[PEN-L:6323] (Fwd) Emergency Mobilization-Stop the War
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 12:37:13 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Emergency Mobilization-Stop the War Emergency Mobilization to Stop the War 39 West 14th St., #206 New York, NY 10011 (212) 633-6646 fax: (212) 633-2889 http://www.iacenter.org email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Emergency Mobilization-Stop the War May 1, 1999 It is time to act! As the U.S./NATO bombs are raining down on Belgrade, Pristina, Aleksinac, and other cities in Yugoslavia, as hundreds of thousands of people have been made into refugees since the beginning of this bombing, we are urging you to join us in the newly-formed Emergency Mobilization to Stop the War. On June 5, there will be a national mass march from the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial to the steps of the Pentagon. Unless we stop this madness, we will be witness to the Pentagon unveiling a Yugoslav Veterans'' Memorial. On June 5, our demand will be "money for jobs and education, not for war in Yugoslavia." Buses and car caravans will be coming to Washington D.C. for the June 5 demonstration from hundreds of cities and towns throughout the United States. This is the most important anti-war demonstration since the Vietnam war. We hope you will do everything in your power to participate in this effort. We need to organize buses, print and circulate posters and leaflets, send out email notices and press releases, organize fundraising events, send mass mailings and information packets, hold house meetings, send our spokespersons on speaking tours and recruit thousands of volunteers. We are counting on you to help us in this massive grassroots campaign to build a new anti-war movement. The timing of the June 5 National Mass March could not be more urgent. Why? Because we are on the brink of the abyss. Hundreds of thousands of troops may be dispatched in a bloody rerun of Vietnam. Ten years after the end of the Cold War, the Pentagon is embarked again on another destructive adventure. Instead of a so-called peace dividend, we are being treated to the anti-people ramifications of the New World Order. We urgently need to collect the funds necessary for a huge demonstration. It is through the self-sacrifice and cooperation of thousands of people of conscience that we will succeed in building this new movement. Donations to the "People's Rights Fund/To Stop the War" are tax deductible. Please see our web site for an endorsement/volunteer form, fact sheets, flyers, and more. Feel free to call our office or come by to volunteer your efforts. End the war now before its too late! Ramsey Clark, Former U.S. Attorney General Bishop Thomas Gumbleton Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr., Exe. Dir., IFCO/Pastors for Peace Howard Zinn, Historian Edith Villastrigo, Leg. Dir., Women Strike for Peace Nick Pavlica, Publisher, Marketing Consultant, Peace Activist Rev. Djokan Majstorovic, Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava, NYC Rev. John Dear, J.S., Executive Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation Leslie Feinberg, Author Michael Parenti, Author United Serbs of America Frank Velgara, Working Group on Puerto Rico/FS Brian Becker Sara Flounders, International Action Center Cathleen Todd, Co-Chair, Global Peace Disarmament Ministry, Riverside Church Leonore Foerstel, Women for Mutual Security Johann Christoph Arnold, Bruderhof Community Greek Americans for Action
[PEN-L:6191] (Fwd) NATO MISSILE STRIKES BULGARIAN TOWN
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 11:21:35 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO MISSILE STRIKES BULGARIAN TOWN The Associated PressThursday, April 29, 1999 NATO MISSILE STRIKES BULGARIAN TOWN Bulgaria to sue pilot for damage in response to "drastic violation of airspace'' By Veselin Zhelev SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) -- NATO acknowledged today that a missile fired by one of its warplanes over Yugoslavia unintentionally landed in Bulgaria, apparently causing no injuries. Bulgarian officials earlier said a NATO plane had violated the country's airspace Wednesday evening and one of its missiles slammed into a suburb of the capital, Sofia, about 30 miles west of the Yugoslav border. In Brussels, Belgium, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said today a NATO jet fighter launched the missile ''in self defense in response to the threat from a surface-to-air missile'' after a Yugoslav ground radar had locked on to the plane. He said ''the missile strayed from its target and unintentionally landed in Bulgaria,'' which neighbors Yugoslavia. ''We understand that no civilians suffered a loss of life from what happened there,'' Shea said. Shea said NATO Secretary General Javier Solana had talked with the Bulgarian ambassador to explain the incident. Three NATO missiles have already struck Bulgaria's territory during the air campaign against neighboring Yugoslavia, and alliance planes have previously violated Bulgarian airspace. Bulgarian air force officials identified the missile as laser-guided anti-radar AGM-88 Harm. They said it is usually carried by F-16 jet fighters. In a meeting with U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Henry Kievenaar, a Defense Department official, Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov expressed ''great concern'' about the incident. Kievenaar said, ''I just want to express our deep regret on the missile incident.'' Interior Minister Bogomil Bonev said Bulgaria would sue the pilot for material and moral damage caused to the house owners. ''There hasn't been such a drastic violation of our airspace so far,'' Bonev said. Stoyanov and Foreign Minister Nadezhda Mihailova urged NATO to supply Bulgaria with sophisticated radar equipment that can identify planes. They said Bulgaria would mark its western border with lights for better orientation of allied fliers. Despite the incident, the government will propose to parliament to provide NATO with a 70- to 90-mile air corridor along Bulgaria's western border, Bonev said. The public is divided between desires to join NATO and the European Union and sympathy for fellow Slavs and Christian Orthodox Serbs in Yugoslavia.
[PEN-L:6188] Re: Re: (Fwd) Letter from Belgrade
Barkley, The President of Yugoslavia is elected as is the Yugoslav assembly which has approximately the same powers vis-a-vis the two constituent republics as the old Yugoslav govt had with respect to the 6 republics. (The difference is that the president is elected at large and is not a 'presidency' i.e rotating collective as it was under the old system.) The president can only serve I believe for one (or is it two) terms. In any case, Milosevic was the first president of Yugoslavia and could not run in the last election. His party ran a Milosevic associate (I forget his name) who was elected president while Milosevic ran for president of Serbia, which he won with the majority you mentioned (see below). When I was last in Beograd and discussing these issues and the inflation and monetary policy with economists in Serbia I was told that within the urban, middleclass, professional and intellectual class circles, Milosevic was quite unpopular (hence the opinion of the lady I forwarded from Sid's post). However, his political and electoral strength is among the rural peasant and working class people who still look up to a strong leader -- a new Tito. You will also note that in the other posting about Vuk Draskovic, he rose to influence on a right-wing nationalist appeal, only to be outflanked on the right-nationalist wing by Seselj. I have good Serbian friends who were 'ethnically cleansed' twice from Kosovo by the Albanians who, though moderately left-liberals here, are pro-Seselj in Yugoslavia precisely because they have been/feel they have been oppressed by the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia. But I am straying from your question. To the best of my knowledge, Kosovo and Vojvodina are represented in the Yugoslav parliament but not as autonomous provinces, only as regional constituency representatives (in the same sense as congresspersons from Vermont or any other state are representated in Congress.) Have I answered all your questions? Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:6162] Re: (Fwd) Letter from Belgrade Date sent: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 13:22:54 -0400 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Paul, Hmmm. This woman has a name that is very similar to that of His Excellency's wife. But, more seriously I would ask you if you could really clarify the nature of the current political system in Yugoslavia. This is triggered by this letter writer's lament that she (and her friends) did not elect this government. But there clearly are quite a few elections in Yugoslavia, even if His Excellency tried to resist the results of some local ones a few years ago. Clearly the repeated labeling by NATO of His Excellency as a "dictator" is seriously inaccurate. Some specific questions: 1) Is there a Yugoslavia-wide parliament? I know that Serbia and Montenegro have their own parliaments. I know that the Albanians in Kosmet have largely boycotted those elections. I know that the breakdown in the Serbian parliament is that 115 are either in His Excellency's party or his wife's party, that about 80 are in the right-wing chauvinist party of Seselj and about 40 or so are in Draskovic's party. I don't think Djindic's party (His Excellency's most severe "liberal" critic") has any. 2) How is the Yugoslav president selected? Is there a nationwide election or is he appointed by some body? If the latter, who is that body? 3) If there is no nationwide parliament, what is the national level governing body. I am aware that there is both a Serbian bureaucracy and a parallel Yugoslav bureaucracy in Belgrade. 4) How are the republican presidents selected? By the republican parliaments? Hope that you or somebody can clear this up. Barkley Rosser -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wednesday, April 28, 1999 5:09 PM Subject: [PEN-L:6125] (Fwd) Letter from Belgrade --- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 16:36:52 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Letter from Belgrade Subject: Letter from Belgrade Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 From: Marija Marjanovic [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: My side of the story Hello everyone! I am student from Architectural Faculty, University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia. I spent great time in Porto Alegre by the end of the year 1997. Some terrible things are happening to me and my people (Serbs) and I wanted to tell you my side of the story. My people is in a very bad position: on one side, there is our government that absolutely does not care about anything except about how to save their own positions. We don't
[PEN-L:6189] (Fwd) HOUSE VOTES TO REQUIRE ASSENT FOR GROUND TROOPS - Washin
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 11:56:52 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:HOUSE VOTES TO REQUIRE ASSENT FOR GROUND TROOPS - Washington Post The Washington Post Thursday, April 29, 1999; Page A1 HOUSE VOTES TO REQUIRE ASSENT FOR GROUND TROOPS Republican members display misgivings about Clinton's handling of war; Democratic resolution to support air war fails on tie vote By Charles Babington and Juliet Eilperin President Clinton signaled yesterday that the air campaign in Yugoslavia may continue for at least another three months, while he sought to quell congressional discontent by yielding to some GOP demands on military spending and agreeing to legislative consultation on the possible introduction of U.S. ground troops. Despite his conciliation, the House voted 249 to 180 to block funding for U.S. ground forces in the Balkans unless Congress first gives its approval. Clinton, who had hoped to prevent the vote, tried to remove some of its political sting by issuing a preemptive letter agreeing to consult with legislators before sending in ground troops. He repeated that he does not intend to use U.S. ground troops to fight their way into Kosovo, but might deploy them in a peacekeeping or "permissive" setting. A Democratic resolution to support the air war later failed on a tie vote of 213 to 213. In Belgrade, meanwhile, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic fired Deputy Prime Minister Vuk Draskovic, a maverick critic who had called for sending armed United Nations peacekeepers to Kosovo. Clinton said it was a sign that the Belgrade regime was splintering over the NATO campaign, though it consolidated the control of Milosevic and other hard-liners over the Yugoslav government. And in Berlin, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott said the United States and its allies were close to an agreement with Russia on how to manage an international peacekeeping force for Kosovo, once the conflict is over. Such an agreement could open the way to a new effort by Russia to broker a deal between NATO and Yugoslavia to end the war. The flurry of activity came as the House began voting on the Kosovo war for the first time since hostilities began last month. With GOP members already displaying misgivings about Clinton's handling of the war, the president tried to minimize the impact of a congressional debate that White House aides feared could give comfort to Milosevic and undermine allied efforts to conduct rescue missions and keep military options open. At the same time, the president gave his clearest signal yet that the air campaign may continue well into the summer. Clinton told reporters that NATO pilots now can "fly around the clock, at lower altitudes from all directions, in better weather. Historically, the weather [in Yugoslavia] is better in May than in April, better in June than in May, better in July than in June. And I feel very strongly that we should stay with, and be very strong, in determination to pursue our strategy." Meeting with congressional leaders in the morning, the president told House and Senate leaders he would consult with them before sending ground troops, and he sent a letter to House members shortly before yesterday's votes, reiterating that promise. Clinton also appeared to compromise in the area of military spending. He has asked Congress for $6 billion in emergency funds for Kosovo military and humanitarian operations, but Republicans have proposed doubling the amount to fund their own military- related priorities. While asking Congress to endorse his plan as introduced, Clinton privately told lawmakers they could add to it, provided they not make it so unwieldy and controversial that they delayed its passage. "He said, 'Just please don't overload it so it gets bogged down,' " said House International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin A. Gilman (R-N.Y.). "He was showing a willingness to try to work together with the Congress." Many House leaders, however, said they could not afford to trust Clinton after he had forged agreements with NATO on the Balkans before conferring with Congress. "We want to change that cycle," said House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.). "We want to say, 'Mr. President, your relationship between the executive branch of this government and the Congress of the United States . . . comes before your relationship with allied nations.' " After the meeting with the president, the House engaged in a civil, occasionally emotional debate on the conflict in the Balkans. The debate was precipitated by Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Calif.), who invoked the War Powers Resolution in an effort to force
[PEN-L:6190] (Fwd) YUGOSLAVIA SUES NATO IN WORLD COURT
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 11:15:42 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:YUGOSLAVIA SUES NATO IN WORLD COURT The Associated PressThursday, April 29, 1999 YUGOSLAVIA SUES NATO IN WORLD COURT By Mike Corder THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- In an unprecedented legal maneuver aimed at stopping NATO airstrikes, Yugoslavia filed World Court cases against 10 alliance members today, claiming their bombing campaign breaches international law. Yugoslavia also asked the 15-judge court, the United Nations' highest judicial body, to demand an immediate halt to NATO's campaign while the case is being considered -- a process that can take years. An emergency hearing is likely to be scheduled early next week to discuss Belgrade's request. Judges were believed to be meeting today to discuss their initial reaction. ''This morning, we filed proceedings against 10 NATO members,'' Sanja Milinkovic, legal counsel at the Yugoslav Embassy in The Hague, told The Associated Press. She declined further comment and would not say which countries were named. An American Embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the United States was one of the countries named. The court, which has no enforcement powers and relies on states to comply voluntarily with its rulings, declined to comment on the case. A state has never before filed simultaneous cases against 10 other countries at the World Court. International law expert Terry Gill of Utrecht University in the central Netherlands dismissed Yugoslavia's application as a ''public relations stunt'' designed to promote disagreement among NATO nations. ''There is some doubt among NATO states about the legality of what they are doing, so something like this could cause embarrassment,'' Gill said. Even if the court were to order a halt to airstrikes, Yugoslavia would have to seek a U.N. Security Council resolution ordering compliance if NATO refused to back down, Gill said. NATO began airstrikes against Yugoslavia on March 24 in an effort to stop Belgrade's purge of ethnic Albanians from the southern province of Kosovo.
[PEN-L:6135] (Fwd) RAMBOUILLET ACCORD: DECLARATION OF WAR DISGUISED AS PEAC
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 10:55:09 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:RAMBOUILLET ACCORD: DECLARATION OF WAR DISGUISED AS PEACE AGREEMENT International Action Center 39 West 14th St., #206 New York, NY 10011 (212) 633-6646 fax: (212) 633-2889 http://www.iacenter.org email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] THE RAMBOUILLET ACCORD: A DECLARATION OF WAR DISGUISED AS A PEACE AGREEMENT Chapter 4a, Article I -- "The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles." By Richard Becker, Western Regional Co-Director of the International Action Center The official line in the big business media is that the Pentagon had no choice but to rain bombs and missiles down on Yugoslavia because the Milosevic government refused to negotiate over the issue of Kosovo, a region of that country where ethnic Albanians make up the majority. The reality was very different: The Rambouillet accord, the U.S./NATO "peace plan" for Kosovo was presented to Yugoslavia as an ultimatum. It was a "take it or leave it" proposition, as Albright often emphasized back in February. There were, in fact, no negotiations at all, and no sovereign, independent state could have signed the Rambouillet agreement. Appendix B of the accord would have opened the door for the occupation of all of Yugoslavia. The accord provided for a very broad form of autonomy for Kosovo. A province of Serbia, one of two republics (along with Montenegro) which make up present-day Yugoslavia, Kosovo would have its own parliament, president, prime minister, supreme court and security forces under Rambouillet. The new Kosovo government would be able to negate laws of the federal republic's legislature (unlike U.S. states) and conduct its own foreign policy. All Yugoslav federal army and police forces would have to be withdrawn, except for a 3-mile wide stretch along the borders of the province. A new Kosovar police force would be trained to take over internal security responsibilities. Members of the U.S.-backed KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) which is supposed to disarm under the agreement, could join the police units. But, in reality, neither the Kosovo police, the KLA nor the Yugoslav federal forces would be the basic state apparatus under Rambouillet: That function would be reserved for NATO. A 28,000-strong NATO occupation army, known as the KFOR, would be authorized to "use necessary force to ensure compliance with the Accords." As has been reported in the mainstream media, the Yugoslav government indicated its willingness to accept the autonomy part of the agreement, but rejected other sections, including the occupation of Kosovo by NATO, as a violation of its national sovereignty and independence. Many key aspects of the accord have been given very little or no coverage in the corporate media. Chapter 4a, Article I -- "The economy of Kosovo, shall function in accordance with free market principles." Kosovo has vast mineral resources, including the richest mines for lead, molybdenum, mercury and other metals in all of Europe. The capital to exploit these resources, which are today mainly state-owned, would undoubtedly come from the U.S. and western European imperialists. Chapter 5, Article V -- "The CIM shall be the final authority in theater regarding interpretation of the civilian aspects of this Agreement, and the Parties agree to abide by his determinations as binding on all Parties and persons." The CIM is the Chief of the Implementation Mission, to be appointed by the European Union countries. Chapter 7, Article XV -- "The KFOR [NATO] commander is the final authority in theater regarding interpretation of this Chapter and his determinations are binding on all Parties and persons." "This Chapter" refers to all military matters. The NATO commander would almost certainly be from the U.S. Together, the CIM and the NATO commander are given total dictatorial powers, the right to overturn elections, shut down organizations and media, and overrule any decisions made by the Kosovar, Serbian or federal governments regarding Kosovo. At the end of three years of this arrangement, the "final status" of Kosovo would be resolved through an unspecified process (Chapter 8, Article I, Section 3). In reality, Yugoslav sovereignty over the region would end the day the agreement was signed. The Rambouillet accord would have turned Kosovo into a colony in every respect, a colony of the United States, the dominant power in NATO. But it also would have gone a long way toward subordinating all of Yugoslavia. APPENDIX B Appendix B, the "Status of the Multi-National Military Implementation Force," includes extraordinarily intrusive provisions for Yugoslavia as a whole. Section 6a. "NATO shall be immune from all legal process, whether civil, administrative, or
[PEN-L:6133] (Fwd) It is ludicrous to demand a withdrawal of Yugoslav force
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 14:50:12 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:It is ludicrous to demand a withdrawal of Yugoslav forces as a condition of a ceasefire - General Lewis Mackenzie The Vancouver Sun April 28, 1999 A Soldier's View GLIMMERS OF HOPE FOR A CEASEFIRE IN YUGOSLAVIA It is ludicrous to demand a withdrawal of Yugoslav forces as a condition of a ceasefire By Lewis Mackenzie As a result of my United Nations service in Sarajevo in 1992 I have the dubious distinction of brokering more ceasefire agreements than any other Canadian. Dubious, because most of them failed! Nevertheless, based on the theory that you learn from your mistakes, at around the 15th of 19 ceasefires I was beginning to get it right. A few basic rules apply to ceasefire arrangements and the follow-on activities that should be designed to create real peace. A ceasefire merely brings most of the killing to a stop. In 1992 in Croatia 200 ceasefire violations a day by the Serbs and Croats was described by the UN as "ceasefire holding." A ceasefire does not produce peace by itself. First of all, no side in the conflict should be humiliated. Pride plays a very important part in convincing one or all sides to accept the terms of a ceasefire. Secondly, all sides must feel that their people will be secure if a ceasefire is signed. If the agreement does not account for the re-establishment of law and order, the conflict will merely move from war to anarchy. Thirdly, peacekeepers should come from countries having nothing to do with the conflict either politically or militarily. Obviously, this rule does not apply to a peace enforcement contingent or an army of occupation, both of which would be capable of defending themselves and others in the conflict zone. During my recent three weeks in Belgrade I discussed a number of ceasefire/peace proposals with various government ministers and deputy prime ministers. I found a refreshing openness to ideas on how the war might be halted and the rebuilding begun. However, as is well documented, if President Slobodan Milosevic does not agree it won't happen. I hasten to add, before my critics launch a fresh assault, that I was operating as a private citizen offered suggestions to government officials where they were solicited. During those three weeks I discovered a number of "hot buttons" and some areas of compromise. Anyone discussing cease fire proposals on a more formal basis might want to consider the following: A withdrawal of Yugoslav forces military, police, and paramilitary before a ceasefire is, quite frankly, a ludicrous demand by NATO. I can't believe the alliance is serious. No leader would ever concentrate his forces in Kosovo for the drive north to Serbia with NATO aircraft overhead still seeking targets. The ceasefire must come first. The disarming of the Kosovo Liberation Army will not happen. Their own spokesman, based in the U.K., has stated that their aim is to unite the Albanians of Macedonia and Albania proper with the Kosovo Albanians, thereby creating a Greater Albania. He also indicated they would never agree to disarm, considering what been done to them by Yugoslav security forces. I believe him. The Rambouillet agreement is dead and anyone who thinks otherwise has only been listening to NATO as opposed to the parties to the conflict, the Kosovo Albanians and the Yugoslav leadership. Their opinions should count for something. The presence of a follow-on international "peacekeeping'' force in Kosovo to maintain security for returning refugees is a major problem for Milosevic; however, it is not an impossible problem. The first step is not to call it a "force". The word generates problems all by itself. I used the terms "peacekeeping mission" and "peacekeeping corps" anything but "force". The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe monitors, pulled out just before the bombing started, did marvellous work. Their numbers were approximately 50 per cent of what was requested in the October 1998 Agreement. I would personally triple their size. The Yugoslav officials I met with saw no problem with that. I do not agree that nations participating in the air offensive should provide peacekeepers, for all of the obvious reasons. However, with the UN's inability to put mission into Kosovo on short notice, NATO troops wearing UN insignia and authorized by a Security Council resolution for a limited deployment of three months might be the answer. During that time nations outside the conflict, such as Ukraine, India, Brazil, Argentina,
[PEN-L:6134] (Fwd) Quick Political Scholastic Aptitude Test (QPSAT)
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 10:54:39 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Quick Political Scholastic Aptitude Test (QPSAT) Quick Political Scholastic Aptitude Test (QPSAT) This test consists of one (1) multiple-choice question. Here's a list of the countries that the U.S. has bombed since the end of World War II, compiled by historian William Blum: China 1945-46 Korea 1950-53 China 1950-53 Guatemala 1954 Indonesia 1958 Cuba 1959-60 Guatemala 1960 Congo 1964 Peru 1965 Laos 1964-73 Vietnam 1961-73 Cambodia 1969-70 Guatemala 1967-69 Grenada 1983 Libya 1986 El Salvador 1980s Nicaragua 1980s Panama 1989 Iraq 1991-99 Sudan 1998 Afghanistan 1998 Yugoslavia 1999 In how many of these instances did a democratic government, respectful of human rights, occur as a direct result? Choose one of the following: (a) 0 (b) zero (c) none (d) not a one (e) a whole number between -1 and +1
[PEN-L:6063] (Fwd) BOMBING BRINGS TERROR TO NOVI SAD
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:22:08 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:BOMBING BRINGS TERROR TO NOVI SAD The Globe and Mail Monday, April 26, 1999 BOMBING BRINGS TERROR TO NOVI SAD Normal life ceased to exist a month ago for residents of Yugoslavia's second-largest city By Estanislao Oziewicz Belgrade -- One of the most difficult things Milena Popov has to cope with are the questions of her two children: "What did we do? Why are they trying to hurt us? Why don't they like us?" Like hundreds of thousands of Serbian children, eight-year-old Nina and three-year-old Dunia are collateral victims in the undeclared NATO air war against President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and his policies in Kosovo. For Nina there is no more school, there are no more piano lessons or gymnastics classes. For Dunia, there are no more preschool programs. For both girls, there are daily preparations to spend terrifying nights in an air-raid shelter. Ms. Popov, 34, husband Sasha, 38, and their children live about 150 kilometres north of Belgrade in Novi Sad, which has sustained unrelenting bombardment for going on five weeks. With a population of 180,000 in the city proper and about 500,000 in the surrounding urban area, Novi Sad is Yugoslavia's second-largest city. Its Danube River bridges, oil refinery, industries and nearby communication transmitters have all been devastated. So has the city hall building, considered by residents as an architectural treasure. Water and electricity have been cut off to parts of the city. The nightly and early-morning bombing has had a profound impact on its residents, and not only in terms of deaths and injuries, for which the authorities are not releasing numbers. "Until a month ago, we led totally normal lives, no different from you or anybody else," Ms. Popov said in an interview. "What is happening to us could one day be happening to you. We never did anything. "I don't want to sit here wondering whether my children will have something to eat, let alone whether they will be alive next week. That's too much for me to bear." The middle-class Popovs are the kind of people who, in normal times, would be ideal immigrants to Canada. Ms. Popov speaks a number of languages -- English, Chinese, Russian and Japanese fluently -- and her husband, a former hockey player, is a watchmaker. Until the bombing began, Mr. Popov used to play pickup hockey with his friends a couple of times a week. Well-educated and, up to now, citizens of the world, they are also entrepreneurial. Even with years of economic sanctions against Yugoslavia, they managed to open two watch shops. (One of Mr. Popov's sidelines is putting logos on watches for Western companies.) Although Ms. Popov says she is flattered by the compliment, she does not want to be the perfect immigrant to Canada. "I want to be a perfect tourist. I want to have friends in Canada who want to come here to have good time. I don't want to be a perfect immigrant, because that would mean something horrible happened to me, because I had to go. That is not good. I don't want that." The Popovs live in a two-bedroom apartment in a five-storey building close to one of the bridges demolished by North Atlantic Treaty Organization missiles in central Novi Sad. They own a car, and before March 24, when the NATO campaign began, they were planning on buying another. They also were building a new home on the other side of the Danube. Until the bombings began, Ms. Popov also worked as a health department volunteer making film documentaries on subjects such as childbirth. She is now among a group of volunteers helping children with psychological distress caused by the military attacks. Ms. Popov also worries terribly about the toxic air and water effects of the destruction of Novi Sad's oil refinery and the Panchevo petrochemical complex, an hour's drive away. All across Serbia, schools have been cancelled, leaving parents exhausted and stressed from the weight of NATO bombing, unable to provide home schooling. Ms. Popov said that parents, weary from lack of sleep and tension, simply cannot enforce any study on their children, many of whom are experiencing psychological problems. Among younger ones, Ms. Popov said, this includes reversion to thumb-sucking; among older children there is a tendency to turn inward or to be aggressive. "Shelters are instant proof that something is wrong," Ms. Popov said. "You get very tired, you don't sleep, it's cold, it's loud." Besides comforting her children, she is trying to deal with her own rising feeling of resentment toward
[PEN-L:6060] Kosovo Postings
Just so that it is clear to all on the list, I forward many of the postings I receive from Sid Sniad who used to be but is no longer on this list. I do not necessary agree with them either with regard to the 'facts' they convey or with their interpretation. However, I think they all are significant enough contributions to the debate to be worth posting. Those that I don't think add anything I do not forward. So, if you disagree with any of these, please remember that they do not necessarily express my views. However, there is one point I wish to make clear. Through many of the other posts on the list, the assumption/assertation is made that NATO began to bomb to *stop the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo and/or genocide of Albanians*. This is false as there was no ethnic cleansing of Kosovo and no genocide in Kosovo prior to the bombing. If you look at the UN figures previous posted on this list, of the *refugees* from the low level civil war initiated by the KLA, about 20 per cent were in Serbia. Given that Serbs represent 10 % of the population of Kosovo, then there was a far higher percentage of Serb refrugees driven out than there were Albanians. Furthermore, of the estmated 2,000 killed, approximately 800 (or 40 % were Serbs), 1,200 Albanian. If ethnic cleansing and genocide was being done, then proportionately there was more being done by the Albanians than by the Serbs. Perhaps NATO should have bombed Tirana instead. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:6061] Vietnam War Impact
Thanks to all on the list who answered my request for references on the economic impact of the Vietnam war. I have passed on all your suggestions, papers and ideas to the student. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:5819] (Fwd) MORALITY? DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH!
