaving Salonika. The equipment - part of the second British battle group currently being deployed to Nato's base in Macedonia - had just been unloaded from a British freighter, Sea Centurion. Greek railway personnel last night threatened to strike if the country's trains continued to transport Nato troops and supplies. At the small international airport on Corfu, thousands of protesters staged running battles with riot police after spotting Nato aircraft on the tarmac. Corfu is being used as a transit point for aid to Albania. The growing opposition has put the Greek government on the defensive. One cabinet minister warned that the government could fall if Athens, which has resolutely refused to participate in the military action, was asked to provide logistical help for a ground invasion. Although Greece is anxious to be seen as a loyal Nato member, 98 per cent of its population support their Orthodox religious brethren in Serbia - a country with which Athens has traditionally enjoyed warm ties. Anti-war demonstrations have been vast and daily. Some Greeks in the small but powerful Communist party (KKE) last week vowed to join their 'beleaguered brethren' as human shields in Belgrade. Greek mercenaries have gone to Kosovo to fight what many describe as a 'holy war'. Yesterday, the United States ambassador to Athens, Nicholas Burns, formally complained to the government after a series of attacks on local American concerns. On Tuesday the urban Greek guerrilla group, Revolutionary Cells, threatened to step up attacks against Western targets in Athens if the Nato bombing continued.