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 17:47:50 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:MORALITY? DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH! The GuardianTuesday April 20, 1999 MORALITY? DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH! Britain's military-industrial-arms trade, which Margaret Thatcher built and taxpayers subsidise through 'soft loans' to dictatorships, is central to the 'Blair project' John Pilger sees only one Balkan winner: the arms trade 'The struggle of people against power,' wrote Milan Kundera, 'is the struggle of memory against forgetting.' The idea that the Nato bombing has to do with 'moral purpose' (Blair) and 'principles of humanity we hold sacred' (Clinton) insults both memory and intelligence. The American attack on Yugoslavia began more than a decade ago when the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund set about destroying the multi-ethnic federation with lethal doses of debt, 'market reforms' and imposed poverty. Millions of jobs were eliminated; in 1989 alone, 600,000 workers, almost a quarter of the workforce, were sacked without severance pay. But the most critical 'reform' was the ending of economic support to the six constituent republics and their recolonisation by Western capital. Germany led the way, supporting the breakaway of Croatia, its new economic colony, with the European Community giving silent approval. The torch of fratricide had been lit and the rise of an opportunist like Milosevic was inevitable. In spite of his part in the blood-Ietting of Bosnia, Milosevic, the 'reformer', became a favourite among senior figures in the US State Department. And in return for his co-operation in the American partition of Bosnia at Dayton in 1995, he was assured that the troublesome province of Kosovo was his to keep. 'President Milosevic,' said Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy, 'is a man we can do business with, a man who recognises the realities of life in former Yugoslavia.' The Kosovo Liberation Army was dismissed by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as 'no more than terrorists'. Last October, the Americans drafted a 'peace plan' for Kosovo that that was pro-Serbia, giving the Kosovans far less autonomy and freedom than they had under the old Yugoslav federation. But this deal included, crucially for the Americans, a Nato military presence. When Milosevic objected to having foreign troops on his soil, he was swiftly transformed, like Saddam Hussein, from client to demon. He was now seen as a threat to Washington's post-cold war strategy for the Balkans and eastern Europe. With Nato replacing the United Nations as an instrument of American global control, its 'Membership Action Plan' includes linking Albania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia. Like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic before them, these impoverished countries will be required to take part in a £22 billion weapons' buildup. The beneficiaries will be the world's dominant arms industries of the US and Britain - the contract for fighter aircraft alone is worth £10 billion. Like the 1991 'moral crusade' in the Gulf, which slaughtered more than 200,000 people, including the very minorities the West claimed to be protecting, the terror bombing of Serbia and Kosovo provides a valuable laboratory for the Anglo-American arms business. Mostly unreported, the Americans are using a refined version of the depleted uranium missile they tested in southern Iraq, where leukaemia among children and birth deformities have risen to match the levels after Hiroshima. The RAF is using the BL755 'multi-purpose' cluster bomb, which is not really a bomb at all but an air-dropped land-mine: readers will recall the Blair government's 'ban' on land-mines. Dropped from the air, the BL755 explodes into dozens of little mines, shaped liked spiders. These are scattered over a wide area and kill and maim people who step on them, children especially. Britain's new military-industrial-arms trade, which Margaret Thatcher built and the taxpayer subsidises through 'soft loans' to dictatorships, is central to the 'Blair project'. Each time New Labour has sought to bring big business into the fold, arms companies or their representatives have been at the head of the queue. A New Labour backer is Raytheon, manufacturer of the Patriot missile and currently under contract to the Ministry of Defence to build tanks. More arms contracts have been approved by the Blair government than by the Tories; and two-thirds of arms exports go to regimes with appalling human rights records - such as the dictatorship in Jakarta, which is currently deploying death squads in East Timor. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that British-supplied small arms
[PEN-L:5820] (Fwd) EVACUATION OF KOSOVARS HIGHLIGHTS NATO'S FAILURE
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 16:01:29 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:EVACUATION OF KOSOVARS HIGHLIGHTS NATO'S FAILURE The Vancouver Sun April 22, 1999 A Soldier's View EVACUATION OF KOSOVARS HIGHLIGHTS NATO'S FAILURE NATO's humanitarian rationale becomes increasingly muddy. This was supposed to be a war to avoid a humanitarian disaster in Kosovo. Now disaster has spread throughout Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo. By Lewis Mackenzie Bracebridge, Ontario What an obvious confirmation of NATO's failed strategy when the very alliance whose stated mission was to avoid a humanitarian disaster in Kosovo now finds itself trying to find a way to get the remaining 500,000 Albanians out repeat out of Kosovo before they die of starvation or exposure. If they are "successful" more than 1.5 million Kosovars will have been expelled during the last year, the vast majority as a result of Slobodan Milosevic's reaction to the first failed round of talks at Rambouillet when U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright opted for threats rather than diplomacy. We are now hearing comments attributed to the U.S. state department indicating that perhaps we should not have started the air campaign against Yugoslavia, but now that we have, "we must win." What madness. To sacrifice young men and women in uniform because NATO's leaders made a mistake or, as some would say, a "miscalculation", is blatantly irresponsible, particularly to the dead soldiers' families. Without question we are revolted and emotionally moved by the forced departure of more than a million ethnic Albanians. However, I am not convinced that war is justified by deportation alone. If it is, we had better get ready for a very bloody 21st century and Canadians had better start lobbying their political leaders to at least double the defence budget. Current estimates suggest that somewhere in the region of 4,000 people have been killed on all sides in the Kosovo conflict over the past year. That is the same as the number killed in Northern Ireland, albeit in a shorter time. Mind you, it is also 1.95 million less than in Tibet; 1.85 million fewer than in Sudan; 950,000 less than in Rwanda and the same figure in Angola; 195,000 fewer than in Bosnia, and there are many, too many, more examples. As disgusting as it is to treat this aspect of the Kosovo crisis as a math exercise, the simple fact that there were no TV cameras in most of the above locations means that we have to find other ways to provide context. What is happening in Kosovo is not genocide. As the Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel stated a few weeks ago, the use of the term in the Kosovc, context is offensive to anyone who survived the Holocaust, and presumably to any Tutsis in Rwanda also. We are now hearing that the CIA believes that a significant number of the missing Albanian men in Kosovo were not rounded up and slaughtered by the Serbs as originally suggested. It is now believed they were forced by the Kosovo Liberation Army to join its ranks unless they could afford to pay a "deferment tax." Evidence of the so-called "rape camps" has yet to be provided as promised. And as someone who was accused by one of the parties to the Bosnian conflict of rape and murder in Sarajevo in 1992, I'm particularly sensitive to the rhetoric surrounding the "rape card." I would like to see some proof before I accept it as justification for expanding the war. I have just returned from three weeks in the Belgrade area and while there I must admit that I was more than a little disappointed by the NATO rhetoric based on hearsay, speculation and erroneous comparisons to the Bosnian conflict. It is disappointing because the Serbs watch CNN, CNBC, the BBC, and a few other western channels and some of their reports are almost as outrageous as those of Serbian state television. As a result, the vast majority of Serbs I met do not trust any TV reports, either western or Serbian. What a missed opportunity for the West to exploit during the various NATO, Pentagon and state department briefings when we could be speaking to the Serbian people, rather than President Milosevic and the press. With respect, I would not buy a used car from the NATO spokesman Jamie Shea. It was my understanding that this was a war to avoid a humanitarian disaster in Kosovo. Well, nice going. We now have a disaster throughout Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo and no amount of precision weaponry can stop it. A lot of 20/20 hindsight? No way. A little bit of "we
[PEN-L:5818] (Fwd) Are We Heading Towards Another Vietnam?
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 16:01:42 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Are We Heading Towards Another Vietnam? From Economic Reform, Volume 11, No. 5 May 1999 Are We Heading Towards Another Vietnam? During its first few days of its bombardment of Yugoslavia NATO's smart missiles were reported homing in on their Serbian targets with pinpoint accuracy--a tribute to the excellence of their spatial reference system. On the other hand NATO's press releases dealt largely with ancient hatreds and a battle lost six hundred years ago. It was unfortunate, however, that Washington and the media did not seek their guidance in the more recent past. The great landmark on which the current Balkan tragedy hinged was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. At the time a retired sage from the US State Department even wrote a book proclaiming the end of history. But subsequently we have been buried in a surfeit of history, most of it of quite the wrong sort. And predictably so. Tito's Yugoslavia had been a balancing act between the Soviet and American camps. He was prominent in organising a "Third Camp" of neutral countries between the superpowers. And in the economy, too, he sought a middle ground between private and state ownership. To an extent, decisions were made and profits distributed by the firms' employees. In its hour of triumph, however, Washington was in no mood for dilly-dallying. The disastrous advice that it ladled out to post-Communist Russia--instantaneous privatisation and untrammelled freedom for foreign capital--was replicated in Yugoslavia with similar results. Recently the 1984 National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 133) "United States Policy towards Yugoslavia," was released from secrecy. Applied to the United States itself, that directive would have ruled out Roosevelt's program for lifting the US out of the Great Depression. Yet there were enough landmarks that warranted second thoughts. The key false reference point that misled Washington policy-planners might be called the Big Bang of 1981. In retrospect it seems that at the time a giant chamber pot had crashed on our heads and ushered in a new Age of Creation. That attempt of the US Federal Reserve to wring inflation out of the economy led to the Fed adopting the monetarist model. From then on its concern was supposed to be only with braking the growth of the money supply, without regard for the effect on interest rates. At the same time banks were deregulated so that they could pay interest on chequing accounts as well as on saving deposits. Naturally that prompted an influx of deposits into the new hybrid accounts. And in an attempt to restrain that Fed Reserve Chairman Volcker drove the bank rate up to 19%, bringing on mass unemployment and bankruptcy throughout the non-Soviet world. Amongst much else this led to mass lay-offs of Yugoslav "guest workers" in Western Germany on whose remittances Yugoslavia had become dependent. Accordingly throughout much of the eighties the parks of Yugoslavian cities in daytime were crammed with unemployed young men. That left them with a dangerous amount of time to nurse the wrongs that their ancestors had suffered six hundred years ago at the hands of their fellow Yugoslavs of other religions. Official unemployment climbed to 17% throughout the Confederation; in Kosovo it topped 57%. Exports plunged and government deficits soared under the combined effects of the depressed economy and the high interest rates. Long since, Chairman Alan Greenspan of the Fed announced that he no longer pays special attention to the money supply statistic--nobody can even say how it is to be reckoned. In the United States that has contributed to bringing down interest rates. However, the mass unemployment, huge government deficits, and social break-down brought on by the Big Bang of 1981 delivered the Third World and "emerging lands" like Yugoslavia to the mercies of the International Monetary Fund. And for the IMF the Big Bang is still certified gospel, rather than a monumental mistake. At the end of the eighties the two powerful clamps that had held Yugoslavia together since World War II disappeared. One of these was the superpower rivalry already mentioned. The other was the dictator, Marshall Tito. With his death free parliamentary elections in 1980 put considerable power in the hands of rightist nationalist parties, while the Communists retained much strength in the south. Another important landmark was the reunification of Germany. The reunited Germany, once again become a major power, seemed to be take over in the Balkans just where Kaiser Wilhelm and the Nazis had left off. With the best of intentions, of course. But by 1990 Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Minister of Foreign
[PEN-L:5743] (Fwd) GREEKS TORN OVER THEIR NATO ROLE
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 15:08:36 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:GREEKS TORN OVER THEIR NATO ROLE The National Post Wednesday, April 21, 1999 GREEKS TORN OVER THEIR NATO ROLE Polls show overwhelming opposition to the bombing. NATO official lauds Greek government for its continued support in the face of domestic pressure. By Brian Murphy Athens For NATO member Greece, the main showdown isn't with Yugoslavia. It's within. Public opinion in the country is almost totally united against the air attacks. Greeks worry about being ensnared in a wider Balkan war and find kinship with Serbs as fellow Christian Orthodox, whose leaders often promote age-old paranoia about losing ground to Muslims and bowing to the West. The Greek government has so far managed to balance between domestic dissent and alliance obligations, but with the attacks showing no sign of easing, that may become harder. Escalating the air campaign could mean using Greek bases. Ground action in Kosovo would likely bring convoys of soldiers and troops through the northern port of Salonica en route to Macedonia, a corridor that has already been closed once by anti- NATO protesters. Greek officials say they will not contribute any forces to attack Yugoslavia. But if public protests block even logistical support, the question would ring louder: Is there a place in NATO for an unreliable ally? "If Greece, because of public opposition, can't handle its NATO obligations in this case, there could be some wider fallout," said James Ker-Lindsay, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London. "They could face some serious credibility issues with other NATO partners." Other Balkans nations desperate to join the alliance -- including Romania and Bulgaria -- could emerge as NATO's new regional operational points if Greece balks at full co-operation. Albania may find itself contentedly ensconced as an undeclared NATO protectorate. Protest rallies are held nearly every day now in Greece, allowing Greeks to revel in nationalism and U.S.-bashing reminiscent of the days before the big U.S. military bases closed in the early 1990s. Several times, riot police have been called out to protect the U.S. embassy. Last week, demonstrators temporarily blocked a French military supply convoy near the Macedonian border. Some polls show opposition to the bombing running at more than 95%. Sensing a huge potential audience, an Athens theatre troupe quickly put together a show lampooning NATO as a bumbling, Nazi-like power. Clerics have also helped stoke the anger. The leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Christodoulos, called the NATO attackers the "pawns of Satan." The protests -- many organized by Greece's Communist party -- are spilling over in the military. On Sunday, a navy lieutenant was taken into military custody for refusing to take part in a NATO deployment not directly linked to the attacks. Costas Simitis, the prime minister, was curt when asked about military dissent. "They go where I tell them to go," he said. Constantine Karistinos, a researcher at the Institute for International Relations in Athens, said: "Greece is part of the West. Its role has been established. But some voices still scream that . . . it doesn't belong alongside Western Europe and America. The Kosovo situation has enlarged this divide." But NATO appears ready to give Greece some leeway. A top NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity, lauded Greece for "holding up very well . . . despite the domestic pressure." Forcing the Greek leadership to pick between its NATO obligations and pro-Serb public sentiment could create a government crisis and bring unwanted disruptions in the alliance. The Associated Press
[PEN-L:5745] (Fwd) NATO's unjust war
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 15:08:12 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO's unjust war The Globe and Mail Wednesday, April 21, 1999 NATO's unjust war By Marcus Gee Can the killing of innocent people in war ever be justified? That was the question that came to mind after NATO accidentally bombed a convoy of unarmed refugees in Kosovo last week. In a just war, the answer has to be yes. Countless civilians died when the Allies invaded France to free Europe from the Nazis, when the cause and the war were undeniably just. Can the same be said of the war in Kosovo? Is this a just war? To that question, the answer has to be no. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas each wrestled with the idea of a just war. Over the centuries, scholars have refined their thoughts and come up with five basic criteria: Is the cause righteous? Are the intentions good? Was the war declared by a proper authority? Is there a reasonable chance of victory? Are the means proportionate to the ends? Let's be generous and concede points one and two to NATO. The stated aim of this war -- the protection of Kosovo Albanians from Serbian attacks -- is hard to question. The intentions, too, are essentially good. This is not a war of conquest or a war of revenge or a war for resources. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's unselfish motive is to rescue civilians and stop a thug: Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. But on the other three points, NATO loses hands down. Declared by a proper authority? Not one of the 19 NATO countries had the honesty to declare war when the alliance began raining destruction on Serbian cities four weeks ago today. In Canada, the government has not even allowed Parliament the chance to vote. Worse, NATO has completely bypassed the United Nations. Article 53 of the UN Charter says the UN Security Council is the proper authority to approve a collective police action such as the NATO bombing. Yet Canada and its allies never even asked the Council's opinion. Why? Because Russia might have voted against us. So we simply ignored the UN, and 50 years of Canadian support for the rule of international law has gone down the drain. Even NATO's sanction of the bombing is suspect. The NATO charter describes the organization as a defensive alliance that is committed to use force only when one of its members is attacked. No NATO member has been attacked by Yugoslavia. A reasonable chance of victory? There was always a chance that Mr. Milosevic would fold his tent as soon as the bombing started. But from the early days, it was clear that this was not going to happen. Instead of folding, he attacked Kosovo and forced hundreds of thousands of Albanians to flee. NATO should have known this might happen. Intelligence reports before the war showed that he might unleash his troops on Kosovo if he thought the rebels there had forged an alliance with NATO, which is how Belgrade, with its acute victim complex, was certain to see it. Yet, with feckless optimism, NATO bombed away. Is there a reasonable chance of turning back Serbia's assault on Kosovo with the means currently being used? No. If the political end we are seeking is the total withdrawal of Serb forces and the occupation of Kosovo by foreign troops, it seems highly unlikely that NATO will achieve it with aerial bombing alone. Yet the bombs keep falling. NATO's only response to the failure of its bombing campaign is to drop more bombs on more places. Which brings us to the fifth and final criterion. Are the means proportionate to the ends? This is perhaps the most important measure of a just war. If we are to use violence justly, we must be sure that the violence inflicted is less severe than the violence it is trying to counteract, and that the ultimate gains outweigh the losses. Is this so in Kosovo? The violence Mr. Milosevic has inflicted on Kosovo is awful, but what NATO is doing is pretty awful, too. Belgrade claims that the bombing has killed 1,000 people in Serbia. If this is true -- and given the number of deadly mistakes that NATO has admitted, it could be -- it is possible that NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia has already killed more people than Yugoslavia's ground attack on Kosovo. As NATO steps up the bombing, pummelling Serbian cities day and night, more and more innocent civilians will die. In the end -- whenever that will be -- it seems inevitable that the number of dead will exceed the 2,000 killed in Kosovo before the war began. To NATO, that doesn't seem to matter. Convinced that their cause is just and their motives pure, its leaders are determined to prosecute this war to the bitter end. But as St. Thomas acknowledged, good intentions and a just cause
[PEN-L:5746] (Fwd) EUROPEAN UNIONS CALL FOR NEGOTIATED END TO WAR IN KOSOVO
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 14:08:53 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:EUROPEAN UNIONS CALL FOR NEGOTIATED END TO WAR IN KOSOVO (ANSA) Paris, 16 APRIL - ITALIAN AND FRENCH TRADE UNIONS ARE CONVINCED THAT "THE ONLY POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THE KOSOVO WAR IS NEGOTIATIONS," CISL GENERAL SECRETARY SERGIO D'ANTONI SAID TODAY AT A PARIS PRESS CONFERENCE. D'ANTONI STATED THAT THE ISSUE HAD BEEN ADDRESSED IN THE MEETING THAT THE GENERAL SECRETARIES OF ITALY'S CGIL, CISL AND UIL HAD WITH THEIR FRENCH COLLEAGUES FROM CFDT. THE MEETING, IN WHICH UNION OFFICERS SERGIO COFFERATI AND PIETRO LARIZZA ALSO TOOK PART, AIMED AT THE IMPROVEMENT OF TRADE UNION RELATIONS IN VIEW OF THE NEED TO CREATE A SOCIAL EUROPE WITHIN THE PROCESS OF ONGOING EUROPEAN INTEGRATION. GP 16-APR-99 19:14
[PEN-L:5747] (Fwd) A German Insider's View of Kosovo Conflict
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 13:41:19 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:A German Insider's View of Kosovo Conflict Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 From: Gunder Frank [EMAIL PROTECTED] A German Insider's View of Kosovo Conflict BONN, Apr. 17 - The following report, which TiM has now received from a multitude of sources, has been attributed to a "German insider." Since we normally don't publish articles from sources which we cannot authenticate, we have sat on this text for several days now. But not only have some credible sources from the international intelligence community also forwarded the same report to us, but it has now also been passed on by Jürgen Reents, Press-spokesman of PDS at the German parliament. The original text, posted at the German, can be found at the PDS site: http://www2.pds-online.de/bt/themen/99041303.htm [AGF editorial note: I can at least certify the verity of the above: Diese Seite ist Teil des WWW-Angebotes der PDS im Bundestag Erklärung eines Insiders aus dem Bonner Regierungsapparat zum Balkan-Krieg vom 7. April 1999 Beiliegende "Erklärung eines Insiders aus dem Bonner Regierungsapparat zum Balkan-Krieg vom 7. April 1999" ging dem Pressebüro der PDS-Fraktion am 8.4. anonym zu. Der Absender hat ausdrücklich um Veröffentlichung gebeten. Jürgen Reents, Pressesprecher der PDS im Bundestag ] Diese Seite ist Teil des WWW-Angebotes der PDS im Bundestag Die Startseite mit allen Menüs können Sie in diesem oder einem neuen Fenster laden! Erklärung eines Insiders aus dem Bonner Regierungsapparat zum Balkan-Krieg vom 7. April 1999 Beiliegende "Erklärung eines Insiders aus dem Bonner Regierungsapparat zum Balkan-Krieg vom 7. April 1999" ging dem Pressebüro der PDS-Fraktion am 8.4. anonym zu. Der Absender hat ausdrücklich um Veröffentlichung gebeten. Jürgen Reents, Pressesprecher der PDS im Bundestag And so, without further ado, here's a "German insider's" story about what the "Kosovo Crisis" is all about "PLOTTING THE WAR AGAINST SERBIA: AN INSIDER'S STORY 1. Personal Preliminary Remarks 2. About the current lies told by [Chancellor] Schroeder, [Defense Minister] Scharping, and [Foreign Minister] Fischer 3. CIA covert action aimed at dismembering Yugoslavia Personal Preliminary Remarks: This text I am giving to a Catholic priest, who is a member of the Order for Peace [Ordensleute für den Frieden] here in Germany. I am doing so while maintaining confessional confidentiality, and divulging no information as to my identity. He will transmit this text on my behalf to those who need to know the truth. I hold a high-security post in the government apparatus in Bonn, and for reasons of conscience can no longer remain silent. The facts that I am about to divulge are, for the better informed, examinable and verifiable. Both the entire NATO propaganda staff as well as the Infernal Trio, Schroeder, Scharping and Fischer, here in Germany are unabashedly lying to the public with nearly every "fact" they present about the Balkans War, while a willing media pack is keenly spreading these lies, unverified, as gospel truth. About the current situation: The Federal Government knows the true reasons why the people are fleeing and is cynically playing with the calculated misery of the refugees in the border regions of Kosovo, in order to maintain an image comparable to WW II deportations and "ethnic cleansing". Neither the military intelligence arm of the Bundeswehr nor that of the NATO have at their disposal photographic evidence, intelligence knowledge, indications and proof leading to the conclusion that there is systematic expulsion or deportation of refugees by the Yugoslav special forces, army or police. According to internal acknowledgement of the defense ministry the reasons for flight are more or less equally distributed: (1) Excess on the part of Yugoslav soldiers and police force, often triggered in part by KLA attacks carried out under cover of Kosovo-Albanian civilians. Information is on hand that Yugoslav soldiers caught looting are summarily court-martialed; (2) The results of the NATO bombing, such as the lack of potable water in nearly all cities of Kosovo and general devastation; (3)Understandable fear of getting caught in the crossfire between the KLA, the Yugoslav military, and NATO attacks; (4) Constant spreading of panic and horror stories in the broadcasts of dozens of small KLA, NATO or Albanian shortwave radio stations located in the mountains, alongside the propaganda broadcasts of the KLA over Radio Tirana; (5) Pillaging bands of the Albanian mafia, who with their weapons stolen during the Albanian civil war, extort money, search abandoned houses for anything of value and then burn the houses down to create political effect;
[PEN-L:5748] (Fwd) Is war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour becoming a pawn o
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 15:07:56 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Is war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour becoming a pawn of NATO? The Globe and Mail Wednesday, April 21, 1999 DOUBTS RAISED OVER IMPARTIALITY OF PROSECUTOR By Marcus Gee Is war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour becoming a pawn of NATO? The question arose after Madam Justice Arbour, a Canadian, appeared at a news conference yesterday with British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. He handed her a fat dossier of British intelligence reports on alleged atrocities in Kosovo, an unusual step for a Western government. Judge Arbour accepted the documents with gratitude. That struck some as inappropriate. It is part of NATO's war strategy to portray the leaders of Yugoslavia as war criminals who must be stopped. By accepting the documents, critics say, Judge Arbour risked becoming part of that strategy and losing her impartiality. University of Toronto law professor Craig Scott said he admires Judge Arbour (who is on leave from the Ontario Court of Appeal) and acknowledges the right of her war-crimes tribunal in The Hague to obtain information wherever it can. "But at the same time it's very important that the tribunal not only appear to be but be at arm's length from the combatants." Instead, he said, Judge Arbour has given the appearance of being in partnership with NATO. "I am quite surprised she would do this," Prof. Scott said. "I see it as a lapse of judgment." Others disagree. They say the critics are asking Judge Arbour to be impartial in the battle between the firefighter and the fire. University of Ottawa expert Errol Mendes said Judge Arbour's tribunal has few resources of its own for gathering evidence. Besides, "she is a prosecutor, not a judge. Her role is to go out there and find sufficient evidence to indict war criminals." When she accepts evidence from Britain or the United States, it is no different than a crown prosecutor in Canada accepting evidence from the police, Prof. Mendes said. The problem is that, in this case, people can't always agree about who is the cop and who is the bad guy. While refugee reports speak of terrible Serb atrocities against Kosovo Albanians, NATO bombing mistakes have killed civilians too. Last week, a NATO warplane accidentally hit a refugee convoy, apparently killing dozens of people. "The rules of humanitarian law do not apply only to Milosevic," said Irwin Cotler of Montreal's McGill University, referring to the Yugoslav President. "They also apply to any violations that may be committed by NATO." At some point, Prof. Cotler said, Judge Arbour may be asked to consider whether the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has committed war crimes. That effort might be compromised now that she has stood side by side with a British minister as he denounces crimes by the other side. The tribunal was set up in 1993 to investigate war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and breaches of the Geneva Convention in the former Yugoslavia. Prof. Cotler points out that Article 16 of the tribunal's charter says the prosecutor "shall not seek or receive instruction from any government." On the other hand, it also says she may seek information from any source. Judge Arbour herself told the news conference in London that she wants the help of Western governments because they have intelligence that she could not gather on her own. "We have no access to judicially authorized electronic surveillance methods," she said. "We have no tribunal-based wiretap capacity with or without prior judicial approval. We have no standard form of execution of search warrants, which are standardly used in domestic criminal law enforcement to develop the evidence against suspects." That sort of intelligence is crucial if she is to trace Kosovo war crimes to senior Yugoslav political and military leaders. Judge Arbour has made it clear that she is not content merely to indict low-level police and army officials for Kosovo atrocities. She wants to go right to the top. That desire happens to dovetail with NATO's propaganda effort, which seeks to maintain public support for the campaign by pinning Serbian atrocities on President Slobodan Milosevic and other Yugoslav leaders. "We want not just the thugs who carried out the crimes, but those who gave the orders," Mr. Cook said as he handed the British file to Judge Arbour. In recent days, French President Jacques Chirac has called Mr. Milosevic a dictator and U.S. President Bill Clinton has called him a "belligerent tyrant."
[PEN-L:5749] (Fwd) SPINNING MAKES ME DIZZY
pen-l pen-l --- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 15:07:17 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:SPINNING MAKES ME DIZZY Landau Pacifica April 21 1999 SPINNING MAKES ME DIZZY What to think amidst this verbal barrage against Yugoslavia's leader? AM radio talk show hostess Stephanie Miller compared Yugoslav President Slobodon Milosovic to Hitler. "I saw them loading poor ethnic Albanians onto trains, like Hitler did to Jews." She meant she saw it on TV, of course. Other commentators have also likened cleansing of ethnic Albanians to the Holocaust. President Clinton promised to protect ethnic Albanians, but instead his bombing campaign induced Milosovic to accelerate their removal. So, for clarity, I called, Donald Wag-the-Dog King, secret White House Spin Doctor for Operation Allied Force. Will we send US troops, I asked. "Troops," he screamed, "will go in when the media, which we feed, convinces the public that Milosovic's actions are akin to the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor. But don't underestimate spin. Look how the public supports our bombing campaign. That's due to spin. Suppose that instead of accusing Milosovic of loading Ethnic Albanians onto deportation trains, we had said he was ousting fanatic Muslim fundamentalists? That would conjure images of PLO chief Arafat and terrorists like Osama Ben Laden. "Take the Kosovo Liberation Army. Suppose we had publicized the CIA's claim, just 3 years ago, that the KLA were Maoist terrorists and narco traffickers?" Not much public sentiment for backing people with those labels, I said. "So," he continued, "spinning makes yesterday's drug-dealing, red terrorist into today's freedom fighter, except in Afghanistan where yesterday's freedom fighter becomes today's fanatic Muslim terrorist. But let's not confuse the public with facts." But, I objected, is this spinning democratic? "Spinning the story shows us as upholders of democracy, freedom- lovers. Milosovic becomes the newest demon threatening our lives." Wait a sec, I said. Do you mean this campaign to save ethnic Albanians requires that we demonize yet another man? "How else to sell a war? Remember Sodom Hussein, formerly, Saddam. We turned our one time pal -- during his war with Iran in the 1980s -- into Satan with a few well-placed photos and stories. The media love it. Remember the Maine and the Kuwaiti babies thrown out of their incubators. Heh heh!" This is cynical beyond belief I said. "Hey, a few democracies have to keep order over less civilized nations. Our democracy demands spinning in the advanced info age. Our new story has Milosovic appointing only his cronies to high public office. Makes you hate him more, doesn't it?" You mean, I said, Milosovic appoints the Yugoslav equivalents of Webster Hubbell? "Hey, spinning is supposed to take your mind off Clinton's appointments and most other leaders' for that matter. Spinning makes you think the way we want you to." Well, I concluded, spinning isn't democratic and it doesn't convince me, but it sure makes me dizzy. Saul Landau is the Hugh O. LaBounty Chair of Interdisciplinary Applied Knowledge California State Polytechnic University, Pomona 3801 W. Temple Ave. Pomona, CA 91768 tel - 909-869-3115 fax - 909-869-4751
[PEN-L:5750] (Fwd) USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM (DU) BULLETS AND BOMBS BY NATO F
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 14:41:04 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM (DU) BULLETS AND BOMBS BY NATO FORCES IN YUGOSLAVIA April 18, 1999 THE USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM (DU) BULLETS AND BOMBS BY NATO FORCES IN YUGOSLAVIA Roger, my husband, and I are protesting furiously. It is extremely critical today. BBC does not give public information about DU (depleted uranium) ammunition - it was only briefly mentioned on CNN. This media blockade is incredibly difficult to break. NATO does not PLAN to use depleted uranium ammunition, they are already DOING IT every day. All already fired missiles contained/contain depleted uranium. During the explosion, 80% of DU is transformed into uranium oxide, gas particles half micron in size. Once inhaled these particles output equivalent to a chest X- ray per hour for life (for their long period of decay). We are trying to draw the public attention to this horrible military practice in Yugoslavia and elsewhere in the world. This is suspected of causing the Gulf War Syndrome and there are around 80 thousand veterans of that war with similar symptoms today. In other words, ALL SIDES involved in bombing of Yugoslavia ARE ENDANGERED! Why would NATO worry about Yugoslav population when they don't worry about their own soldiers? I personally have impression that people are not aware how DANGEROUS, how horrific, and how long-lasting the effects of this inhumane military action is. This is not about bridges, houses, about the war casualties. This is a horrifying precedent. Even though it was used massively in the Gulf War, some quantities in Bosnia, this type of ammunition was NEVER in the history of this planet, used so concentrated in time and space. It can very well happen that the survivors of this war will envy the dead. Please, stir up the public, this is more than just a game!!! With love, Tamara and Roger Coghill SPREAD THE WORD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD! Nenad Gambiroza Home: (+381 11) 424-922 Office: (+381 11) 434-596 (+381 11) 3228-401 COGHILL RESEARCH LABORATORIES LOWER RACE, PONTYPOOL, GWENT NP4 5UH Tel: 00 44 1495 763389 Fax: 00 44 1495 769882 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Website: http://www.cogreslab.demon.co.uk 08/04/1999 The public at large, both in UK and in Yugoslavia, are unaware that 30 mm bullets being fired by A-10 anti-tank aircraft and probably all Tomahawk Cruise missiles in this action contain depleted uranium (DU). The development of these radioactive weapons is based on the fact that uranium (atomic mass 238) is much denser than lead (atomic mass 207), and therefore its kinetic energy is sufficient to penetrate tank armour or concrete buildings more effectively than lead, prior to detonation. The design of the bullet is to incorporate a long thin cylinder of DU housed in a plastic sheath or "sabot". This means in turn that the very small leading edge of the bullet peirces with maximum impact. The same principle is used in Tomahawk Cruise missiles, with the aim of piercing concrete obstructions rather than metal. The bullets were used in the Gulf War , and some 1 million of them still lie in the deserts of that region where subsequently the incidence of leukaemias, cancer, and birth defects have risen sharply as a consequence of the ensuing environmental radiation. The amount of DU scattered around the Gulf war zone is given as 350 tonnes, but including the nose cones of Cruise missiles and helicopter rotors, the figure is nearer 750 tonnes. This is 27 TBequerels of radioactivity, one fiftieth of the total alpha releases from Sellafield over its entire operating history. The same is happening in Bosnia where DU was also employed. Some 80,000 US Gulf War veterans now suffer from the so-called Gulf War syndrome, whose symptoms are identical to radiation sickness. The US military are well aware of this and are on record as confirming 2.5mGy/hr at the surface of a DU shell, a dose equivalent to a chest X-ray per hour. Each A-10 Thunderbolt 30mm cannon anti tank shell contains some 275g (10.1 Bq). A single 120mm Abrams tank DU shell contains 3kg of U-238 (111 MBq) of activity. When DU bombs detonate, uranium oxide is formed in particulates of between 0.5 and 5 microns. These can be windborne several hundred miles or suspended electrostatically in the atmosphere. The half life of Uranium is 109 (ten to the ninth) years, so they do not decay. One "hot particle" of this DU material in the lungs is equivalent to a chest X-ray per hour for life. It is impossible to remove, so the donated lung gradually irradiates the victim until death ensues. In the use of DU both ground-based combatants and their targets are almost certain to suffer long term radiation sickness and premature death. The Pentagon view is that the
[PEN-L:5744] (Fwd) Tony Blair's spin doctor is in Brussels telling NATO how
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 15:07:37 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Tony Blair's spin doctor is in Brussels telling NATO how to tell "a story" The Globe and Mail Wednesday, April 21, 1999 Report on Business: EUROPE'S WAR, EUROPE'S PEACE Getting the word out to the world's media so important that British Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief spin doctor is in Brussels to tell the NATO team how to tell "a story". By Peter Cook Brussels -- At the Hotel Eurovillage, a group that calls itself the International Crisis Group briefs the press on why NATO's strategy in the Balkans is doomed to failure. A quick glance at the schedule shows the event is neatly timed to precede NATO's more reassuring briefing at its headquarters in suburban Evere, a daily event now entering its fifth week. Brussels, host city of the European Union and also host city of NATO, is not a wartime capital in the same exposed way that Belgrade is. But it is home to what is arguably the most crucial apparatus of modern warfare as the place from which one side's view of what occurred in the skies over Yugoslavia on the previous night is disseminated to the world's media. Presently, this is judged to be so important that British Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief spin doctor and confidant, Alastair Campbell, is in town to instruct the NATO team on how they should use each day to tell "a story" rather than being so boringly factual and frank. Whatever stories get told, it is clear that Europe, and Europe's capital, are in the front line. Brussels' dual function has already produced a European Council meeting at which 15 leaders proposed a peacekeeping force in Kosovo that would be led by NATO and mandated by the United Nations. Prior to its deployment, there would be a Serb military withdrawal and cessation of the bombing. That initiative went nowhere, but it has not stopped others making the connection between the war with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and their own aspirations. Over the weekend, Albania suggested that the price for its acceptance of so many Kosovar refugees should be immediate admission to the European Union. Since there is now a 12-nation lineup of other countries seeking admission and Albania ranks as the poorest and possibly most disorganized nation in Europe, its efforts at queue-jumping were not taken too seriously. The reality however is that this is Europe's war and the destruction being wrought by NATO bombs, the broken bridges across the Danube, the wrecked oil and power installations, the ruined road and rail communications, plus the towns and villages torched by Serbian forces, will in the fullness time -- and in the context of what NATO hopes is a liberated Kosovo and a Yugoslavia cleansed of Mr. Milosevic -- have to be rebuilt at someone's expense. Europe acknowledges that it will almost certainly be at its expense. Last week, when they made their peace bid, Europe's leaders talked of turning Kosovo into a UN protectorate that they would administer, and of creating a stability pact for the whole of southeastern Europe. Too often in the past, European rhetoric has got ahead of reality. And one has to wonder whether this is another such case -- especially when that spellbinding rhetorician, French President Jacques Chirac, talks of the European Union having "a vocation and a capacity" to be a kindly rich uncle to the Balkan states. To date, Europe has shown itself less than enthusiastic about the EU candidacy of two of the region's larger states, Romania and Bulgaria, putting them near the bottom of its list of applicants. Others such as Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania and Moldova are unstable or undemocratic or both, and have not been on anyone's radar screen when it comes to EU membership. The current view is that a war, hastily entered into to stop Mr. Milosevic, appears to have no end in sight. But end it will, eventually. At which point, the commitments made to reconstruct large swathes of the former Yugoslavia will be substantial. Nor is it just a case of repairing what has been destroyed in the immediate war zone. All trade on the Danube from Budapest to the Black Sea has come to a halt. And a dozen national economies in a region stretching from Ukraine to Slovakia and southward to Greece have been badly hurt. Europe's response to this is that it will do the job. In the words of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, "it is important that the EU feels responsible for the development of the region, its infrastructure, its standard of education and its economic and social structure." That is a mighty commitment to make for a union that
[PEN-L:5663] (Fwd) REPORTER REPRIMANDED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 12:34:30 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:REPORTER REPRIMANDED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH THE VANCOUVER SUN TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 1990 A Soldier's View: REPORTER REPRIMANDED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH By Lewis Mackenzie BELGRADE During the past few days, I have observed the contingent of foreign journalists here in Belgrade aghast at the controversy surrounding John Simpson, a well-known and respected BBC journalist. Earlier in the week, Simpson filed a piece that showed a small group of Belgrade residents gathered on a sidewalk in the downtown area berating Simpson and proclaiming that Serbia was united against NATO. I saw the news item and knew it accurately reflected the mood of the city. Within 48 hours, the piece was condemned in the British House of Commons as pro-Serbian propaganda that did not accurately reflect the true picture in all of Yugoslavia and that somehow Simpson was aiding the enemy. I think it is important to remember that we are not currently engaged in the Second World War, where our actual survival is at stake. In fact, none of the NATO countries conducting the war against Yugoslavia is under any measurable degree of threat. During the Second World War, journalists were quite understandably part of the weaponry employed by the Allies. They were confined to one side in the conflict and their reports were designed to alleviate concern at home and embellish success at the front and mislead the enemy. All very understandable. Starting with the Gulf War, the allies have had reporters on both sides, a bizarre but natural development, given that both sides felt they could exploit the media presence and 24-hour news coverage to their own good. And so we come to this war with a large contingent of journalists in Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro reporting on the horrific plight of the refugees, and a relatively small number here in Belgrade reporting on what is going on in the capital of the country being attacked and seen as the cause of the conflict. While our movements have to be cleared ahead of time, we have, in fact, travelled outside of Belgrade on numerous occasions. Articles that are sent out of the country including this one are not censored; however, there is some evidence that if the rhetoric were considered "Serb-bashing," one's welcome here would soon disappear. The important thing to remember in all this controversy about John Simpson and presumably, the rest of us, is that we are, in fact, in Belgrade and all we can report from firsthand knowledge is what is going on in Belgrade and the mood of the capital's citizens. To suggest that we should adjust our reporting of fact in order to assist NATO's objectives is somewhat distasteful, even to a retired general. Surely, individual members of the public are wise enough to absorb the information flowing out of this region and draw their own conclusions. Sunday, our CTV team visited a middle-class family in Belgrade to film their routine during an air raid warring. The father is out of work as a result of the war and receives no compensation. The three children (aged 14,12, and five) shared with us their feelings when they hear and frequently feel the bombs explode. They became emotional and started to cry while all the time supporting each other. It was a tough thing to film. Undoubtedly, same viewers will immediately condemn the piece as Serbian propaganda and will miss the message that this is just another innocent family, like millions around the world experiencing the horrors of war and wanting nothing more than to have their children survive. If we were in East Timor we could show a similar family there. We just happen to be in Belgrade. Maj-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, now retired, commanded UN troops during the siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian civil war of 1992.
[PEN-L:5583] (Fwd) YUGOSLAVIA: BOMBING THE BABY WITH THE BATHWATER
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 17:30:22 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:YUGOSLAVIA: BOMBING THE BABY WITH THE BATHWATER An editorial by Veran Matic, a former editor of Beograd's alternative media Radio B92: BelgradeMarch 30, 1999 BOMBING THE BABY WITH THE BATHWATER NATO's bombs have blasted the germinating seeds of democracy out of the soil of Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro and ensured that they will not sprout again for a very long time by Veran Matic The air strikes against Yugoslavia were supposed to stop the Milosevic war machine. The ultimate goal is ostensibly to support the people of Kosovo, as well as those of Serbia, who are equally victims of the Milosevic regime. In fact the bombing has jeopardised the lives of 10.5 million people and unleashed an attack on the fledgling forces of democracy in Kosovo and Serbia. It has undermined the work of reformists in Montenegro and the Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina and their efforts to promote peace. The bombing of Yugoslavia demonstrates the political impotence of US President Bill Clinton and the Western alliance in averting a human catastrophe in Kosovo. The protection of a population under threat is a noble duty, but it requires a clear strategy and a coherent end game. As the situation unfolds on the ground and in the air day by day, it is becoming more apparent that there is no such strategy. Instead, NATO is fulfilling the prophecy of its own doomsaying: each missile that hits the ground exacerbates the humanitarian disaster that NATO is supposed to be preventing. It's not easy to stop the war machine once its power has been unleashed. But I urge the members of NATO to pause for a moment and consider the consequences of what they are doing. Analysts are already asking whether the air strikes are still really about saving Kosovo Albanians. Just how far are NATO members prepared to go? What comes next after the "military" targets? What happens if the war spreads? All of these terrifying questions must be answered, although I suspect that few will want to live with the historical burden of having answered them. The same questions crowded my mind as I sat in a Belgrade prison on the first day of the NATO attack on my country. Whiling away the hours in the cell I shared with a murder suspect, I asked myself what the West's aim was for "the morning after". The image of NATO taking its finger off the trigger kept coming to mind. I've seen no indication so far that there is a clear plan to follow up the Western military resolve. My friends in the West keep asking me why there is no rebellion. Where are the people who poured onto the streets every day for three months in 1996 to demand democracy and human rights? Zoran Zivkovic, the opposition mayor of the city of Nis answered that last week: "Twenty minutes ago my city was bombed. The people who live here are the same people who voted for democracy in 1996, the same people who protested for a hundred days after the authorities tried to deny them their victory in the elections. They voted for the same democracy that exists in Europe and the US. Today my city was bombed by the democratic states of the USA, Britain, France, Germany and Canada! Is there any sense in this?" Most of these people feel betrayed by the countries which were their models. Only today a missile landed in the yard of our correspondent in Sombor. It didn't explode, fortunately, but many others have in many other people's yards. These people are now compelled to take up arms and join their sons who are already serving in the army. With the bombs falling all around them nobody can persuade them - though some have tried - that this is only an attack on their government and not their country. It may seem cynical that I am writing this from the security of my office in Belgrade - secure, that is, compared to Pristina, Djakovica, Podujevo and other places in Kosovo. But I can't help asking one question: How can F16s stop people in the street killing one another? Only days before the NATO aggression began, Secretary-General Solana suggested establishing a "Partnership for Democracy" in Serbia and the other countries of the former Yugoslavia to promote stability throughout the region. Then, in a rapid U-turn, he gave the order to attack Yugoslavia. With these attacks, it seems to me, the West has washed its hands of the people, Albanians, Serbs and others, living in the region. Thus the sins of the government have been visited on the people. Is this just? There are many more factors in the choice of a nation's government than merely the will of the voters on election day. If a stable, democratic rule is to be established, and the rise of populists, demagogues and other impostors avoided, the
[PEN-L:5585] (Fwd) Understanding the War in Kosovo in the Fourth Week
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 17:47:44 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Understanding the War in Kosovo in the Fourth Week From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 23:51:00 -0500 (CDT) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Weekly Analysis -- April 19, 1999 __ Stratfor's FREE Kosovo Crisis Center - http://www.stratfor.com/kosovo/crisis/ The most comprehensive coverage of the Kosovo Crisis anywhere on the Internet __ STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update April 19, 1999 Weekly Analysis: Understanding the War in Kosovo in the Fourth Week Summary: The war in Kosovo grew out of fundamental miscalculations in Washington, particularly concerning the effect Russian support had on Milosevic's thinking. So long as Milosevic feels he has Russian support, he will act with confidence. If Russia wavers, Milosevic will have to deal. With the air war stalemated and talks of ground attack a pipe dream, diplomacy remains NATO's best option. That option depends on Russian cooperation. However, Russian cooperation will cost a great deal of money. That brings us to the IMF, the Germans, and former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, who is Russia's new negotiator on Serbia, a leading economic reformer and a good friend of the West. Analysis: On March 24, 1999, NATO aircraft began to bomb Yugoslavia. We are in the fourth week of the campaign, which now appears to be a stalemate. NATO is unable to force Belgrade to capitulate to its demands using the force currently available. Yugoslavia is unable to inflict sufficient casualties on the attackers to dissuade NATO from continuing the campaign nor has it been able to drive a wedge into NATO from which a peace party might emerge that is prepared to negotiate a conclusion to the conflict on terms favorable to Serbia. As in most wars, the rhetoric on both sides is filled with purple prose, horrible accusations and much confusion. Given that the current stalemate cannot be maintained indefinitely, we are, almost by definition, at a turning point. While the stalemate can, theoretically, go on indefinitely, neither side has it in its interest to permit this to happen. NATO's unity is fragile at best, particularly if the conflict fails to resolve itself. Yugoslavia is losing valuable economic assets that it would rather not lose. Since neither side appears ready to capitulate and neither side wants the current stalemate to continue, it is useful to consider, leaving rhetoric aside, how we got here and where all this is likely to go. It is clear to us that the war began in a fundamental miscalculation by NATO planners and particularly by the civilian leadership of the United States: Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger, Richard Holbrooke and the President. They made a decision to impose the Rambouillet Accords on both sides in Kosovo. It was simply assumed that, given the threat of bombardment, Slobodan Milosevic would have no choice but to capitulate and accept the accords. By all accounts, Richard Holbrooke, architect of the Dayton Accords and the person most familiar with Milosevic was the author of this reading of Milosevic. Holbrooke had good historical precedent for his read of Milosevic. After all, when Serbs in Bosnia were bombed in 1995, Milosevic capitulated and signed the Dayton Accords. Holbrooke's reasoning was that history would repeat itself. The evidence that Washington expected capitulation was in its complete lack of preparation for an extended conflict. At the time the air campaign began, NATO had about 400 military aircraft available for the campaign, with less than 200 hundred for bombing missions. Even with the availability of cruise missiles, no serious military observer, including apparently senior U.S. military officials, believed this to have been anywhere near the amount required to inflict serious damage. Indeed, most observers doubted that an air campaign by itself could possibly succeed without a ground campaign. Thus, Washington and NATO were either wholly irresponsible in launching the campaign with insufficient forces, or had good reason to believe that Milosevic would rapidly capitulate. Since Albright, Berger, Holbrooke and the President are neither fools, nor irresponsible, we can only conclude that they were guilty of faulty judgment about how the Serbs would respond. There are three reasons for the difference in Milosevic's behavior in 1999 and 1995. First, Kosovo is strategically and psychologically critical to the Serbs. The demands of the Rambouillet Accords were crafted in such a way that the Serbs were convinced that NATO occupation would mean the loss of Serb sovereignty over Kosovo. Thus, where NATO was calculating that
[PEN-L:5586] (Fwd) MOSCOW STANDS BY MILOSEVIC
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 11:08:48 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:MOSCOW STANDS BY MILOSEVIC Reuters April 19, 1999 MOSCOW STANDS BY MILOSEVIC Meanwhile, British Prime Minister tells Milosevic he will be forced to withdraw from Kosovo BRUSSELS - Russian President Boris Yeltsin warned the West Monday he would not allow it to defeat President Slobodan Milosevic and establish control over Yugoslavia. Yeltsin, speaking hours before a scheduled telephone conversation with President Clinton, said Moscow could not ditch Milosevic whom the West has accused of war crimes. Clinton had asked for the telephone call to seek a solution to the crisis in Yugoslavia, which NATO has been bombing for nearly four weeks to end what it calls Belgrade's attempt to empty the southern Serbian province of Kosovo of its ethnic Albanian majority. The 19-nation alliance called off most of its air raids overnight because of bad weather in the Balkans. Kosovo Albanian guerrillas pleaded Monday for NATO tactical air strikes to save thousands of cold and hungry refugees trapped in the mountains of central Kosovo from Serbian shelling. A Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) official said some 40,000 refugees sheltering in the Berisha mountains had come under heavy fire since Sunday. The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, said Monday Yugoslav forces appeared to be turning back ethnic Albanians trying to leave the country. UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said the latest flow of refugees from Kosovo into Albania had stopped overnight. He said refugees had also stopped crossing into the neighboring former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia and Montenegro, which with Serbia makes up the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. British Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to force Milosevic to pull his troops out of Kosovo and return the province to ''the people to whom it belongs.'' ''You will be made to withdraw from Kosovo,'' Blair said in speech addressed to Milosevic. Yeltsin, whose earlier attempts to mediate in the conflict have failed, met top security officials Monday, including Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and newly appointed Kosovo envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin, to work out Russia's strategy. ''Bill Clinton hopes that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic will capitulate, give up the whole of Yugoslavia. We will not allow this. This is a strategic place,'' Itar-Tass news agency quoted Yeltsin as saying. Russian news agencies quoted Yeltsin as saying that during his conversation with Clinton he would reiterate Moscow's call for a halt to NATO air strikes to allow more talks. Interfax news agency quoted Yeltsin as saying Russia would exercise ''restraint'' in handling the Kosovo crisis, but it would maintain close ties with Milosevic. It quoted him as saying: ''We simply cannot ditch Milosevic. We want to embrace him as tight as possible.'' Russia has bitterly denounced NATO air strikes but made clear it will not get drawn into the conflict militarily. Washington said it had the support for the war from the states surrounding Serbia, to which hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians have fled. ''All of the leaders made clear that they stand behind what NATO is doing, that President Milosevic is isolated and that his brutality and repression will not go unanswered,'' a spokesman said of Clinton's telephone calls to Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania and Romania. Yugoslavia severed diplomatic relations with Albania Sunday, accusing it of siding with NATO. Despite criticism that 26 days of NATO air strikes had failed to stop the killings and deportations in Kosovo, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Sunday there was no immediate plan for ground troops. But she added: ''That assessment can be quickly updated and that is where we are.'' Blair, addressing what he described as a simple message to Milosevic, said Monday an international military force ''will go in to secure the land for the people to whom it belongs.'' ''The dispossessed refugees of Kosovo will be brought back into possession of that which is rightfully theirs. Our determination on these points -- the minimum demands civilization makes -- is absolute,'' he said. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have streamed out of Kosovo since to escape Yugoslav forces. But those unable to cross into neighboring countries have taken to the hills of central Kosovo. ''There is no escape for anyone from this area,'' Sokol Bashota, a member of the KLA General Headquarters, told Reuters by telephone. ''They are coming at us from
[PEN-L:5587] (Fwd) BELGRADE 17-NGO APPEAL
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 12:33:08 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:BELGRADE 17-NGO APPEAL http://www.dds.nl/~pressnow/extra/ngoappeal.html BELGRADE 17-NGO APPEAL Deeply shocked by NATO strikes devastation of our country and the plight of Kosovo Albanians, we, the representatives of non- governmental organizations and the Nezavisnost Trade Union Confederation, energetically demand from those who have created this tragedy to immediately take all necessary steps to create conditions for the resumption of peace process. For two weeks now the most powerful military, political and economic countries in the world have been killing people and destroying military and civilian facilities, bridges, railway lines, factories, heating plants, storage facilities and fuel tanks. This has produced an exodus of unprecedented proportions. Hundreds of thousands of Yugoslavs, primarily ethnic Albanians, are forced to leave their devastated homes to escape the bombing and military actions of the regime and KLA, in the hope that they will find salvation in the tragic status of refugee. It is obvious that all this leads to a catastrophe and that a negotiated and peaceful solution to the Kosovo problem, which we have urged for years, is now farther than ever. Our effort to develop democracy and a civic society in Yugoslavia and help it restore its membership of all international institutions have taken place under constant pressure by the Serbian regime. We, the representatives of civil groups and organizations, have courageously and consistently fought against every war-mongering and nationalistic policy, and for the respect of human rights, and particularly against the repression of Kosovo Albanians. We have always insisted on the respect of their human rights and freedoms and on the restoration of autonomy for Kosovo. Throughout this period, Serb and Albanian civil society groups were the only ones to retain contacts and cooperation. The NATO intervention has destroyed everything that has been achieved so far and the very survival of the civic society in Serbia. Faced with the current tragic situation, we put up the following demands in the name of humanity and values and ideas that have been guiding us in our activities: We demand an immediate cessation of bombing and all armed operations; We demand the resumption of peace process with international mediation at the regional (Balkan) and European level, as well as in the United Nations; We demand from the European Union and Russia to take their charge of responsibility for finding a peaceful solution to the crisis; We demand an end to the practice of ethnic cleansing and repatriation of all refugees; We demand support for peace, stability and democratization of Montenegro and every possible action aimed at helping this republic alleviate the disastrous consequences of the refugee crisis; We demand from Serbian and international media to report professionally and impartially about current developments, to refrain from participation in the media war and from fanning inter- ethnic hatred, hysteria and glorification of force as the only reasonable way out of the crisis. We are unable to achieve this on our own. We expect from you to support our demands and help us realise them through your actions and initiatives. - Association of Citizens for Democracy, Social Justice and Support for Trade Unions - Belgrade Circle - Center for Cultural Decontamination - Center for Democracy and Free Elections - Center for Transition to Democracy - Civic Initiatives - EKO Center - European Movement in Serbia - Forum for Ethnic Relations and Foundation for Peace and Crisis Management - Group 484 - Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia - Students Union of Serbia - Union for Truth About Anti-Fascist Resistance - VIN: Weekly Video News - Women in Black - Yugoslavian Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, and - NEZAVISNOST Trade Union Confederation.
[PEN-L:5589] (Fwd) NATO GETTING COSY WITH RAGTAG GUERRILLA FORCE
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 12:33:21 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO GETTING COSY WITH RAGTAG GUERRILLA FORCE The National Post Monday, April 19, 1999 NATO GETTING COSY WITH RAGTAG GUERRILLA FORCE Canadian government no longer considers KLA a terrorist organization; U.S. State Department, CIA still classify them as terrorists. By Isabel Vincent Last week, at one of the daily NATO press briefings in Brussels, the alliance's spokesman Jamie Shea noted that the Kosovo Liberation Army, the rebel force that is fighting for the independence of the troubled southern province of Serbia, was getting stronger. "Like a phoenix that rises from the ashes, it [the KLA] will be able to conduct a number of attacks," he said, adding that the combination of NATO air strikes and attacks by members of the rebel group would have a vice effect on the Serb armed forces and Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president. The longer Mr. Milosevic resists complying with NATO demands, the more the vice will tighten, he noted. On the same day, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, William Cohen, the U.S. secretary of defence, described the KLA as resurgent. As if to illustrate NATO's and Mr. Cohen's statements, Kosovapress, the official news organization of Kosovo's provisional government run by the KLA, reported that over the weekend the KLA had made some "decisive" strikes against the Serb security forces in Kosovo. According to Kosovapress, the KLA overtook one unit of the 124th Brigade of the Serbian army at Rahovec and killed five Serbian soldiers on Saturday. In another attack on Friday in Vushtrri, Kosovapress reported another KLA victory, claiming the rebels "liquidated" a Serb police patrol in the region, killing five Serb police officers. Of course, the press reports and the statements by U.S. and NATO officials about the strength of the KLA are impossible to confirm in the absence of independent journalists in Kosovo. In fact, just about the only credible information we have about the KLA is that they are lightly armed and poorly trained. But as NATO air strikes fail to have their desired effect in bringing President Milosevic to his knees, the KLA is gaining greater legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. In their desire to appear on the side of morality and justice, the NATO allies are transforming what in reality is a ragtag guerrilla force, dependent on the drug trade and outside donations for its financing, into a "phoenix" and a well-organized fighting machine, capable of taking on the Yugoslav army. In the process, they are legitimizing their own intervention in what started out as an internal civil conflict, and now threatens to escalate into a geopolitical disaster. Even though NATO officials have said that they are still reluctant to become the "air force for the KLA," their increasingly cosy relationship with the guerrilla force seems to suggest otherwise. Perhaps NATO is gradually preparing the public for the day when its members decide to send ground troops to Kosovo. Those troops will inevitably find themselves fighting alongside the KLA, and therefore it is in NATO's interests to portray these guerrillas as noble warriors. Already, the hundreds of diaspora Kosovar Albanians who have volunteered to fight alongside the rebels in Kosovo seem to recall the Spanish Civil War, when idealistic young people, known as internacionalistas, from around the world, volunteered to fight in Spain against General Francisco Franco's fascist forces. Moved by the commitment of Kosovar Albanians to fight for an independent homeland, at least one U.S. senator has suggested that Washington commit funds to the rebel group to strengthen their position against the Serbs. The Canadian government says it no longer considers the KLA a terrorist organization, even though the U.S. State Department and the CIA still classify them as terrorists. Unconfirmed reports on the weekend suggested that multi- billionaire George Soros and his Open Society Foundation, which supports nascent democratic movements in the former Eastern bloc, were giving financial assistance to the KLA. In the past, the KLA has directly benefited from diplomatic negotiations conducted hundreds of kilometres outside Kosovo. Since October, 1998, when NATO came close to launching air strikes against Yugoslavia, the KLA rebels believed that they had the world's most powerful military alliance on their side. Emboldened by NATO's threat of air strikes against President Milosevic, the KLA reclaimed territory abandoned by Serb security forces
[PEN-L:5590] (Fwd) MILITARY ANALYSTS SAY NATO DEATHS COULD TOP 5,000 IN GRO
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 12:32:57 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:MILITARY ANALYSTS SAY NATO DEATHS COULD TOP 5,000 IN GROUND WAR The National PostMonday, April 19, 1999 MILITARY ANALYSTS SAY NATO DEATHS COULD TOP 5,000 IN GROUND WAR Entry to Kosovo could take months to prepare, battle could last years; be prepared to fight guerrillas for 20 years, says director of University of Calgary's Military and Strategic Studies Centre By Peter Goodspeed As the public clamour to end the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo grows, military strategists are peering into the abyss of a ground war in the Balkans to glimpse the dangers facing NATO. It's not a pretty sight. While support for a ground war against the Serbs gains political strength, the military prospects of such a battle remain daunting. "I'm concerned that we have a chorus that is beginning to call for this without understanding the military implications of what it is they are asking for," said David Bercuson, director of the Centre of Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary. "Militaries are not blunt instruments," he said. "They exist to achieve specific objectives. But when politicians simply throw the military at a problem, you have disasters." Any type of ground offensive faces huge obstacles, not the least of which is the simple geography of the Balkans. Kosovo is ringed with mountains and there are only 14 roads and river valleys leading into the territory. These are now all heavily guarded, mined, and covered by Serbian artillery. Most bridges are wired for demolition to resist an invasion. "Any possible way in would be extremely difficult," said Jim Hanson, a retired Canadian Forces brigadier-general who now works with the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies. "I've heard people talk about airborne troops and that's fine. You can get them there. But then you have to link up with them. You still have to cross that rather forbidding terrain, and if the Yugoslav National Army decides to dig in to any extent, they can make you pay a price." In the Balkans, military intervention on the ground could pursue three very different objectives. NATO troops could: - try to carve out a protective enclave in Kosovo for the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees who have been driven from their homes; - drive into Yugoslavia to rip Kosovo from Belgrade's grip and place the territory under international protection; - seek to conquer Yugoslavia completely, seize Belgrade, and topple the government of Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslavia's president. Few strategists put any faith in sending troops into battle simply to set up areas to receive refugees. Such a goal would not stop or reverse ethnic cleansing and would not provide much security for the refugees. Serb troops could be expected to bombard and harass "safe havens," much as they did when the United Nations adopted a similar protection policy in Bosnia earlier this decade. "The 7,000 or so people who died in Sebrenica, when it was a 'safe-haven' under the UN, gave the whole concept a pretty bad name," said David Rudd, executive director of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies. "If the objective is to stop all of this at its source, then you go to Belgrade, you take out the president, you establish a military occupation, and you have to be prepared to fight the guerrillas for the next 20 years," Mr. Bercuson said. "If your objective is to take Kosovo, then be prepared to continue to fend off Serb attacks and Serb guerrilla operations in a low-intensity conflict for the next who-knows-how-many years," he added. Yugoslavia's military is prepared, Gen. Hanson says. In the days of the Cold War under Marshall Tito, the country feared invasion from the Soviet Union and prepared itself accordingly: People were psyched up for the sacrifices of a defensive war, they planned their defense in depth, and they built their own armaments industry. "A lot of their military equipment is pretty old, but it can do the job," Gen. Hanson said. "Especially if they are not too worried about casualties amongst their own troops and if they are fighting someone who is. That gives them a bit of an advantage right there." Most observers predict NATO will need to field an army ranging from 60,000 to 250,000 troops, depending on the battle plan it adopts. Yugoslavia's standing army totals 90,000 men and can be boosted to as many as 250,000 by calling up reserve forces and former conscripts. With no easy route into Yugoslavia, NATO
[PEN-L:5591] (Fwd) MISSILE STRIKES POLLUTE DANUBE
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 12:32:34 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:MISSILE STRIKES POLLUTE DANUBE The Globe and Mail April 19, 1999 MISSILE STRIKES POLLUTE DANUBE By Tom Walker Special to the Globe and Mail Pancevo, Yugoslavia An ecological disaster was unfolding yesterday after NATO missiles ripped apart a combined petrochemical, fertilizer and refinery complex on the banks of the Danube River north of Belgrade. A series of detonations that shook the city early yesterday morning sent a cloud of smoke and toxic gases hundreds of metres into the sky where they were considered to be relatively safe. Among the gases reported to be billowing above thousands of homes were chlorine, hydrochloric acid and phosgene. Workers at the industrial complex in Pancevo decided to release tonnes of ether dichloride, a powerful carcinogen, into the Danube rather than risk seeing it blown up. At least three missiles strikes left large areas of the plant crippled, and oil and gasoline from the damaged refinery coursed into the river, forming slicks up to 20 kilometres long. Scientists warned people to stay indoors and to avoid fish caught from the Danube. They said the pollution would spread downstream to Romania and Bulgaria and then into the Black Sea. At least 50 residents of Pancevo were reported suffering from phosgene poisoning and health ministry workers tried to round up gas masks for belated protection. Residents were told to breathe through cloth soaked in water and bicarbonate of soda as a precaution against showers of nitric acid and nitrogen compounds. Thirteen hours after the first explosions, the Yugoslav army took journalists to the Pancevo site. "This plant is 37 years old and has never witnessed anything like it. This is our worst nightmare," said plant director Miralem Dzindo. "The sickness of the minds that did this too us is enormous. By taking away our fertilizer they stop us growing food, and then they try to poison us as well." He said the plant's production was strictly non-military, and noted that the warehouses had been largely empty when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization struck, because the attack had been expected and many chemicals and compounds had been moved to underground bunkers. Still, the Serbian environment minister, Dragoljub Jelovic, accused NATO of trying to destroy the whole Yugoslav environment. He said pollution in the Danube and in the atmosphere above Belgrade "knows no frontiers." "If NATO continues to attack us like this there is no future, he said. "A vast part of Europe is in danger. Those who ordered this crime do not have the minimum of sense." Mr. Dzindo took journalists around the huge plant complex, advising reporters to put handkerchiefs over their faces as they were shown two destroyed fertilizer storage areas. The choking air burned the eyes and nostrils and many reporters refused to get off the tour bus. Slobodan Tosovic, a physician and toxicology expert, said the worst gases had been released after a cruise missile burst into a part of the plant where plastics were made. "Not even Reagan when he attacked Libya ordered missiles against this sort of facility," Dr. Tosovic said, adding that the explosion had produced phosgene- caronyl chloride, along with carbon monoxide and hydrochloric acid.
[PEN-L:5588] (Fwd) FALLOUT FEARED FROM URANIUM SHELLS
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 12:35:28 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:FALLOUT FEARED FROM URANIUM SHELLS The ProvinceMonday, April 19, 1999 FALLOUT FEARED FROM URANIUM SHELLS LONDON Depleted uranium, which is included in anti-tank weapons and other armaments available to the U.S. and Britain in the Kosovo conflict, could have long term health effects on soldiers and civilians. The U.S. has refused to say whether it has used the weapons but confirms it has them in the field and "picks the best weapons for the available target." The British defence ministry also has them in readiness for use on Harrier jet fighters. Weapons tipped or packed with depleted uranium were used extensively for the first time in the Gulf War and are blamed by some scientists for the phenomenon known as Gulf War syndrome and by the Iraqis for birth defects and cancers in southern Iraq. The uranium has been developed by NATO as an armour-piercim4 weapon because it is 2.5 times heavier than steel and 1.5 times heavier than lead and can be fired at high A-10 Warthog shoots uranium slugs at tanks. er velocity, which causes more destruction. Depleted uranium has been used as a nose cone on Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can also contain a rod of uranium for penetrating bomb-proof targets. It is not thought these have so far been used in this conflict but the American A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft uses uranium bullets for knocking out tanks. The Apache helicopters. soon to be deployed, have the same guns. Tests on Gulf veterans last year by independent Canadian scientists show that some have uranium in their bloodstream. Henk van der Keur, a molecular biologist from the Document and Research Centre on Nuclear Energy in Amsterdam, said: `'lt is becoming more and more clear in independent studies that depleted uranium is the main candidate for causing so-called Gulf War syndrome. At first no-one took this matter seriously because it is not highly radioactive, but on impact uranium turns to dust and can be breathed in. "In our view it is a serious danger long term to soldiers returning from the battlefield and to the civilians remaining behind in the war zone when peace finally returns. We think these weapons should be banned." The Guardian
[PEN-L:5584] (Fwd) IN SERBIA, ORDINARY PEOPLE FEEL SUFFERING AND AGONY OF W
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 13:15:33 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:IN SERBIA, ORDINARY PEOPLE FEEL SUFFERING AND AGONY OF WAR http://www.independent.co.uk/stories/B1004902.html THE INDEPENDENT Saturday, 10 April 1999 IN SERBIA, TOO, THE ORDINARY PEOPLE FEEL THE SUFFERING AND AGONY OF WAR By Robert Fisk in Cuprija NATO's war is growing more brutal by the hour. I spent most of yesterday - the Orthodox Easter Good Friday - clambering through the rubble of pulverised Serb homes and broken water pipes and roof timbers and massive craters. At Cuprija, Nato jets have blasted away seven homes, two of them direct hits, during an attack on the local army barracks. In Kragujevac, the workers at the massive Zastava car plant who so stubbornly told me just over a week ago that they would sleep on the factory floor to protect their workplace - they even sent e-mails to Clinton, Albright and Solana to this effect - were rewarded with an attack by cruise missiles that smashed into the car works and wounded 120 of the men. And at Aleksinac, it now turns out that up to 24 civilians may have been killed five days ago in the attack by a Nato jet - believed by the Yugoslav military to be an RAF Harrier. Workers still digging through the wreckage yesterday told me that they had recovered 18 bodies and that six more civilians were still missing. The 13th funeral was held yesterday morning - of Dragica Milodinovic, who died of her wounds three days after her husband, Dragan, and their daughter were blasted to pieces in the bombing. At the site yesterday, I found Svetlana Jovanovic standing beside a mechanical digger, unnoticed by the policemen, rescue workers and journalists walking over the wreckage. "Both my parents died just over there - where the bulldozer is moving the rubble," she said quietly. "I was staying in Nis for the night and this saved my life." Beside her was part of the torn casing of the Nato bomb that buried the couple in their cottage. There is a lot of palpable anger in Aleksinac - a Russian resident shouted abuse when he heard me speak in English. But there was not a word of malice from Svetlana, no rhetorical condemnation of the Nato attacks. When I said how sorry I was for her family, she replied in English: "Thank you for coming to see our suffering." Spyros Kyprianou, the speaker of the Cypriot parliament, turned up at the bomb sites during the day on a hopeless mission to secure the release of the three American soldiers captured by Serb forces last week - in anticipation, no doubt, of obtaining US support for a Greek Cypriot solution to the island's partition. He was given a loud and angry account of Nato's sins from Serbian government officials - nothing about the appalling suffering of Kosovo's Albanian civilians, of course - and never had a chance to hear the names of those who died in Aleksinac. Nato says the bomb that killed the people there may have suffered a "malfunction" which caused - that obscene phrase yet again - "collateral damage". The "damage" in this case includes Svetlana Jovanovic's parents, the Milodinovics and their daughter, Jovan Radojicic and his wife, Sofia, Grosdan Milivojevic and his wife, Dragica. Nor was it "collateral": one of the bombs landed square on the Jovanovic house. It was the same story - with mercifully no deaths - at Cuprija. A farming town of 20,000 a hundred miles south of Belgrade, its local barracks was attacked early on Thursday in a raid that left a square mile of devastation through dozens of homes. The Yugoslav army garrison had abandoned the place 10 days ago - "we're not fools," a policeman said - but the civilians stayed on and waited for the inevitable. When the first of seven bombs fell, they ran to their basements as their houses collapsed on top of them. I found one home that was simply blasted from its foundations and hurled across the road into a neighbour's field, the owner left crouching - miraculously untouched - in his basement. Another bomb had exploded in a lane opposite a school, breaking the local water mains and blasting down the walls of a bungalow. True, there is a military barracks at Cuprija - at least two bombs had torn off the roof of the empty Tito-era monstrosity half a mile away. And there is a military building 800m from the site of the Aleksinac slaughter. And yes, Nato believes - and Yugoslav sources confirm - that part of the Zastava car factory is used for weapons production. It is the fate of Yugoslav industry that, thanks to Tito, hundreds of its factories have dual production facilities. And the Kragujevac car plant management had pleaded with its workers to end their sit-in. But Nato's refusal to show restraint when it knew the workers had stayed in the
[PEN-L:5432] (Fwd) CANADA CAN STILL MAKE PEACE IN KOSOVO
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 12:24:43 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:CANADA CAN STILL MAKE PEACE IN KOSOVO The Toronto StarApril 16, 1999 CANADA CAN STILL MAKE PEACE IN KOSOVO By Joanna Santa Barbara We have to believe there were some good motives for Canada's involvement in bombing Serbia. The suffering of Albanian victims of ethnic cleansing was intolerable to people of good conscience. Something had to be done. We haven't yet evolved good ways of responding to massive human rights abuses within sovereign territories, so we bombed Belgrade. There are murmurings about bad motives too - NATO's need to justify its existence and huge funding with the Cold War 10 years over. Is this why the attempt at non-violent curbing of human rights abuses by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe was insufficient, slow, and undertrained for the job? But whatever the motives, there can be no doubt about the combined effects of the violence by Serbian forces and by NATO. The suffering of the Albanian Kosovars has increased enormously. The humanitarian disaster is straining neighbouring Macedonia, Albania and Greece, and is beyond the capacity of helping organizations. Political strains on the neighbouring countries create further risks of large-scale violence. There is suffering among innocent people in Serbia, including many tens of thousands who have striven repeatedly to get rid of Milosevic. The worse the war becomes, the more dissidents will be conscripted, forced by threat of the death penalty to fight for an illegitimate leader they have tried to unseat. And why, for instance, was central heating to these citizens a target of NATO bombing? Efforts for democracy in Serbia have been set back. A leader of a Serbian student movement for democracy writes that, ''NATO bombing has pulled the rug out from under a nascent opposition base. As the strikes intensify, we feel betrayed by those from whom we expected help in our attempts at creating a civil society in Serbia.'' Canada's joining the NATO war on Serbia violates international law and is in contempt of the U.N. Charter. This is a dangerous course and against Canadian tradition. The fact that the nuclear weapons states-dominated Security Council is a dysfunctional body for dealing with large-scale human rights abuses does not justify a shift of decision-making authority to the U.S. or to NATO - a military alliance with very different functions and history. What is to be done now? Stop the bombing. NATO will require a face-saving ''reason'': Surely having bombed all military targets will suit the purpose. Get a well-funded U.N. mediation operation, preferably headed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, working immediately. The non-violent elected leader of Kosovars, Ibrahim Rugova, should represent their interests, not the upstart violent men of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Safe movement of refugees to their former homes should be protected, as far as possible, by unarmed observers, perhaps from the OSCE. These people should be well-trained in on-the-ground conflict resolution, among other skills, and should be adept at facilitating the work of peace-building non-governmental organizations. What is to be done in the longer run? Canada must work within the U.N. for Security Council reform, and for the creation of a legal framework for action within a sovereign country where there are large-scale human rights abuses. These will be long, slow tasks, but they must be undertaken. In addition, there must be a set of minimal requirements for international recognition of a recently seceded country, and in particular, protected rights of minorities within that country. We should urge the development of an Organization for Security and Co-operation in the Balkans, attached to the OSCE. There will be difficulties between ethnic groups for decades ahead after all that has happened. There needs to be a forum for acknowledging and acting on these. In Kosovo, we need to apply all that we have learned of peace- building (and Axworthy's Department of Foreign Affairs has been developing strengths in this area). This needs to include a strong component of economic development, and built-in capacities for conflict resolution. We need to recognize that we missed many opportunities for preventing this horrible situation. We, both in government and civil society, need to learn from this and quickly apply our learnings to situations of high risk - Macedonia and Turkey perhaps, among others. Canada's growing strengths in peace-building need to be applied to prevent war. Joanna Santa
[PEN-L:5433] (Fwd) Letter from Yugo factory
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 16:57:21 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Letter from Yugo factory Letter from Yugo factoryMonday, 12 April 1999 Dear friend, We are sending you letter of workers from automobile company YUGO that was bombed by NATO planes regardless that workers decided to make live shield around their factory. Now with factory destroyed more than 40,000 people has lost their jobs and means to feed their families. Photos and more stories about crimes committed over Yugoslavia You can find at www.aic.org.yu and www.barw.org.yu. COMMUNICATION TO THE PUBLIC OF ALL NATO MEMBER COUNTRIES This night, the 9th of April, the ZASTAVA factory plants in Kragujevac were bombed. The live shield is broken through. This bombardment has inflicted sever damage to factory equipment and almost completely destroyed the energy supply complex that served not only to the ZASTAVA needs, but also for the heating of the entire city of Kragujevac: its residential houses, schools, faculties, hospitals... Yet, horror-stricken we were at the civilian victims: tens of men inside a live shield that was safeguarding the factory plants. Among the victims there were not only the ZASTAVA workers, but also members of their families and other citizens of the city of Kragujevac. What none from among us either could, or was willing to assume as possible did happen: Kragujevac has re-experienced its WW II tragedy, its citizens have again become the target of a barbarian assault. In the name of what aims did war planes take off from the once our friendly countries which used to send us the ideas of humanness, freedom, maybe the greatest treasure that we have in the modern civilisation? What has happened to all those ideas and have they been just an illusion that had dispersed at the first sound of raised arms? We, the small people, that has looked with admiration at all the great things coming from you, could nor, or did not want to accept that this was so. Haven't we, still, been mistaken? Has any one from among you give a thought to our future and the future of our children that has become entirely uncertain due to this insane act, and precisely this future we have been defending at the price of our own lives. Already exhausted by sanctions that have reduced our average monthly salary from DEM 870 to DEM 5-60, knowing that a destruction of the factory would bring into the question the very existence of ourselves and our families, we have made a desperate move: with our bodies we have made a live shield that has been guarding our factory night- and-day. We have been resolute, since the very onset of the attack on our country, and persisted in the realisation of that decision every day, not to leave our plants after the expire of the working hours, not even when the alarms would sound air strikes, thus staying round the clock by our workplaces. By night our family members and citizens of Kragujevac were visiting us, giving us support and making us these moments of painful suspense easier. In order to prevent a horrendous catastrophe that may arise due to an insane act of attack on our factory, through the media, we have addressed local and world public, giving the precise co-ordinates of the factory, and pointing at the potential losses, spiritual and material, that may be inflicted by its destruction. In our addressees we appealed to the public of NATO member countries, to the conscience of the common men in those countries. Besides by local, our appeal was published and broadcast by numerous foreign media: TV networks and news houses. We, the ZASTAVA workers and citizens of Kragujevac, are afraid of the future standing in front of us. Now we wonder whether we have any future at all. Our children are hungry, and their eyes filled with horror. We have no more answers to their questions. Kragujevac, 9thpril 1999 EMPLOYEES AND MANAGEMENT OF "ZASTAVA" AND CTIZENS OF KRAGUJEVAC Sincerely Yours, Belgrade Academic Association for Equal Rights in the World [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:5428] (Fwd) NATO-BOMBED BRIDGES CLUTTER DANUBE - Blockage affects s
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 13:40:29 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO-BOMBED BRIDGES CLUTTER DANUBE - Blockage affects shipments from Romania, Bulgaria, Germany, Austria, Russia and Ukraine Associated PressThursday April 8, 1999 NATO-BOMBED BRIDGES CLUTTER DANUBE Blockage affects shipments from Romania, Bulgaria, Germany, Austria, Russia and Ukraine. By Anne Thompson BERLIN NATO's bombing of bridges along the Danube in Yugoslavia have left huge chunks of concrete in the river, jamming up freighter and barge traffic along the 1,750-mile artery that stretches from Germany through the Balkans to the Black Sea. All along the Danube valley, shippers were scrambling to find alternative routes for cargo stuck on ships now unable to reach their destinations now that the river has been severed at Novi Sad, Yugoslavia's second largest city. ''Overnight, half of my business is at a standstill,'' said Hans Frank, manager of a holding company in the southern town of Regensburg in Bavaria, the German state where the famous river begins its eastward flow. Frank, whose firm Gerhard Meyer handles transport for companies in Germany, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia, said Thursday that 60 of his 155 ships are stuck on either side of Novi Sad, where two bridges were completely destroyed by NATO. First, the allies targeted an old iron bridge below Novi Sad's 18th-century castle; a large piece now lies in a section of river yards wide. Completely blocking the Danube is the modern, white concrete bridge that was hit next. Bombs split it in two, with both sides falling into the water. A third bridge hit did not collapse. The blockage separates downstream countries such as Romania and Bulgaria from upstream Western nations like Germany and Austria. It was also stalling ships coming and going from the Black Sea, many of them carrying iron ore from Russia and Ukraine. ''It is a terrible situation for us, because we can only use the Danube,'' said Frank, whose stranded vessels are carrying iron ore, steel, wood and fertilizer. ''And all the countries along the Danube are affected by this.'' Those countries are Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine. In Romania, Mircea Toader, vice-president of the Association of Ship Owners and Port Operators, estimated that Romanian and foreign shipping companies had a total 60,000 tons of merchandise stuck on the Danube west of Novi Sad. Carrying part of that merchandise are 126 Romanian barges and 18 other transport vessels, Toader was quoted as saying Thursday by the private Mediafax news agency. Shipping agencies are seeking alternate land routes using trains and trucks, Frank said, but that is more expensive. Railways in Romania and Hungary are expected to sign an agreement granting each other preferential fares to get the trapped goods moving to western destinations. But transportation prices will still likely increase to $4 per ton from $2. An official at the Austrian Transport Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the NATO strikes have hurt Danube shipping just as it was recovering after a long slump caused by embargoes against Yugoslavia during the Bosnian war. Hungary, Romania and Ukraine are probably the worst hit by the crisis, as all have a large volume of trade on the river, said Laszlo Koszonits, the chief of a Hungarian state shipping company, Mahart. ''During the U.N. embargo against Yugoslavia it was very bad. But then it slowly cleared up,'' said Koszonits, who estimated his company is losing $12,000 a day from stalled traffic. ''The biggest problem now is that we can't see the end of this one,'' he said. ''We don't know how long it will last.''
[PEN-L:5429] (Fwd) CANADIAN CHURCH LEADERS' LETTER TO P.M. ON NATO BOMBING
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 14:21:46 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:CANADIAN CHURCH LEADERS' LETTER TO P.M. ON NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA CANADIAN CHURCH LEADERS' LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER ON THE NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA April 13, 1999 The Right Honourable Jean Chrétien Prime Minister of Canada House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A OA6 Dear Prime Minister, We write to you as leaders of Christian churches, appealing to you to press for an immediate, unilateral moratorium on the NATO bombing campaign. We are conscious of the heavy responsibilities you are carrying on this difficult question, and of the serious debate that took place in the House of Commons. Nevertheless, we appeal to you to replace the current strategy with renewed diplomatic efforts to reach a negotiated solution. Our church colleagues in the Vatican, in churches throughout Europe and Russia, and particularly in the Balkans have appealed to NATO, to the Serbs and to the Albanian Kosovars to stop all military action and begin dialogue immediately. They also appealed to all parties to restrict themselves to non-violent means to achieve a just settlement to the conflict, as well as to protect vulnerable people. We join them in that appeal. Our concern has been deepened by our church partnerships in the region and by our knowledge of people caught in the situation. It has been heightened by our experience of Holy Week and Easter, when we celebrated again the mystery of One who suffered and died so that all people everywhere should experience God's gift of reconciliation, justice, and peace. To spurn that offered gift in favour of violence is morally and spiritually wrong. As Christians, we believe that all human persons constitute one world- wide family. All people, within and beyond our borders are our neighbours. Therefore, we have a responsibility to do our utmost to protect fellow human beings when they are in great danger of human rights violations or of being caught in the path of warring parties. As a consequence of that responsibility, we have in principle supported Canada's interventionist role in defence of human rights and in peacebuilding. In the present case, we can not support the means. In principle, we also support Canada's determination to see that human rights violators are vigorously prosecuted under international law. The moral issue for people and for states committed to peace and human rights is finding the means that will help build, and not undermine, the conditions that undergird peace and security for people and effective respect for their human rights. We recognize that in the present situation in former Yugoslavia every course of action, including non-violent and diplomatic means, will produce tragedies. The challenge is to do the difficult work of finding the means that are best suited in this particular situation to the restoration of peace and justice. NATO bombing has only escalated the tragedy and created a starker humanitarian catastrophe. We urge you to give leadership in seeking a wider range of diplomatic alternatives. For example: we believe it is urgent to shift the political focus of diplomacy out of NATO and into the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), whose membership includes all of NATO, as well as Russia and all the other states affected by this crisis. Canada needs to take advantage of its hard-won position on the Security Council, calling on it to perform the central overseeing role in the diplomatic and humanitarian response to the crisis. Canada's formal commitment to human security makes diplomatic activism along these lines plausible. Our role in NATO bombing undermines it. Our church members, like many other Canadians, are stepping forward to offer their support to people displaced by the bombing and by Serbian military action They are also standing by to receive refugees who choose to come here. They tell us how much they appreciate the government's efforts to protect displaced people in the affected region, as well as to offer refugees a place in Canada if they choose to come. But we also want to convey to you the horror people have expressed to us as they have witnessed the effects of these military actions on men, women, and children. You who bear the heavy burden of governing are faced with the difficult recognition that, while a great good was sought, in fact a great evil has been done. In this moment we urge you as the Prime Minister of our country to stop, reconsider, and carefully change direction. Sincerely, The Most Rev. Michael G. Peers Primate, Anglican Church of Canada Msgr. Peter Schonenbach, PH General Secretary, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops Archbishop Hovnan Derderian Primate, Canadian Diocese of
[PEN-L:5430] (Fwd) Covering Up NATO's Balkan Bombing Blunder
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 17:43:00 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Covering Up NATO's Balkan Bombing Blunder http://www.transnational.org/pressinf/pf61.html Covering Up NATO's Balkan Bombing Blunder TFF PressInfo 61 April 14, 1999 "Western leaders are busy re-writing history to justify their Balkan bombing blunder. The change in information, rhetoric and explanations since the bombings started on March 24 is literally mind-boggling. Most likely they fear they have opened a very dark chapter in history and may be losing the plot. One way to make failure look like success is to construct a powerful media reality and de-construct real reality. That's the essence of media warfare and that's what happens now," says TFF director Jan Oberg. "For instance, you must have noticed that the The Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA or UCK, which existed some weeks ago and allegedly participated in Rambouillet now suddenly never existed. The 13-months war in Kosovo/a also conveniently has been expurgated. The last few days President Clinton, prime minister Blair, NATO General Wesley Clark, foreign secretary Cook, foreign minister Fischer, secretary Albright, defence minister Robertson and other Western leaders have explained to the world why NATO bombs Yugoslavia. They made NO MENTION of KLA or the war. Their speeches are surprisingly uniform. Their main points are: We have evidence that Yugoslavia, i.e.President Milosevic had a plan to ethnically cleanse Kosovo/a of all Albanians. One proof of this plan is that some 700.000 have been driven over the borders; it would have been many more, if not all 2 million Albanians, had NATO not taken action. Milosevic deployed 40.000 troops and 300 tanks in the region even while his delegation was in Paris. 'We have reports' and 'there are stories' about mass graves, rapes, and endless atrocities. We have no hard evidence, but that's what refugees consistently tell. Milosevic is now 'a cruel dictator' and 'a serial ethnic cleanser.' Innocent civilians are driven away 'only because of who they are and not because of anything they have done,' as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair express it. Milosevic has not been in compliance with the agreement he signed with ambassador Holbrooke in October last year. Why is this not credible, why is this probably a 'narrative' made to influence emotions, perceptions, enemy images, and ultimately the behaviour of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals? Let me give you a few facts from my own visits and repeated meetings over the years with the civilian Kosovar Albanian leadership, the opposition and independent intellectuals in Pristina," says Oberg. "Dr. Ibrahim Rugova repeatedly told me, as he did everyone from the West who cared to listen, that he feared he could not keep the Albanian people behind his pragmatic nonviolent strategy if the West did not 'do something' such as persuade Belgrade to participate in talks mediated by the international community. Years ago I met Kosovar Albanians who were very critical of Dr. Rugova's 'passive' leadership and advocated guerrilla struggle as the only way out, sooner or later. In 1996 I was told by well-informed Albanian intellectuals that they would not rule out that there existed an armed fraction. Last year advisers to Dr. Rugova told me that they had heard about the liberation army as early as 1993. For years, I would say, Kosovo has been a police state. The only response Belgrade had to the legitimate Albanian grievances was to step up police repression. I have no doubts about the fact that there were gross, systematic violations of political, economic, cultural and other human rights. The Albanians feared Belgrade - which insisted that it was an internal problem but never took steps to find a solution. At the same time, the Albanian leaders 'needed' the repression to mobilize international support for their project of an independent Kosova. Thus, they refused to deal with moderate, dialogue-inclined leaders such as prime minister Milan Panic and his excellent ministers in 1993. Be this as it may, the truth is that there was no war, no mass killings, no systematic ethnic cleansing, no genocide. Many Albanians left because of the repression but also because of the misery, the utter poverty and lack of future opportunities for themselves and their children. Serbs, too, left for such reasons and not - as they sometimes claim - because they were victims of an Albanian genocide plan. The conflict that was said to have started in 1989 erupted into war in February 1998 when KLA surfaced. It can NOT be denied that KLA activity changed the situation from repression to war. The most surprising is a) that the West turned a blind eye to Albania's role as a training ground and base for KLA, b) that, in
[PEN-L:5431] (Fwd) CANADA IS ABOUT AS INDEPENDENT AS A DOG ON A LEASH
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 17:44:11 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:CANADA IS ABOUT AS INDEPENDENT AS A DOG ON A LEASH The ProvinceFriday 16 April 1999 Opinion CANADA IS ABOUT AS INDEPENDENT AS A DOG ON A LEASH By Rafe Mair If nothing else this Kosovo mess we're in ought to make Canadians ask themselves just what the hell kind of a country are we, anyway? The wisdom of NATO's undertaking is, of course, very important. It is, to say the least, a very debatable point. For if the conditions precedent to a "police action" are that the objective be clear, that it be achievable and that once achieved it gets the job done, I would argue that we're 0-for-3. Unless, of course, the objective was to bomb and kill a lot of people in order to put Kosovars in even more danger of their lives and homes than they were in the first place. I disagree with Canada's involvement but that's only part of what I want to talk about. I think we Canadians should take a long hard look at our so-called democracy. Canada is a charter member of both the United Nations and NATO. The former organization was set up in 1945 to act, amongst other things, as an international policeman especially through its Security Council of which Canada is presently a member. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was set up in 1949 as a defence mechanism against obvious aggression from the then Soviet Union. As a member of the United Nations, Canada has an enviable record as a peacekeeper under the UN flag. There is the Somalia blot on the escutcheon, of course, but our contribution to peace as peacekeepers has been accepted internationally. The United States, under a badly discredited President Bill Clinton, decided to intervene militarily in Kosovo. The proper place for this decision to be made was, of course, the United Nations Security Council. Yet because Mr. Clinton knew that Russia and China would veto intervention he prevailed upon NATO, hitherto a defence organization, to suddenly become a militarily active one. Canada, with all the independence of a dog on a leash, went along and is now actively participating in the bombing of Serbia and Kosovo. If nothing else, Canada has badly blotted its copybook and will have a difficult time persuading any future troubled region that it is a legitimate peacekeeper. What's worse, Canada has displayed to the world and worse still to itself, that it isn't even a reasonable caricature of a democracy. Was there any debate in the House of Commons before the decision was taken to support the NATO air strikes? No there was not. But appalling though that was, the Liberals went one step further and held a "debate" long after the war had started and then refused to have the matter put to a vote. My God! Even the bad old Iron Curtain countries NATO was set up to protect us against at least held votes in their parliaments however obvious the outcome. Moreover, even with the so-called debate, there was no real opposition. The duty of the opposition is to oppose. And there is good reason for this because out of the crucible of hard debate emerges, if not a solution, at least all the issues for a democratic society to consider. While it was laudable for Preston Manning to question the deplorable process and ask what was going to happen if ground troops were proposed, surely it was his greater duty to lay out the reasons why the government decision to meekly follow Bill Clinton was wrong-headed in the first place. But Preston Manning and the other opposition leaders have fallen into the Chretien trap. Instead of screaming blue bloody murder from the time we dropped the first bomb they have been supine ciphers rendering approval of the game by playing in it. Instead of using all the procedural devices at their disposal to bring to the attention of Canadians the serious downsides to the NATO exercise, they gave it legitimacy by participating in a phony baloney debate that didn't even have the formality of a vote at the end of it. We've reached the point in our development as a nation where the government can do whatever it damn well pleases but worse, where that government has become the will of one man and one man only. The Prime Minister is a tyrant while parliament is an enclave of eunuchs and cabinet but a covey of compliant cronies. This is where Canada's at, at the end of what was, according to Laurier, supposed to be our century.
[PEN-L:5305] (Fwd) NATO'S BALKAN FOLLY - Marcus Gee, The Globe and Mail
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 15:26:23 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO'S BALKAN FOLLY - Marcus Gee, The Globe and Mail The Globe and Mail Wednesday, April 14, 1999 NATO'S BALKAN FOLLY By Marcus Gee In her wonderful book The March of Folly, the late American historian Barbara Tuchman tried to explain why nations do foolish things. Why did the Trojans drag a wooden horse inside their walls when every sign pointed to a Greek trick? Why did the British court a revolt in their valuable American colonies by overtaxing the colonists? Why did the Renaissance popes ignore every call for reform and lose half their flock to the Protestant secession? Simple ignorance is seldom the reason, Ms. Tuchman argues. When the United States embarked on its doomed intervention in Vietnam, for example, its leaders knew very well that they could be wading into a quagmire. A generation of scholarship and political intelligence had told them so. Yet in they went regardless, sinking deeper with every step. "The folly consisted not in pursuit of a goal in ignorance of the obstacles," writes Ms. Tuchman, "but in persistence in the pursuit despite accumulating evidence that the goal was unattainable." So it is for NATO in Kosovo today. Three weeks into our own little quagmire, it is plain that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's goal of protecting the Kosovo Albanians from Serb aggression is unattainable with the present means: air power. Instead of forcing Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to back off, the bombing has furnished him with a perfect excuse to burn and pillage his way through his rebellious province. Yet on we march on this Balkan folly, singing Onward Christian Soldiers as we go. Ignorance did not cause this calamity. Evidence is growing that NATO knew Mr. Milosevic would lash out if attacked from the air. U.S. military officials have told American newspapers that they warned that the Serbian leader would strike brutally at the Kosovo Albanians as soon as NATO began to attack him. NATO's leaders went ahead anyway, gambling that Mr. Milosevic would fold as soon as he knew the alliance wasn't bluffing. When he didn't fold -- when he instead counterattacked by crushing the Kosovo rebels -- they simply shut their eyes and marched on. "Milosevic is losing, and he knows he is losing," insists NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana. NATO will "persist until we prevail," says U.S. President Bill Clinton. All of this is sadly typical. As one historian wrote of Philip II of Spain: "No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence." Ms. Tuchman calls this quality "wooden-headedness." Once they have committed themselves to a counterproductive policy, she says, leaders find it all but impossible to reverse course, even if the evidence of failure is overwhelming. Occasionally a leader will find the moral courage to admit he was wrong. Ms. Tuchman mentions Anwar Sadat, who decided to overturn a generation of Egyptian policy and make peace with Israel, defying the whole Arab world in the process. But examples like that are "as rare as rubies in a back yard." More often, "practitioners of government continue down the wrong road as if in thrall to some Merlin with the magic power to direct their steps." The process is so predictable that Ms. Tuchman has divided it into stages. "In its first stage, mental standstill fixes the principles and boundaries governing a political problem. In the second stage, when dissonances and failing function begin to appear, the initial principles rigidify. Rigidifying leads to increase of investment and the need to protect egos. The greater the investment and the more involved in it the sponsor's ego, the more unacceptable is disengagement. In the third stage, pursuit of failure enlarges the damages until it causes the fall of Troy, the defection from the papacy, the loss of a transatlantic empire, the classic humiliation in Vietnam." NATO is now entering the second stage. This is the period, says Ms. Tuchman, when, "if wisdom were operative," rethinking and a change of course would still be possible. Instead, classic stage-two rigidity is setting in. When NATO foreign ministers emerged from their summit on Monday, they said the bombing would continue for "as long as it takes." Instead of changing course, NATO will raise its investment by sending 300 more planes into the fray. More bombs will fall. More Serb soldiers and civilians will die. Albanians will keep fleeing and dying. And for what? Why does NATO persist with a policy that is demonstrably failing? Above all, to save face. NATO began bombing because it had said
[PEN-L:5365] Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Milosevic to blame for NATO bombing of refugees.
Date sent: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 17:32:54 -0500 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:5354] Re: Re: RE: Re: Milosevic to blame for NATO bombing of refugees. Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Will Michael Moore ever be tempted to make a film titled _Yugo_ (a la _Canadian Bacon_)? Unfortunately, it wouldn't be funny. If I remember it correctly, nobody got killed in Canadian Bacon. Mind you, in Yugoslavia the people are not Americans or even Canadians, so death hardly matters does it. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba they drive among us, Yoshie
[PEN-L:5367] Re: RE: Re: Milosevic to blame for NATO bombing of refugees.
Sounds good to me. Paul Phillips From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Max Sawicky) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:5348] RE: Re: Milosevic to blame for NATO bombing of refugees. Date sent: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 17:05:33 -0400 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Really. NATO seems to be to blame for everything. Refugees ran away from NATO bombs, not Serbs. All damage in Kosova is from NATO bombs, not Serbian tanks etc. Milo's suppression of his opposition is NATO's fault. NATO ripped Croatia, Bosnia, etc. out of the Yugo federation. Nationalism is NATO's fault. Maybe NATO wanted to prevent the Yugo from taking over the world auto market. If my souffle falls, it was probably NATO. Chef Boyardee -Original Message- From: Ken Hanly [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: pen-l [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nathan whines about anti-bombing people blaming NATO for Milosevic's ethnic cleansing.
[PEN-L:5368] Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: NYC antiwar rally set for Friday
I don't think there were any really blatant interferences with the elections. The oppositions strength lay in the urban centres, particularly among the middle and 'academic' classes but, as I posted previously, the political opposition to Milosevic was divided and badly organized and without any coherent program. Milosevic's political strength lay in the country, among the peasantry (if I can use that word to refer to the rural, small-holders) who have always respected a strong leader -- a successor to Tito. When I was last in Beograd (in the early 1990s) most of the small businesses had a picture of Milosevic in their windows, just as they had of Tito in earlier periods. So, I would think it is highly misleading to suggest that Milosevic doesn't have a strong 'democratic' core of support, particularly since he has since picked up the support of his nationalist rivals (Seslje, Draskovic) since then on the basis of NATO bombing. We may not like it but he has probably as much, or more, democratic support than a minority despot such as Clinton (;-)). Paul Phillips, Economics, Unviersity of Manitoba From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:5350] Re: Re: Re: RE: NYC antiwar rally set for Friday Date sent: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 17:37:24 -0400 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jim, I don't know the details. Anybody else know? I know that he was the President of the Republic of Serbia before becoming the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The shift from being the former to the latter was partly why the Montenegrins became more restive as they came more directly under His Exc's control. I think that what happened was that he switched positions with the guy who had previously been the President of the FRY. But I don't remember that guy's name or if he is still the leader of the Serbian Republic. Barkley Rosser -Original Message- From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thursday, April 15, 1999 4:28 PM Subject: [PEN-L:5342] Re: Re: RE: NYC antiwar rally set for Friday At 03:54 PM 4/15/99 -0400, Barkley wrote: Max, There is democracy, if somewhat limited, in Serbia. There is none whatsoever in Iraq. I believe it was Tariq Ali, in message forwarded to pen-l, who referred to Milosevic as being elected. I assume that, like most elections around the world, the election was tainted in some way. But what are the details, Barkley? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
[PEN-L:5366] (Fwd) PILOT KNEW HE HAD HIT TRAIN ON BRIDGE BUT FIRED AGAIN
"An uncanny accident, an uncanny accident." Doesn't that make you sick. I would call it war crimes. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba --- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 12:18:00 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:PILOT KNEW HE HAD HIT TRAIN ON BRIDGE BUT FIRED AGAIN The Daily Telegraph April 14, 1999 PILOT KNEW HE HAD HIT TRAIN ON BRIDGE BUT FIRED AGAIN Nato working to limit "collateral damage," loss of civilian life from air strike campaign; air crews felt "very badly" about the incident. By Toby Helm in Brussels The pilot who bombed a Yugoslav passenger train in which at least 10 people died fired a second missile after he had realised his error, Nato's top commander said yesterday. Gen Wesley Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, said the hits on the train as it was crossing the Grdelica bridge in south-eastern Serbia on Monday had been the result of a double "uncanny accident". Sixteen people were also injured. The first missile had been fired from a distance of several miles. The pilot had seen a "flash of movement" in his sight just before he fired. But by then it was too late to abort the attack. He said: "He realised when it happened that he had not hit the bridge - that what he had hit was the train." The pilot then circled and attempted to carry out his orders to destroy the bridge by firing at the other end, which by this time was clouded in fire and smoke. Gen Clark said: "At the last minute, again in an uncanny accident, the train had slipped forward so that striking the other end of the bridge he actually caused additional damage to the train. It is one of those regrettable things that happen in a campaign like this one." Nato was working very hard to limit "collateral damage" and loss of civilian life from its air strike campaign. Its air crews felt "very badly" about the incident. "It was certainly not was intended," said Gen Clark, who attributed no blame to the pilot. Nato officials refused to say what type of plane was involved or give the nationality of the pilot, but it is known that he is not British. Yugoslav officials have used the incident, recorded in a cockpit film shown by Nato yesterday, to bolster their propaganda offensive against the allied air strikes. The video film of the "aim point" showed the train coming into sight fractionally before the missile exploded. Caroline Davies in Gioia del Colle writes: Nato planes are undertaking three times the number of missions they flew last week as RAF Harrier pilots' work intensifies. Working 12 hours on, 12 hours off, the No 1 Fighter Squadron is launching 24-hour raids on Kosovo and Serbia from the Gioia del Colle airbase in Italy. The crucial development is the clearance by Nato's air attack command centre in Vicenza, Italy, to allow the GR7s to bomb through cloud. It ended days of frustration when Harrier pilots were forced to abort missions. The Harriers are undertaking rolling raids, dropping one set of weapons, then returning to base to be re-armed and await instructions on new targets. They can carry mixed loads, different weapons on different Harriers, so that even if one cannot drop another can. They are being regularly re-tasked in the air so that Nato can exploit their versatility and divert them to targets such as fuel installations or military convoys when opportunities arise. This means that sorties can be longer, and they have to refuel in mid-air, but it has resulted in more hits. Wing Cdr Graham Wright, the RAF Detachment Commander at the base, said: "An increasing number of sorties are being flown from here. And I think that's indicative of the whole campaign." The decision on which weapons the Harriers will carry is made at high level in the Nato command chain.
[PEN-L:5306] (Fwd) REPORTER CHALLENGES REPORTS OF MASSACRES IN PRISTINA
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 15:33:42 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:REPORTER CHALLENGES REPORTS OF MASSACRES IN PRISTINA The Globe and Mail Wednesday, April 14, 1999 REPORTER CHALLENGES REPORTS OF MASSACRES IN PRISTINA "There is no evidence that such a thing happened in Pristina" Paul Watson, journalist for the Los Angeles Times By Marcus Gee One of the few Western journalists reporting from inside Kosovo says his impressions clash with NATO reports of what is happening in the war-torn province. Paul Watson, a Canadian who works for the Los Angeles Times, says he has seen no evidence that Serb authorities have massacred Albanians in the Kosovo capital of Pristina. In an interview yesterday with the CBC radio program As It Happens, he said he has toured ethnic-Albanian neighbourhoods several times and has not seen any bodies. "It is very hard to hide an anarchic wholesale slaughter of people," said Mr. Watson, who has been in Kosovo since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began bombing on March 24. "There is no evidence that such a thing happened in Pristina." NATO blames Serb troops for the exodus of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians in the past three weeks. It says they have been raped, massacred and burned out of their homes. The reports of refugees in border camps support that version. Yugoslavia, however, says the NATO bombings are forcing the ethnic Albanians to flee. "I am certain it is a mixture of both," said Mr. Watson, who won a Pulitzer Prize for news photography when he was covering the international intervention in Somalia for The Toronto Star. "I have spoken personally to people who have been ordered to leave their homes by police in black. I've also spoken to people who are simply terrified." For example, he said, many people fled the area around Pristina's airport after a NATO bombing there. "I see a pretty clear pattern of refugees leaving an area after there were severe air strikes." Mr. Watson said the effect of the NATO bombing has been to "stir the pot" in Yugoslavia. "We shouldn't be surprised that it has spilled over. And in spilling over it has created anarchy in the countryside." That does not excuse Serb atrocities, he said. "But I don't think that NATO member countries can, with a straight face, sit back and say they don't share some blame for the wholesale depopulation of this country. "If NATO had not bombed, I would be surprised if this sort of forced exodus on this enormous scale would be taking place." He said the centre of Pristina has been devastated by the NATO bombing. The police headquarters, the post office and other government buildings are in ruins. A graveyard and a children's basketball court have also been hit. Even so, people continue to walk in the streets. "Even this morning at 10 o'clock, as large explosions were rocking high-rise buildings in the centre of the city, there were people strolling up and down and oohing and aahing as if they were watching a fireworks demonstration." Mr. Watson said most of the villages between Pristina and the Albanian border to the southwest were deserted when he travelled through them. He also saw large convoys of vehicles carrying refugees. He did not see large groups of refugees living in the open, as NATO has reported, but he stressed that does not mean it is not happening.
[PEN-L:5261] (Fwd) IMPACTS OF NATO'S HUMANITARIAN BOMBINGS: THE BALANCE
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 15:17:54 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:IMPACTS OF NATO'S "HUMANITARIAN" BOMBINGS: THE BALANCE SHEET OF DESTRUCTION IN YUGOSLAVIA Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 21:07:29 -0400 From: Michel Chossudovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Impacts of NATO's "Humanitarian" Bombing Ad-hoc Committee to Stop Canada's Participation in the War in Yugoslavia --- For immediate release, April 11, 1999. For distribution at Press Conference Monday, April 12, 10 a.m. National Press Theatre 150 Wellington Street, Ottawa IMPACTS OF NATO'S "HUMANITARIAN" BOMBINGS, THE BALANCE SHEET OF DESTRUCTION IN YUGOSLAVIA by Michel Chossudovsky Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa, author of The Globalization of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms, Third World Network, Penang and Zed Books, London, 1997. Professor Chossudovsky can be contacted at 1-514-4252777; email [EMAIL PROTECTED]; fax 1-514-4256224. Amply documented, the bombings of Yugoslavia are not strictly aimed at military and strategic targets as claimed by NATO. They are largely intent on destroying the country's civilian infrastructure as well as its institutions. According to Yugoslav sources, NATO has engaged around 600 aeroplanes of which more than 400 are combat planes. They have flown almost 3,000 attack sorties, "with 200 in one night alone against 150 designated targets". They have dropped thousands of tons of explosives and have launched some 450 cruise missiles. The intensity of the bombing using the most advanced military technology is unprecedented in modern history. It far surpasses the bombing raids of World War II or the Vietnam War. The bombings have not only been directed against industrial plants, airports, electricity and telecommunications facilities, railways, bridges and fuel depots, they have also targeted schools, health clinics, day care centres, government buildings, churches, museums, monasteries and historical landmarks. Infrastructure and Industry According to Yugoslav sources: "road and railway networks, especially road and rail bridges, most of which were destroyed or damaged beyond repair, suffered extensive destruction". Several thousand industrial facilities have been destroyed or damaged with the consequence of paralysing the production of consumer goods. According to Yugoslav sources, "[B]y totally destroying business facilities across the country, 500,000 workers were left jobless, and 2 million citizens without any source of income and possibility to ensure minimum living conditions". Western estimates as to the destruction of property in Yugoslavia stand at more than US$ 100 billion. Bombing of Urban and Rural Residential Areas Villages with no visible military or strategic structures have been bombed. Described as "collateral damage", residential areas in all major cities. The downtown area of Pristina (which includes apartment buildings and private dwellings) has been destroyed. Central-downtown Belgrade -- including government buildings-- have been hit with cluster bombs and there are massive flames emanating from the destruction. According to the International Center for Peace and Justice (ICPJ): "No city or town in Yugoslavia is being spared. There are untold civilian casualties. The beautiful capital city of Belgrade is in flames and fumes from a destroyed chemical plant are making it necessary to use gas masks". Civilian Casualties Both the Yugoslavia authorities and NATO have downplayed the number of civilian casualties. The evidence amply confirms that NATO has created a humanitarian catastrophe. The bombings are largely responsible for driving people from their homes. The bombings have killed people regardless of their nationality or religion. In Kosovo, civilian casualties affect all ethnic groups. According to a report of the Decany Monastery in Kosovo received in the first week of the bombing: "Last night a cruise missile hit the old town in Djakovica, mostly inhabited by Albanians, and made a great fire in which several Albanian houses were destroyed ... In short, NATO attacks are nothing but barbarous aggression which affects mostly the innocent civilian population, both Serb and Albanian. The Dangers of Environmental Contamination Refineries and warehouses storing liquid raw materials and chemicals have been hit causing environmental contamination. The latter have massively exposed the civilian population to the emission of poisonous gases. NATO air strikes on the chemical industry is intent on creating an environmental disaster, "which is something not even Adolf Hitler did during World War II."According to the Serbian Minister for Environmental Protection Branislav Blazic, "the aggressors were lying when they
[PEN-L:5262] (Fwd) Report on the Emergency Vancouver Meeting on NATO Bombin
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 16:10:54 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Report on the Emergency Vancouver Meeting on NATO Bombing, April 10, 1999 Report on the Emergency Vancouver Meeting on NATO Bombing, April 10th 1999. Citizens of Vancouver filled a 300-seat meeting room to standing-room-only on Saturday morning for an emergency community meeting on NATOs bombing. The capacity meeting was organized by End the Arms Race with help from other peace groups in less than three days, demonstrating the high level of community concern and desire for more information about NATOs - and therefore Canadas - war against Yugoslavia. Special guest speakers were Senator Doug Roche, OSCE Kosovo observer Rolly Keith, and End the Arms Race Coordinator Jillian Skeet. NDP MP Svend Robinson also spoke. The meeting was chaired by End the Arms Races president, Peter Coombes. Coombes stated that the peace movement has lost its traditional parliamentary support from the NDP, and that it is up to citizens to take control of the agenda to move the government toward a peaceful policy. Doug Roche began his comments by saying, Stop the bombing! to great applause. He further called for a special emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis. There is a great danger that events in the Balkans will spin out of control because NATO has demonstrated that they dont know what theyre doing. Doug Roche urged the churches, unions and politicians to break the near-silence on this crisis, and call for an immediate end to the bombing and for a commitment by the government to not send in ground troops and risk a confrontation with the Russians. Roche received two standing ovations before leaving the meeting to travel to Ottawa in preparation for Mondays debate on the dedication of Canadian ground troops to the NATO war in the Balkans. Rolly Keith began his presentation with an explanation of the role of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), a security organization whose members stretch from Vancouver to Vladivostok. Keith, a long-time worker in international security teams, participated in the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission to monitor a peace agreement negotiated between the Yugoslav government and the KLA. The peace agreement quickly fell apart when, in Keiths opinion, the KLA violated the peace agreement and began conducting terrorist attacks and killing policemen in order to provoke the Yugoslav authorities. Keith was in Kosovo until March 20th when the OSCEs 1300 observers were quickly withdrawn a few days before NATO began its bombing campaign. Keith reported that during his time in Kosovo, he saw no signs of genocide or ethnic cleansing. There were no signs of religious fundamentalism, and ethnic Serbs and Albanians were coexisting peacefully, albeit with some minor problems. However, he did observe political leaders exploiting nationalism and culture to turn Kosovo into a world gone mad. Keith reported that there were some civilians being displaced because of terrorism, but, there was no mass humanitarian problems until NATO bombs came down. Jillian Skeet has just returned from a citizens mission to Iraq. She detailed the terrible devastation left by the Gulf War and the bombing of industrial and civilian infrastructure. This destruction, combined with strict sanctions on medical and other humanitarian supplies, has resulted in 5000-6000 preventable infant deaths in Iraq (UN figures). Skeet made the connection between the bombing of Iraq, and the identical bombing of Yugoslavia, predicting that the same death and destruction will soon be visited upon that country because of NATOs bombing. Svend Robinson tried to explain that the NDP has called for the end of air attacks since originally adopting a position in favour of the bombings. He has cancelled a trip to Geneva in order to participate in the Parliamentary debate on Monday. The audience asked many questions of the speakers, and there was a lot of frustration expressed about the war. There was especially sharp criticism for the NDP and its ambiguous position on the NATO air attacks. Several labour leaders in the audience announced their opposition to the bombings, notably the CAW. In light of the success of this meeting, End the Arms Race will enter into discussions with its members and allied organization to determine the next step in the campaign. Steve Staples Executive Member, End the Arms Race
[PEN-L:5263] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Preventing Genocide v. Complaining about it Afterwards
Actually, most were Serbs 'ethnically cleansed by the atrocities of the Albanians', a fact conveniently ignored by our apologist for NATO bombing. Paul Phillips Date sent: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 20:08:03 -0500 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:5254] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Preventing Genocide v. Complaining about it Afterwards Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] April 6, 1999 Kosovo Refugees: How Many; Where By The Associated Press The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that nearly 500,000 people, the vast majority of them ethnic Albanians, have left Kosovo since NATO began its air assault on Yugoslavia on March 24. Many others of Kosovo's about 1.8 million ethnic Albanians were already displaced before the current exodus. Following is a look at the number and whereabouts of the refugees: Albania -- 262,000 refugees, plus another 18,500 who fled previously. Macedonia -- 120,000 plus 16,000 previously. Montenegro -- 36,700 plus 25,000 previously. Bosnia Herzegovina -- 7,900 plus 10,000 previously. Turkey -- 6,000. *Yugoslavia -- 30,000 previously.* There are believed to be about 100,000 refugees from Kosovo in other countries in Europe who left before the current fighting. (emphasis mine) That's interesting. The above AP piece says that prior to the NATO bombings, "displaced ethnic Albanians" from Kosovo went to Yugoslavia. (BTW, it seems that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees refuses to recognize Kosovo as part of Yugoslavia.) The number attributed to Yugoslavia (30,000) is larger than the number of "refugees" who went to Albania (18,500), prior to the current exodus. What does it say about the pre-NATO-bombing treatment of Albanians by the Yugo government? Yoshie
[PEN-L:5260] (Fwd) FATAL FLAWS UNDERLYING NATO'S INTERVENTION IN YUGOSLAVIA
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 15:51:10 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:FATAL FLAWS UNDERLYING NATO'S INTERVENTION IN YUGOSLAVIA - Former Commander and Head of Mission, UN forces in Yugoslavia United Services Insitution of India, New Delhi, April 6, 1999 THE FATAL FLAWS UNDERLYING NATO'S INTERVENTION IN YUGOSLAVIA By Lt Gen Satish Nambiar (Retd.) (First Force Commander and Head of Mission of the United Nations Forces deployed in the former Yugoslavia 03 Mar 92 to 02 Mar 93. Former Deputy Chief of Staff, Indian Army. Currently, Director of the United Services Insitution of India.) My year long experience as the Force Commander and Head of Mission of the United Nations Forces deployed in the former Yugoslavia has given me an understanding of the fatal flaws of US/NATO policies in the troubled region. It was obvious to most people following events in the Balkans since the beginning of the decade, and particularly after the fighting that resulted in the emergence of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, that Kosovo was a 'powder keg' waiting to explode. The West appears to have learnt all the wrong lessons from the previous wars and applied it to Kosovo. (1) Portraying the Serbs as evil and everybody else as good was not only counterproductive but also dishonest. According to my experience all sides were guilty but only the Serbs would admit that they were no angels while the others would insist that they were. With 28,000 forces under me and with constant contacts with UNHCR and the International Red Cross officials, we did not witness any genocide beyond killings and massacres on all sides that are typical of such conflict conditions. I believe none of my successors and their forces saw anything on the scale claimed by the media. (2) It was obvious to me that if Slovenians, Croatians and Bosniaks had the right to secede from Yugoslavia, then the Serbs of Croatia and Bosnia had an equal right to secede. The experience of partitions in Ireland and India has not be pleasant but in the Yugoslavia case, the state had already been taken apart anyway. It made little sense to me that if multi-ethnic Yugoslavia was not tenable that multi-ethnic Bosnia could be made tenable. The former internal boundaries of Yugoslavia which had no validity under international law should have been redrawn when it was taken apart by the West, just as it was in the case of Ireland in 1921 and Punjab and Bengal in India in 1947. Failure to acknowledge this has led to the problem of Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia. (3) It is ironic that the Dayton Agreement on Bosnia was not fundamentally different from the Lisbon Plan drawn up by Portuguese Foreign Minister Cuteliero and British representative Lord Carrington to which all three sides had agreed before any killings had taken place, or even the Vance-Owen Plan which Karadzic was willing to sign. One of the main problems was that there was an unwillingness on the part of the American administration to concede that Serbs had legitimate grievances and rights. I recall State Department official George Kenny turning up like all other American officials, spewing condemnations of the Serbs for aggression and genocide. I offered to give him an escort and to go see for himself that none of what he proclaimed was true. He accepted my offer and thereafter he made a radical turnaround. Other Americans continued to see and hear what they wanted to see and hear from one side, while ignoring the other side. Such behaviour does not produce peace but more conflict. (4) I felt that Yugoslavia was a media-generated tragedy. The Western media sees international crises in black and white, sensationalizing incidents for public consumption. From what I can see now, all Serbs have been driven out of Croatia and the Muslim- Croat Federation, I believe almost 850,000 of them. And yet the focus is on 500,000 Albanians (at last count) who have been driven out of Kosovo. Western policies have led to an ethnically pure Greater Croatia, and an ethnically pure Muslim statelet in Bosnia. Therefore, why not an ethnically pure Serbia? Failure to address these double standards has led to the current one. As I watched the ugly tragedy unfold in the case of Kosovo while visiting the US in early to mid March 1999, I could see the same pattern emerging. In my experience with similar situations in India in such places as Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, Nagaland, and elsewhere, it is the essential strategy of those ethnic groups who wish to secede to provoke the state authorities. Killings of policemen is usually a standard operating procedure by terrorists since that usually invites overwhelming state retaliation, just as I am sure it does in the United
[PEN-L:5083] (Fwd) CLINTON BOMBS AGAIN - The Village Voice
--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 16:32:10 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:CLINTON BOMBS AGAIN - The Village Voice
The Village Voice April 7-13, 1999
CLINTON BOMBS AGAIN
How the Air Strikes Destroyed Democratic Movements In
Kosovo, Serbia, And Montenegro
By Jason Vest
Washington Bill Clinton isn't the first chief executive in U.S.
history to curtail democracy and human rights abroad ostensibly in
the name of protecting them. He is, however, rapidly distinguishing
himself in this regard. Not that the Clinton administration can be
held entirely responsible for perpetrating the latest round of
international lunacy, this time in the Balkans. Congress, as it did
twice last year, has chosen not to exercise its constitutionally
required duty to declare hostilities, thus allowing Clinton's dogs of
war (Down, Sandy! Down, Madeline!) to run wild again. Not that
this politico-military charge at a windmill is devoid of noble intent.
However, among the many problems with this crusade is that,
much as the average American no doubt is opposed to repression
and annihilation, they are part and parcel of U.S. foreign policy
as the Clinton administration's Balkan approach continues to show.
It's appalling enough that bombing a country in the name of halting
depredation (and instead, engendering it) takes place against a
historical backdrop of support for such repressive regimes as
Turkey and Indonesia, which pursue their own policies of ethnic
cleansing. But even more revolting was watching Clinton slyly
revise history while trying to strike a morally imperative chord
("We must apply the same lessons in Kosovo before what happened
in Bosnia happens there too") without surprise taking any
real responsibility for the machinations and calculations, deliberate
and errant, that have have led to this debacle.
But, then, Clinton has always been more inclined to say the
right thing rather than do it. In regard to Bosnia, as Mark Danner
astutely pointed out in a 1997 New York Review of Books essay,
Clinton's articulated policy ("The U.S. should always seek an
opportunity to stand up against at least speak out against
inhumanity") was "one consisting solely of words [that] brought
moral credit [and] carried no risk," and that helped pave the way to
the Serbs' massacre of thousands at Srebenica. Rather like Bosnia
in which Clinton blamed European allies for undermining the
"lift and strike" approach and made the case that his administration
honestly tried, while the problem partially resolved itself through
mass murders and expulsions so too, perhaps, with Kosovo.
The Clinton administration has shown itself to be adroit in the
use of that old tool of statecraft, "signaling," to provoke ethnic
purges rather than preventing them through proactive diplomacy. In
1995, for example, Croatian forces (trained by exU.S. military
personnel with the tacit blessing of the Pentagon) were giddy when,
on the verge of undertaking a campaign for lebensraum against
Serbs in Krajina, President Franjo Tudjman was informed that the
U.S. was merely "concerned" about the buildup of Croat troops. In
short order, at least 170,000 Serbs were driven from their homes or
killed. While France, Russia, and Great Britain condemned the
offensive, Clinton praised it, saying he was "hopeful Croatia's
offensive will turn out to be something that will give us an avenue
to a quick diplomatic solution."
"In essence, the U.S. gave diplomatic cover to the Croatians for
this action," says Hussein Ibish, a foreign policy analyst at the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "It prevented any
UN condemnation of what happened, and it certainly never
registered any dismay."
Last year, when U.S. special envoy Robert Gelbard visited the
Balkans, he publicly vilified the Kosovo Liberation Army, saying, "I
know a terrorist when I see one, and these men are terrorists." In
Washington foreign policy circles, some regard this statement as the
beginning of a chain reaction that resulted in the current situation,
rife with the death of both human beings and democratic
movements.
When Gelbard spoke, the KLA was a fairly marginal force, seen
by many in both Belgrade and Washington as a diplomatic irritant.
Belgrade interpreted Gelbard's comments as approval to act against
the KLA with impunity, which, in practice, meant the massacre of
nearly 100 people (mostly women and children) in Kosovo's
Benitsar enclave.
Until that point, the KLA had not enjoyed broad support. In
fact, for most of the past decade, the primary method of ethnic
Albanian resistance to Serbian hegemony was a focused political
movement utilizing civil
[PEN-L:4962] (Fwd) War Report 4-1-99
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 15:59:07 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:War Report 4-1-99 NATO ATTACKS ON YUGOSLAVIA UPDATE * APRIL 1, 1999 KOSOVO ALBANIAN LEADER DENOUNCES NATO BOMBING Kosovo Albanian political leader Ibrahim Rugova denounced NATO's bombing campaign and demanded an immediate end to NATO's destruction of Kosovo. Rugova, who NATO and Pentagon officials had claimed was assassinated by Yugoslav police, spoke from his home in Kosovo on March 31. Rugova was one of the key Albanian representatives at the talks in France. On April 1, Rugova met with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. In a joint statement the two made on Yugoslva television, Rugova and Milosevic said that the problems in Kosovo can only be settled by "political means." CANADIAN AUTO WORKERS DENOUNCE AIRSTRIKES Buzz Hargrove, head of the Canadian Auto Workers union, criticized the Canadian government's decision to participate in NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia. Hargrove said that the air strikes were not sanctioned by the United Nations and could not be characterized as "peacekeeping," UPI reported on March 31. U.S. IS BOMBING CIVILIAN SHELTERS IN KOSOVO ABC News Nightline reported on March 29: "Late this evening, an Australian aid agency reported a new cost of the war in Yugoslavia. For the first time we are hearing of refugee centers in Yugoslavia hit by NATO bombs. Care Australia says at least two centers housing women and children were hit, nine people killed and another four centers may have been damaged.
[PEN-L:4981] Kosovo
I am reproducing here an e-mail I received from Tomis Popovic, a friend in Belgrade who is director of the Institute of Economic Science associated with the University of Belgrade. This is an independent (of government) research institute with a highly western, liberal economics outlook. It has an academic co- operation and exchange agreement with the University of Manitoba and Professor Popovic has given seminars and lectures here. Paul Phillips Economics, University of Manitoba Centre for Strategic and Theoretical Studies of Development Institute of Economic Sciences Prof. Tomislav Popovic KOSOVO: ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC CAUSES OF THE CRISIS Following the world media and expert magazines, as well as numerous discussions in the world public, The Institute of Economic Sciences has reached the conclusion that most people are not fully aware of the demographic, social and economic situation in Kosovo, and therefore the solutions that are being proposed do not lead to a more permanent end of the crisis. We believe that it is our personal and professional duty to inform the world public about ce rtain important facts and the assessments of the Institute of Economic Science contained in a number of studies, completed just before the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, on the most important structural characteristics of the Kosovo economy (and population). The main finding of these studies is that the development strategy of Kosovo was based on erroneous theoretical and analytical premises, which promoted the creation and deepening of longterm economic, social and demographic imbalances. These imbalances were fertile ground for the aggravation of interentity antagonism and conflicts, especially in the circumstances involving internal (stalled democratisation of the country) and external factors related to the bloc and subbloc confrontation of geostrategic interests, the creation of a new configuration of Europe and the change of borders of sovereign countries. Within the framework of current developments, the main thesis of these studies is that the geostrategic and political treatment of the Kosovo problem as a territorial issue, and not as an issue of development, conditions and way of living of the people and the system of the organisation of the society, will not lead to more permanent solutions. Forced and improvised solutions in the existing economic. social and demographic milieu of Kosovo can only present a temporary respite in a series of disturbances and confrontations in the wider area of the Balkans in the future. \par Certain facts from the Institute's studies substantiating this thesis are as follows. Economic imbalance : In the 19801988 period, the net inflow of grants (mostly) amounted to 34% to 40% of the Kosovo gross domestic product, while small and mediumsize companies accounted for only 0.9% of total investments. The level of investment selffinancing from Kosovo's own sources was only 10%; The share of agriculture in NMP was about 25% (1988), and only 16% in investments. Since investments were dominated by capitalintensive and technologicallyintensive industries, i.e. slowreturn investments (mostly in the energy industry and mining), the share of fixed investment in the gross domestic product was 48.5% (in the SFR Yugoslavia under 30%), with a very high annual growth rate, despite a low capacity utilisation rate, below 30% (the nonf errous metal industry 30.2%, leather and footwear production 26.3%, machinebuilding industry 3.9%...) Such a "development" orientation and corresponding production structure promoted the aggravation of the social imbalance in several directions, including the following: the low share of capitalintensive industries and technology resulted in the chronic and extremely high unemployment rate: in 1988 it was 57.8% in Kosovo, in comparison with 16.8% in the former Yugoslavia; of 1,893,0 00 inhabitants, only 123,000 workers were employed in material production industries, while in the entire sociallyowned sector, of 232,000 workers only 23% were women, unlike the Yugoslav average of 39%; the continually high inflow of grants led to deformities in human capital, in the development sense, so, for example, the share of university students in the total population of Kosovo was 1.58%, which was above the Yugoslav average of 1.41%; on the other hand, the share of illiterate persons in Kosovo was 17.6% of persons above 10 years of age, which was almost twice the Yugoslav average of 9.5% at the time; one of the fundamental social imbalances, clearly demonstrating how misguided the "development" strategy implemented for decades was, is reflected in the fact that, of the 1,294,000 inhabitants living in rural areas in 1988, twothirds were nonfarming population, i.e. 43% of the entire population. In view of the current armed conflict in Kosovo, it is clear that in such a
[PEN-L:4965] (Fwd) REPORT FINDS SHARED GUILT INSIDE KOSOVO - NYT
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 15:59:44 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:REPORT FINDS SHARED GUILT INSIDE KOSOVO - NYT The New York Times April 2, 1999 CRISIS IN THE BALKANS: ATROCITIES REPORT FINDS SHARED GUILT INSIDE KOSOVO By Elizabeth Olson GENEVA -- A report to the U.N. Human Rights Commission on Thursday accused both Yugoslav and Albanian forces of committing numerous killings and other atrocities in Kosovo before NATO began its airstrikes. Jiri Dienstbier, a former foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, gave the U.N. group, which is holding its annual meeting here, a report on Kosovo that strongly criticized Yugoslav forces, noting that he was alarmed at "consistent disregard by Serbian state security forces of both domestic and international standards pertaining to police conduct and treatment of detainees." Kosovo is a province of Serbia, which with neighboring Montenegro forms Yugoslavia. Dienstbier said, however, that human rights violations by both the Serbs and the ethnic Albanians were common. "It happened in Kosovo many times for both sides," Dienstbier said, citing abductions, murders and arbitrary arrests. He has been investigating human rights in Yugoslavia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina since March 1998. Last fall, he said, "concentrations of corpses and evidence of massacres, including massacres of civilians," were discovered. The badly mutilated bodies of 14 Kosovo Albanians, including six women, six children and two elderly men, were found in a forest in the Drenica region, he said. The Kosovo Liberation Army, on the other hand, which is fighting for independence for the ethnic Albanian majority in the province, conducted paramilitary tribunals and was believed to be responsible for the abduction and execution of civilians and police officers, he said. In two locations, Klecka and Glodjane, there were more than 40 bodies that Yugoslav authorities said were Serb civilians who had been kidnapped and killed by the KLA soldiers. And all over Serbia, he said, "persons are arbitrarily detained by the police for questioning or held in pretrial detention longer than the period mandated by law." Such detainees are routinely denied access to lawyers, Dienstbier said, and also to personal doctors, a practice that he said is significant because state-employed physicians do not report injuries sustained during police questioning and also do not provide sufficient medical treatment. In response, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia gave the commission what it called "information on terrorist activities and provocations by the Albanian separatists in Kosovo." Branko Brankovic, a representative of the Yugoslav government, said that between Oct. 13, 1998, and Feb. 21, 1999, there had been 827 attacks and provocations in Kosovo, including 290 against civilians and 537 against officials. These attacks, he said, killed 99 people, including 80 civilians. Since the Rambouillet peace talks, he said, people have been killed and wounded daily except for the period from Feb. 11 to Feb. 17, 1999. In light of the fighting and brutality in Kosovo in the past weeks, Mary Robinson, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said Thursday that a special investigation would begin next week to assess the reports of ethnic cleansing. Ms. Robinson said she would send Dienstbier to investigate "reports of a vicious and systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing conducted by Serbian military and paramilitary forces in Kosovo." "The gravity of these reports underlines the need for impartial verification of the allegations," Ms. Robinson said. Human rights monitors are also being reassigned and sent immediately to interview refugees to evaluate the human rights situation in the battered province, she added.
[PEN-L:4963] (Fwd) MESSAGE FROM SERBIA'S WRITERS' ASSOCIATION
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 15:59:32 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:MESSAGE FROM SERBIA'S WRITERS' ASSOCIATION e-Bulletin No 54 / April 1, 1999 #4 Nato Genocide over Serbs SERBIA'S WRITERS' ASSOCIATION To the writers of Europe and the World Respected colleagues and dear friends, we expect Your Word. It is most needed now, healing and responsible. Since the night of March 24th 1999 our country, Serbia and Yugoslavia and all our cities have been attacked with cluster bombs and rockets, without Declaration of war by the North Atlantic Military Alliance NATO, which violated the sovereignty of Yugoslavia as well as the Charter and Declarations of the UN. In continuous attacks by several hundreds of airplanes all the vital strategic objects of our home country have been attacked as well as schools, kindergartens, hospitals, medical factories, churches, monasteries, gas stations and water wells, cemeteries and national sanctuaries, libraries and cultural institutions, rivers, forests, mountains - our whole world. Endlessly, NATO troops have been attacking for days now Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Yugoslavia which has been bombed by Nazis in 1941 and by Allies in 1944. Cetinje was bombed - a historical city, the sanctuary and the seat of the Mithropolites of Montenegro. Bombed was the peak of Lovcen, with its tomb of the legendary poet Njegos, the second time in this century - at its beginning and at its end. A deadly missile fell in the port of our holy monastery Gracanica (1320) in Kosovo. The center of Kosovo and Metohija itself - the city of Pristina, former capital of the Serbian nobleman Vuk Brankovic, was bombed. The park monument Sumarice in Kragujevac a graveyard of 7000 Serbian citizens and pupils shot by fascists in 1941 was struck by missiles. This time the NATO pilots killed the already dead peasants, clerks and students. Even their sacred innocence was a "strategic military object and target". There is no end to this madness!!! We, the Serbian writers, believe that the great Austrian and German poet Peter Handke was right in his global message in which he called the whole free world - Yugoslavia! Yesterday at the very moment that the new attacks on Belgrade have been announced, at the Liberty Square, 100 000 of young men and women came to the rock concert wearing targets on their breasts. Maybe You saw them on television last night? If you have, say so! Let us address together in this protest the gentlemen leading these new barbarians, and stop them. Let us save together the free and democratic spirit of Europe and the World, this altar of the Gift and the Mind which the Serbian people have built themselves into. The writers of the world have never been accomplices, but witnesses. In the third genocide over Serbs in this century, let us add Your voice of the Biblical Jove to the book of conscience we are writing together, on the scales of the world temptation. Belgrade, March 30th 1999. SERBIA'S WRITERS' ASSOCIATION FWD by CONGRES MONDIAL SERBE WORLD SERB CONGRESS WELTKONGRESS DER SERBEN
[PEN-L:4904] (Fwd) US/NATO'S HYPOCRITIC OATH
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 06 Apr 1999 16:27:21 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:US/NATO'S HYPOCRITIC OATH US/NATO'S HYPOCRITIC OATH by Andre Gunder Frank April 4, 1999 The US government wishes to invoke international law to protect three American soldiers held by the Yugoslav government under the Geneva Convention regarding prisoners of war. Yet at the same time, The 19 states of NATO led by the United States are or have just been flagrantly violating international law - and without even any declaration of war - in wantonly bombing military and civilian targets in Yugoslavia, including two buildings in the very center of Belgrade on April 2 deliberately blocking a major international waterway normally used for commercial shipping by non combatant and neutral countries, by bombing a culturally significant bridge over the Danube in Novi Sad and plunging it into the river. The NATO states deliberately by-pass the entire United Nations organization and set aside the consultative procedures it, and especially its Security Council, offers for the discussion and settlement of international Disputes. These include in particular those that guarantee human rights and those that may threaten the peace. Thereby the NATO member states including the United States are blatantly abrogating - even more than violating - the mainstay of international law NATO and particularly the United States has been obstructing international criminal law by deliberately failing to arrest and remand to the War Crimes Court in The Hague persons indicted for genocide and other violations of human rights who are in the de facto and perhaps de jure jurisdiction of NATO forces in Bosnia, members of which provided for such arrest and remand as part of the settlement at Dayton, USA. The very man, Milosevic, who at Dayton was selected and supported to guarantee and implement the Dayton agreement is now being demonized and used as the pretext for this illegal NATO bomb attack against an entire country. However, Milosevic abrogated Kosovo autonomy already ten years ago and began his autocratic rule fanning Serbian nationalism even more than ten years ago, when it was also Western generated causes of and then Western support for the breakup of Yugoslavia that gave Milosevic that opportunity. [Shades of the first US/Western support and then blame of Saddam Hussein, to whom Milosevic is only now being compared.] NATO bombing has effectively emasculated the very Serbian opposition to Milosevic and his rule, which offered the best chance and mechanism for a democratic, peaceful political settlement and the furtherance of more humanitarian policies in Serbia, including Kosovo, and also in the Serbian populated regions of Bosnia. This domestic opposition to Milosevic was long led by the Serbian Peace, Women's and other Democratic movements. They became a world wide model of peaceful mobilization when they brought hundreds of thousands of people out into the streets during a months of winter nights and which thereby obliged Milosevic to revoke a number of undemocratic and illegal measures. If the NATO powers had had even the slightest interest in promoting democracy or human rights anywhere in Yugoslavia, including at the time in Bosnia and Croatia, they would have worked with rather then undercut the domestic democratic movements. [Again exactly the same was and still is true in Iraq]. NATO bombing, as the CIA and Pentagon reportedly predicted, has immeasurably increased the deprivation of the Kosovo Albanians' life, property, home, and country. It is difficult to see how any measures could now or ever in the future restore even what little they had before NATO bombs and Serbian persecution drove them out into neighboring countries - where the humanitarian concern of NATO had not made the slightest preparation to care for them. And still at the time of this writing, the number of Albanian refugees FROM Serbia does not yet or is only just beginning to match the number of Serbian refugees TO Serbia, who were forced out Of Croatia by ethnic cleansing that was itself instigated and supported by NATO policy. So there is more than just hypocrisy in the comparison and relation of these two flows of refugees. It will be a macabre irony if the Croatian Serbs, who were displaced with NATO help and still have found no place to take root, end up in Serbian Kosovo after NATO also helps to chase the Albanians out! NATO member states have always denounced and combated all 'terrorist' military and para-military forces [except of course those that they themselves have trained, armed and financed around the world from Indochina, via Afghanistan and Angola to Columbia
[PEN-L:4892] Kosovo
I am sadly reminded over and over again as I read the posts on pen- l that, as Santayana pointed out, those who do not know their history are bound to repeat it. Some historical facts. Today is the anniversary of opening up of German bombing of Belgrade. This followed the demand by Germany that it be allowed to put an occupying force in Serbia or be bombed. The government of the day agreed but two days after was overthrown by the Serb population who would brook no voluntary occupation. Hence, the bombing and invasion of Serbia in WW2. Sound familiar? Before the opening of the second world war, the Germans invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia. What was the reason given. Humanitary support for the oppressed german population. Sound familiar? During the second world war, Italy occupied southern Yugoslavia and Albania and established a Quisling government with ethnic albanians in Kosovo. At that time Serbs made up about 35% of the Kosovo population (note the figure Barkley. I did some more research and got more exact figures.) The Quisling government followed a similar policy as that of the Ustashe -- exterminating or ethnically cleansing Kosovo of Serbs. (Many of my friends are refugees from Kosovo who were driven out during the war by the Albanian fascists, some of who returned after the war, others who were not able to.) This was the second attempt to cleanse Kosovo of slavic peoples. This was the declared intention of Ottoman- Albanian League of Prizren founded in 1878 and was followed by persecution of the slavs driving many out of the region. The third purge of Slavs from the province began in the early 1980s which culminated in the lifting of Kosovo's autonomy in 1989 which Barkley and I disagree about. (He sees it as a cause, I see it as a result.) Nevertheless, there was never any attempt to ethnically cleanse or to persecute the Albanian population until the KLA began its military operations in Kosovo killing Serbian police, soldiers and harrassing and killing Serb civilians. So, it would seem that aiding the KLA as NATO and the Ramboulliette agreement did was just the final stage of ethnic cleansing of Serbs to add a few hundred thousand more refugees in Serbia to add to the 3-400,000 already purged from Croatia with US and NATO help. How about a big cheer for NATO supported genocide and ethnic cleansing. It is so much nicer when you do it yourself by dropping bombs on civilian populations. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:4893] (Fwd) THE SERBIANS' OVERWHELMING EMOTION IS DEFIANCE
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 06 Apr 1999 12:49:37 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:THE SERBIANS' OVERWHELMING EMOTION IS DEFIANCE The Vancouver Sun Tuesday 6 April 1999 THE SERBIANS' OVERWHELMING EMOTION IS DEFIANCE As the air war hits home in Belgrade, daily protest rallies in Revolution Square gather huge crowds. By Lewis Mackenzie Belgrade There's a strange feeling as you drive into this beleaguered city after the long haul by road from Budapest, Hungary. (Driving is the only way to get here since commercial flights were cancelled at the onset of hostilities between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Serbians, and a couple of nights ago cruise missiles hit the airport terminal.) It's strange since there's such a feeling of normality people on the streets going about their business, and traffic you'd associate more with rush-hour on Ottawa's Queensway than with a city that's under nightly attack from NATO forces. I arrived on Sunday and my first reaction to the stream of cars heading out of the city was that there was a spontaneous evacuation under way. Then I tumbled to the fact that none of them seemed to be carrying any luggage or possessions and I realized the truth: These were people just out for a Sunday drive. But beneath this appearance of life-as-usual, you quickly realize that in this Serbian capital there's very little room if any for compromise even at this stage of hostilities when the air war is really beginning to hit home. If anything, there's a mood of defiance and a growing animosity to the West in general and NATO in particular. The Serbs go to great lengths to warn western visitors that they can't go wandering all over town, particularly if they are speaking English. It just isn't safe and there have been some instances of journalists being beaten up because they were from NATO countries participating in the attacks. That's perfectly understandable to me. After all, there were no journalists from the U.S., Canada or Britain on the ground reporting in Berlin during the Allied bombing of the Second World War. My feeling that there's little room for compromise from the Serbs began to set in on Monday when I met with the foreign minister of Yugoslavia, Zivadin Jovanovic. He lived in Toronto from age 22 to 31 and retains warm memories of the time he spent in Canada. But I quickly realized that Yugoslavia is resistant to any compromise. And the feeling runs deep. For the Serbs it would be better to go down to defeat than to compromise. Later in the day I met with the minister of health and ran into exactly the same mindset. And you don't only hear it from government officials and politicians. You run into the same feelings in talking to taxi drivers, hotel staff and survivors of cruise missile attacks on Belgrade's heating plant and interior ministry. Frankly, I'm not optimistic there is any room for any compromise at all. There's no doubt that the population and this applies particularly to the young people is in a defiant mood. You can feel it every day at the rock-concert protest rally they stage in Belgrade's Revolution Square. The pop stars sing, the crowds wave their placards and love every minute of it. And they're gathering some of the biggest crowds Belgrade has seen in decades. The overwhelming emotion at these rallies is defiance. These are first impressions, based on a mere 36 hours in Belgrade, but I can't help having an uneasy feeling that we are on an increasingly slippery slope. And the feeling is so strong that I fear I may be right. _ Retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie of the Canadian Armed Forces commanded United Nations troops during the siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian civil war in 1992.
[PEN-L:4891] (Fwd) CANADIAN SENATOR DECRIES NATO AIR RAIDS IN YUGOSLAVIA
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 06 Apr 1999 12:46:16 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:CANADIAN SENATOR DECRIES NATO AIR RAIDS IN YUGOSLAVIA Canadian Press 6 April 1999 SENATOR DECRIES NATO AIR RAIDS IN YUGOSLAVIA Canada participating in bombings to avoid upsetting U.S., says former Canadian disarmament ambassador to the UN Edmonton Alberta Senator Doug Roche has decried Canadas participation in NATO bombings of Yugoslavia, joining a chorus of critics who have labelled it an illegal war. "The NATO bombings are morally outrageous, a violation of international law and are causing untold human suffering," Roche told about 250 protesters at a pro-Serbian rally in Edmonton on Sunday. Roche former Canadian disarmament ambassador to the United Nations said only the UN Security Council has the authority to send troops into conflict-ridden areas such as Yugoslavia. The only reason Canada is participating in the bombings of Yugoslavia is to avoid upsetting the United States, Roche said in an interview after his speech. "Its sacrilege with the bombings going on during the Easter weekend," added Roche, a former federal Conservative MP. He said a negotiated peace settlement is impossible unless the bombings cease. Roche called the proposed Rambouillet peace pact a U.S.-imposed solution that is too flawed to work. The pact, worked out in Rambouillet, France, would have provided the Yugoslavian province of Kosovo a three-year period of autonomy. Edmonton Journal
[PEN-L:4764] Re: RE: Military spending
Oh Max, have you been reduced to this sophistry. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Max Sawicky) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:4763] RE: Military spending Date sent: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 16:03:01 -0500 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For the general amusement I've attached a .WKS file with U.S. defense spending data from 1940 to present, in terms of current dollars, $1992 dollars, % of GDP, and % of Federal outlays. The deflator is a general one, not defense-specific, so it could overstate real increases in defense spending and understate real decreases, though probably not by much. The defense category is broader than just DoD; it includes Dept of Energy nukes and some other tidbits. Source is Office of Mgmt and Budget. Numbers for FY2000-2004 are Administration proposals. The ebb in defense/GDP since 1986 is evident, as is the decline in defense/outlays. In the latter case, the Clinton budget flattens out the path, meaning the decline in defense/outlays is arrested. The Clinton budget does increase nominal spending by FY2004, but only after a decrease in nominal and real from 1999 to 2000. There was an increase from 1998 to 1999 (as the Shalom article states), but it was only $8 billion nominal, and $4 billion real. So as I mentioned, I don't mind portraying Clinton as a defense spending hawk, but he's not a very prolific one so far; more like the Democratic defense counter-part to the "dime-store New Deal." Clinton spending is not far below the 1976 to 1990 period because by 1976 defense had been depressed (the famous peace dividend), it did not run up again as a percent of outlays or GDP until the first Reagan term, and it was allowed to sink after 1986 by Reagan and then Bush. The Reagan buildup was relatively sudden, short-lived, and not all that big in share terms. In absolute dollars -- both real and nominal -- it stands out more. But you have the numbers and can judge for yourselves. Alternative interpretations are welcome. Evaluating the charts is a little like art appreciation. On balance the Shalom article, as far as interpreting the spending numbers goes, seems overheated. I repeat my suggestion that the fundamental political-economic development in U.S. fiscal policy is not found in the defense trend, but in prospective disposition of budget surpluses. I'd be interested in illumination on the latter policy. From an article by Stephen Shalom titled "The Continuity of US Imperialism," in the current issue of New Politics. The complete article can be found at: http://www.wilpaterson.edu/wpcpages/icip/newpol/ mbs
[PEN-L:4615] Slovenia /Kosovo Incomes
Barkley, I don't know where I got the figure of 15 to 1 for the income differential after the war, but it appears you are correct and I was wrong. However, I was also wrong in that differentials did not widen later in the 80s unless in the second half of the decade as a consequence of the economic crisis brought on by the IMF as described by Chossodovsky. The figures I have here at home are: 1947 3.1/1 1955 7.2/1 1973 6.3/1 1983 5.7/1 That is, after the adoption of self-management, differentials appear to have slowly decreased. (by the way the figures for 1947 and 1973 are from Horvat, The Yugoslav Economic System; the figures for 1955 and 1983 are from the Yugoslav Statistical Yearbook. I was trying to find the comparable figure for 1987 among some photocopies of Yugoslav data I have, but couldn't find it. What I did find, however, was another series which paints a quite different figure. In 1986, the ratio of net personal income per worker (cist licni dohodak po radniku) between Slovenia and Kosovo was only around 2/1, less than half the difference than national income per capita. I would think that there are probably two main reasons for this discrepancy -- the very high birth rate among the Albanians in Kosovo which produced a very large dependency ratio (i.e. a low LF/Pop ratio); and secondly, a low female participation rate given the social pressures among the Islamic population to keep their women out of the labour force and home raising children. It may also reflect the way figures are collected undercounting output in kind in the peasant sector which is still very large in Kosovo. Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:4584] (Fwd) Kosovo Crisis Deepens Political Divisions in Ukraine
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 14:17:01 -0800 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Kosovo Crisis Deepens Political Divisions in Ukraine STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update March 26, 1999 Kosovo Crisis Deepens Political Divisions in Ukraine Summary: NATO air strikes in Yugoslavia have triggered discussion in the Ukrainian Parliament about reevaluating the country's politico- military orientation. Pro-Russian political factions in Ukraine are utilizing the Kosovo crisis to push their own agenda. Analysis: The Ukrainian Parliament issued a statement on March 24 calling NATO military action in Yugoslavia an "aggression against a sovereign state." The Parliament also urged the Ukrainian government to change the country's non-nuclear status due to the NATO air strikes in the Balkans. The resolution was approved by an overwhelming majority of the members of the Ukrainian Parliament -- 231 in favor and 43 opposed. In discussing the resolution, top parliamentary leaders made strong statements regarding Ukraine's future relationship with NATO. For instance, the chair of the parliamentary Committee for Foreign Affairs and CIS Relations, Borys Oliynyk, said that Ukrainian officials had exceeded their authority by promoting closer ties with NATO. Heorhiy Kryuchkov, head of the parliamentary Committee for Defense and State Security, declared his support for Oliynyk's comments. Perhaps the most notable statement was made by the Head of the Communist party of Ukraine, Petro Symonenko, who suggested that the country's legislative body reconsider immediately Ukraine's relationship with NATO. "If we do not make a decision on the alliance, that may entail a change in relations with Russia," Symonenko told Russian press agency ITAR-TASS. He also argued that Ukraine's cooperation with NATO complicates Kiev's relations with the CIS, especially with Russia and Belarus. Symonenko proposed that Ukraine recall its ambassadors in NATO countries and coordinate its security matters in the future with Russia and Belarus. Nearly all political parties in the Ukrainian Parliament have denounced NATO military activities in Yugoslavia. However, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, currently visiting Sweden, called the Parliament's proposal to rebuild a nuclear arsenal "emotional." Kuchma said that any efforts to change his country's nuclear status would complicate Ukraine's relations with the West and endanger European security. Ukraine's post-Soviet domestic politicians have struggled to find Ukraine's place between East and West. This has pitted an uneasy alliance of Ukranian nationalists and pro-Western reformers against pro-Russian leftists. The pro-Western faction is politically and economically aligned with the West. It is also small. The Pro-Russian faction is politically and economically aligned with Russia, and is large. The swing vote that has kept Ukraine from following Belarus back to mother Russia has been that of the nationalists -- not exactly free-marketeers but viscerally opposed to loss of Ukranian independence. NATO action against Yugoslavia appears to have produced a dramatic, if temporary, shift in Ukraine's political balance, with nationalists joining the leftists in pan-Slavic opposition to attacks on Yugoslav Serbs. Pro-Russian political factions are exploiting the Kosovo issue to push for closer politico-military cooperation between Kiev and Moscow-dominated CIS. Immediately preceding the passage of the above-mentioned resolution, the Parliament ratified an agreement on the status and division of the former Soviet Black Sea Fleet. This agreement normalizes relations between Russia and Ukraine, as its adoption is a pre-requisite for enacting the basic cooperation and friendship agreement between the two countries. Based on the Black Sea Fleet agreement, which still needs to be ratified by the Russian parliament, the Russian part of the fleet will remain stationed in Sevastopol until the year 2017. However, despite the nationalists' later agreement with leftists on opposition to NATO air strikes, nationalists remained fiercely opposed to the Black Sea Fleet agreement. Thrown from one uncomfortable alliance into another, Ukranian nationalists joined Ukraine's pro-Russian faction to make the country's explicit position on the Kosovo issue essentially identical to that of Russia. On March 25, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said that "Ukraine believes it is unacceptable to use military force against a sovereign state without the approval of the UN Security Council, the only body tasked with taking decisions to bolster peace and security." But on March 23, Ukrainian President Kuchma said at a press conference in Stockholm, "Ukraine needs military and other cooperation with NATO." Moreover,
[PEN-L:4586] NATO Bombing
Max, A last comment on this exchange. 1. The NATO bombing is clearly contrary to international law, of the Constitution of NATO and of the US and Canadian constitutions. It also heralds the end of the UN as an international political agency. Do Americans care so little of the UN that they wish to see it destroyed? Are we in NA so contemptuous of the rule of law that we are willing to destroy the UN in favour of vigilanty justice -- lets string em up (regardless of guilt or innocence) to satisfy our blood lust? 2. Can you give me any evidence of civil rights abuses of the Albanian population of Albania BEFORE the KLA (characterized as a terrorist organization by the US) began its attacks on Serbs in Kosovo? In fact, can you give me a single instance? 3. Can you give me any independent confirmation of the alleged atrocities of Serbs in Kosovo? 4. When I pointed out the strong support for ethnic minorities by the Serbs against the Germans, Croats, etc. your response was -- that was then but this is now. I was using history to show that Serbs have not had a history of discrimination. But your cavalier response is that the Serb history of toleration should be ignored, without one shred of evidence that, in fact, there is any change in this attitude. 5. Telephone reports this evening on CBC from Belgrade report the US/NATO bombing has targeted schools and hospitals. Wow, what great humanitarian support from a country that pionnered ethnic cleansing with the enclosure of the aboriginal population in permanent reservations. Yea, I am bitter and sick. It is my friends that the recipients of US humanitary hospitality in the forms of bombs and death. Thanks Max.
[PEN-L:4585] (Fwd) NATO BOMBING IS CRIMINALLY DANGEROUS
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 14:17:12 -0800 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NATO BOMBING IS CRIMINALLY DANGEROUS WAR IS PEACE BIG BROTHER ASSURES US: BUT NATO BOMBING IS DANGEROUSLY CRIMINAL AND CRIMINALLY DANGEROUS by Andre Gunder Frank March 26, 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia is in abject violation of international law by taking it into your own hands to destroy it. That makes this NATO action first dangerously criminal and then criminally dangerous. The American NATO Military Commander's claim that he is speaking and acting for the 'International Community' is a deliberate hoax, since the membership of NATO is only about 15 percent of the states and even less than that of the population of the United Nations, whose two largest countries with 2 billion people and many others oppose this action. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan put it mildly the day bombing started on March 24 that NATO member states should 'consult' the UN Security Council before attacking. They did no such thing in the knowledge that two permanent members would have exercised their veto. Therefore NATO action is criminal and dangerously so because it is yet another important step in the systematic violation of the UN Charter and the total abrogation of international law. NATO action and its expansion is also criminally dangerous for a whole series of political, legal, social, economic, and of course moral reasons to be detailed below. NATO IS DANGEROUSLY CRIMINAL NATO action is no only criminal, but dangerously so; because it extends not only the violation but the very elimination of the UN Charter, structure, and process and its replacement by NATO and its dominant power in the United States. It is difficult to decide where to start a quick review of this process. In 1950 the United States was able to fight Korean War under the UN flag, because in the Security Council China was represented by the regime in Taiwan, and the USSR was absent the day of the vote. Never mind that the UN Charter requires the affirmative vote of all permanent members. In 1961, the UN was used as a cover for United States foreign policy in the Congo, which resulted in the installation by the CIA of Mobutu after the expulsion and killing of Lumumba and the death there of UN Secretary General Hammerskjold. In the 1980s, the United States alleged that it is not subject to the rulings of UN International Court in the Hague after the latter found that US mining of the Nicaragua harbour violated the UN Charter. But in 1990/91 the United States and its allies availed themselves of the UN and its Security Council to 'legitimate' the war against Iraq by pulling legalistic wool over the eyes of the world community to pretend that their action was carried out for the UN. Nonetheless, the then UN Secretary General Perez de Cuellar clearly said 'This is a US war, not a UN war." His resignation for that reason would have made it much more loud and clear. In fact, the US led war against Iraq clearly violated at least seven different clauses of the UN Charter. The first one is that Article 27, Clause 3 of the UN Charter requires the affirmative vote of all permanent members. That was not the case, since China abstained [and the USSR only voted yes after being bribed to do so in its economic crisis. If it had at least abstained, China might have voted No, and probably France also]. This requirement is again relevant today: The United States and its NATO allies did not 'consult' the Security Council as the UN Secretary General reminded us simply because it is obvious that this time Russia would have vetoed this operation, and maybe China too. The American pretence that no new Security Council resolution was required to legalize this NATO action is a sheer lie in yet another attempt to pull wool over world eyes. Indeed, that was so already in the war against Iraq. For Article 42 of the UN Charter bars the resort to war until the Security Council determines that all peaceful means to resolve the dispute have been exhausted pursuant to Article 41. [We return to peaceful means below]. Of course, there was never any compliance with any one of these and other requirements of the UN Charter, and least of all the provision that the military action be under UN military command [which has never been really established], and not under that of the USA or NATO. On the contrary, the Iraq war initiated another dangerous precedent in this regard: although it was not a NATO operation, NATO offered its infrastructural facilities and some military equipment, which were used by its member allies in their illegal war against Iraq. So the United States converted the United Nations into a de facto arm of its own foreign policy and its spokespersons and the media availed
[PEN-L:4583] (Fwd) CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS: THE ROLE OF GERMANY
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 14:29:56 -0800 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS: THE ROLE OF GERMANY The New York Times March 26, 1999 CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS: IN GERMANY By Roger Cohen Berlin -- For the first time since the end of World War II, German fighter jets have gone to war, taking part in the attack on Yugoslavia as part of a NATO force and marking this country's definitive emancipation from post-war pacifism. Rudolf Scharping, the German Defense Minister, said four Tornado jets took off from their Piacenza base in northern Italy late Wednesday and participated in the NATO mission, before returning safely. The German Parliament has authorized up to 15 military aircraft to take part in the air strikes. Germany reacted calmly, indicating a profound change in its psyche since the fall of the Berlin wall. Throughout the period of post-war reconstruction, the saying that "only peace" would go out from German soil amounted to a kind of mantra. The one time during the cold war that German troops marched in a foreign land was in 1968, when East German troops assisted in the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. The devastation, physical and moral, caused by Hitler's Reich and the country's delicate position at the front line of the cold war contributed to Germany's peace-only outlook. But Europe has changed and Germany has changed with it. "The last victim of the fall of the wall is German pacifism," Stephan Speicher commented Thursday in the Berliner Zeitung. Not everyone is ready. There have been dissenting voices and clear tensions within the governing coalition of Social Democrat Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Gregor Gysi, the leader of the Party of Democratic Socialism, on Thursday denounced Germany's participation. "After what has happened this century, Germany above all has no right to drop bombs on Belgrade." He was referring to Hitler's flattening of Belgrade, which began on April 6, 1941, after Serbs tore up a pact with the Nazis. This event is etched on Serbian consciousness as if it happened yesterday. Still, Gysi's voice appeared relatively isolated amid what the conservative newspaper Die Welt called "a kind of public emptiness." German equanimity was clearly reinforced Thursday by the fact that it was a "Red-Green" coalition of Social Democrats and Greens that approved the decision to participate. "The Federal Government has not easily taken the decision that, for the first time since World War II, there are German soldiers in an operational mission," Schröder said. But "our fundamental values of freedom, democracy and human rights" were being flouted in Kosovo, he said. Just seven years ago, at the start of the Bosnian war, Joschka Fischer, then a Green member of Parliament, opposed any Western military intervention or deployment of German forces in Bosnia. But Germany eventually played a role, in the air and on the ground, in the United Nations peace-keeping force in Bosnia. As the Foreign Minister since October, Fischer has argued passionately for the West's responsibility to stop Serbian aggression in Kosovo. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a Green colleague of Fischer and a fellow militant in the revolutionary struggles of the 1960's, said Bosnia had "simply transformed" the way the Foreign Minister approached the question of the use of force. Still, the German participation in air raids on Yugoslavia is potentially explosive, for it will confirm every dark Serbian suspicion about the West. If there has been a single obsession in Serbian policy this century, it has been to prevent what Belgrade sees as German expansionism in the Balkans. "We are not ready to make a distinction between the bombs of Adolf Hitler from 1941 and the bombs of NATO," Vuk Draskovic, the Yugoslavian Deputy Prime Minister, said. Strong German support for Croatian independence from Yugoslavia, and Croatia's adoption of the hymn "Danke Deutschland" when that independence came in 1991, only reinforced Serbian misgivings. The last time NATO bombed in the Balkans -- hitting Serbian positions around Sarajevo in 1995 -- the action prompted a response very similar to Draskovic's Thursday. "By its length, this bombardment is even more brutal than the bombardment conducted by Hitler on April 6, 1941, on Belgrade, given the fact that Hitler's bombardment was stopped on April 8, 1941, to allow the burial of victims under Christian custom," Gen. Ratko Mladic, then the commander of Serbian forces in Bosnia, wrote to a Western general. With 2,500 German troops now in Bosnia, and another 3,000 in Macedonia, the possibility of some Serbian
[PEN-L:4546] Re: Re: Protest against the Bombing
Although I am in large agreement with Barkley's post (there are several other matters on which I do disagree), I think the comment below is quite factually wrong. Whereas Serbian and Croatian are for the most part very similar (or at least were until Tudjman began to change the language so that it no longer resembled Serbian) as are, I believe, Macedonian and Bulgarian, Slovenian is quite different though related. Slovenians do not understand Serbian or vice versa. Only about 40-50 per cent of the words are the same. For instance, the word for worker in Serbo-Croat is 'radnik', in Slovenian 'delavec'; onion in S-C is 'luk', in Slov it is 'cebula' (to give two examples where the words are totally unrelated.) Furthermore, the Slovenes have a different grammar involving not only singular and plural but also 'dual'. Newscasts on Slovenian TV orginating in Zagreb or Belgrade usually are subtitled simply because many Slovenes don't understand Serbo-Croat. And so on. I also believe Barkley's figures on income disparities are wrong. In the 1950s the ratio of Slovenia to Kosovo was closer to 15 to one and declined up to the 1980s to the area of 5 to 1 before increasing again as the decentalization of economic powers and the decline of national economic policy increased the regionalization of the Yugoslav economy. Furthermore, the autonomy of Kosovo had lead the Albanians to set up their own schools which specialized in Albanian culture and language to the detriment of technical and scientific studies. (Also I have been told when I was there in the late 1980s shortly before the breakup, but can not verify, that there was strong islamic opposition to educating female students particularly in practical or work-related areas.) The lack of 'human capital' made it very difficult to invest in economic development despite the large funds made available to Kosovo through the Fund for the Faster Development of Less Developed Regions. As a result, taxes transfered primarily from Slovenia and Croatia to Kosovo for economic development projects was largely wasted in projects that never became operational or were absorbed in massive cultural white elephants such as the national library in Pristina. The autonomy of Kosovo prevented the Serb or Yugoslavian governments from planning these investments in any way that could be integrated into a national development strategy. Meanwhile, the Albanians had been practicing an ongoing and quite vicious process of ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo. It is interesting that, in the name of preventing ethnic cleansing, the US is giving military aid to the greatest ethnic cleansing operation in the history of Yugoslavia. By the way, isn't it time to begin the real impeachment of Bill Clinton for real 'high crimes and misdemeanors'? Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copies to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:4539] Re: Protest against the Bombing Date sent: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 16:27:47 -0500 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] OK, sigh, I guess I'll get into this one, although I view it as pretty murky and not an easy call, although I think that ultimately this bombing is a mistake and could well lead to a really ugly mess. I hope not. But let's get some of the history right for starters: snip Although Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian are officially viewed as distinct languages, it is a fact that somebody can manage just fine with Bulgarian in Slovenia, and that one can walk from Varna, Bulgaria on the Black Sea to the northwest corner of Slovenia without ever encountering a linguistic discontinuity or divide. These "languages" are artifices of governments and higher level entities.
[PEN-L:4555] Re: RE: Protest against the Bombing
Date sent: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 22:47:59 -0500 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Pen-L" [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:4552] RE: Protest against the Bombing Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Max Sawicky wrote: The fundamental question is whether the lives of many innocent people are under immediate, deadly threat at the hands of the Serbs. Sure they are, but so are the lives of many other innocent people all over the place - Kurds, at the hands of Turkey for example, where the casualties have been far greater. But Turkey, being a NATO member and a loyal stooge of the United States, gets a free ride. Africa is a goddamn "humanitarian catastrophe," to use the phrase I keep hearing on TV, and the U.S. won't even forgive its debts. These rescue missions are very selective, aren't they? Clinton doesn't have a strategy, or a foreign policy really; he's alienated the Russians seriously, and has no idea what NATO's doing in the former Yugoslavia. I don't even think there's any grand imperial design behind this. Clinton's dropped more bombs than Reagan by now, right? Doug Doug, Do you have any count of how many innocent people have died that can be accredited to the current US administration? 1 million in Iraq, x thousands in Mexico and Latin America, up to now 50,000 to 100,000 in the Balkans with the number escalating daly,...? Let's have a contest. The person who can document the most deaths to US foreign policy in the last 8 years gets a ? An apology for honesty? Hey, thats a contest. What should they win? Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:4554] Re: Need NATO strikes Against US
Right on Jim, And I wonder if many on this list has thought of the gender implications of US support for the KLA separatists? I think they should have a close look at Afghanastan. Do women on this list really want to support this kind of islamic nationalism? If you have any doubts about the effect of US policy in separating Kosovo from 'progressive' Yugoslavia, take a drive between Skopje and Ohrid in Macedonia, and look at the 8 foot fences that imprison the women so that they can not be seen by men. The Serbs always opposed this kind of imprisonment of women, despite their chauvinist ways. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date sent: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 22:38:28 EST To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:4551] Need NATO strikes Against US Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] It is all really too much, Nightly specials with Norman Schwarkopf as a pundit on an NBC Special. And all the sanitized photos showing destruction from a high-tech distance and all "our boys" came home. If imminent destruction of whole peoples is the criterion for launching NATO strikes, then there is genocide going on all over America and Canada. It is calculated, premeditated, there are big interests and profits at stake, the only difference is the methods of extermination and the time periods involved. Notice no reference to history except some cliche about these emnities go far back in history. For example, during the nazi occupations, who was who in terms of degree of alliance with or resistance to nazi rule. And of course no reference to the role of Cold War machinations and intrigues in nurthering and exacerbating historical enmnities and contradictions. And that there is a real possibility that forces allied in NATO with their own histories and presents of responsibility for genocide supposedly allied to stop genocide--not in Rwanda or Cambodia or Chile or Guatamala or Indonesia or on Indian Reserves/Reservations or in many many other places, times and instruments of genocide. Henry Kissinger with a Nobel Peace Prize is like Ted Bundy with a NOW award or Himmler with a B'nai Brith Award. And as usual, the victims suffer the unimaginable having become imaginable suffering and death with sanitized glimpses of the suffering and death squeezed neatly in the media between the Budweiser frogs and Valtrex for those nasty herpes reminders from the 60s. Jim C
[PEN-L:4494] (Fwd) NO U.S./NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA!
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 15:52:41 -0800 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:NO U.S./NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA! From: "iacenter" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 17:25:41 -0500 Subject: Demo, NYC, SF Against NATO Bombing International Action Center 39 West 14th Street, #206 New York, NY 10011 212-633-6646 fax 212-633-2889 http://www.iacenter.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] March 23, 1999 Attention: Assignment Editor Press Contact: Brian Becker Deirdre Sinnott For: Immediate Release Demonstration on Wednesday, March 24 in NYC Demands: NO U.S./NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA! Anti-war protesters will gather at Grand Central Station (42nd Street and Park Avenue) at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 24 to protest the illegal bombing of Yugoslavia by U.S./NATO forces and the proposed occupation. A simultaneous demonstration will take place in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Claremont, and other cities in the United States. The demonstration is called by the International Action Center (IAC), which was initiated by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. IAC spokesperson Sara Flounders issued the following statement about the political orientation of the anti-war protests: "U.S. soldiers and pilots are again being asked to kill and be killed in a far away land. The Milosevic government of Yugoslavia has been demonized as akin to Adolf Hitler. Make no mistake about it, this is simply a pretext to justify military aggression against a sovereign country. The U.S. has earlier demonized Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Manuel Noriega in Panama to justify U.S. military aggression in those countries. "The real issue, however, in all of these wars of aggression is that the U.S. military and economic establishment wanted to dominate these strategic areas. Is Yugoslavia invading and bombing the people of the United States? No. The people of Yugoslavia are the victims. "What makes the U.S. government propaganda more absurd is that it claims that it must bomb Yugoslavia to defend the rights of a national minority people_the Albanians in Kosovo. If one wants to defend the rights of national minority people from police brutality and abuse, you don't have to go thousands of miles away. The shooting of Amadou Diallo in NYC is just the tip of the iceberg. African American, Latino, Native, Arab, and Asian people are routinely the victims of racism, discrimination, and police terror inside the United States. Everyone should ask themselves, `Is it possible for a government that violates the rights of its own national minority peoples at home to pursue a policy of freedom and equality for national minority peoples on other continents?' "The Yugoslav government is resisting the demands by the U.S. and NATO to dismember its country. The same governments that constitute NATO imperialism are the ones that have funneled arms and funds to the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army and before them, ultra-right wing forces who initiated the civil war in Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia. The responsibility for every person who dies in the planned bombing of Yugoslavia_be they Serb, Kosovar, or U.S. GIs_falls directly on the doorstep of the Clinton Administration and the generals in the Pentagon." --30--
[PEN-L:4258] Re: Slovakia and the Czech Republic
"Prague, 17December 1998 (RFE/RL) by Jolyon Naegele CZECH REPUBLIC: ECONOMY WORSENS AS GDP CONTINUES TO DROP The Czech Republic's economic difficulties, which began some 20 months ago, are worsening. The Czeck Statistical Office reported this week that during the third quarter of this year gross domestic product shrank by 2.9 percent and that for the fist nine months of the year, GDP dropped by 2.1 percent compared with the same periods last year. In the words of Prime Minister Milos Zeman, "we are falling into an abyss." He blames the policies of the two previous govers of Vaclav Klaus and Josef Tosovsky. Zeman dismisses Klaus' much touted privatization as "fiction" and say virtually no real privatization has occurred. He told the progovernment daily Pravo yesterday his cabinet needs nine months of calm without criticsim to enable it to start turning the economy around. (full article at http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1998/12/F.RU.981217142836.html ) Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Date sent: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 22:30:32 -0800 From: Peter Dorman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Pen-L [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:4208] Slovakia and the Czech Republic Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I just finished reading the piece by Timothy Garton Ash on Central Europe in the most recent New York Review. Most of it is a rumination on the meaning of "Central Europe" (and a mild critique of Samuel Huntington), but along the way he tells a story about Slovakia, its fall and redemption. I have no love, of course, for the ethnic chauvinism and authoritarianism of Meciar, but it seems to me that Garton Ash seriously misrepresents the economic realities of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. He lists "genuine free market economics" as one of his criteria of virtue, so perhaps this should come as no surprise. My understanding is that Garton Ash is wrong about both countries. Slovakia, according to most accounts, is muddling through economically. It is undergoing a slow, uneven transition toward a market economy, with enterprises gradually becoming more professionally managed. It has respectable economic growth, and seems to be proceeding at approximately the same rate as Hungary (especially if one excludes Budapest). I'm not endorsing this approach to transition, of course, simply placing Slovakia within the spectrum of CEE transitioners. The Czech Republic, on the other hand, is a disaster zone. Pseudo-privatization has given the cronyklatura a corrupt grip on enterprises, few of which have even begun to transform themselves. The combination of abrupt openness in trade and finance, along with the failure of transformation, has created a gaping hole in the current account. The crisis has been delayed due to the absence of initial external debt in 1989 (perhaps the only positive bequest from the Stalinist era) and large tourism receipts in Prague, but as foreign exchange disappears the moment of reckoning draws imminent. (The Czech economy is already in a recession, alone in central Europe, that marks just the first stage in a painful process of current account adjustment.) This is terrible news for the people of the Czech Republic, of course, but it also casts a shadow over conventional views of that country and its figurehead, Vaclav Havel. If this description is accurate, the Czech miracle is a sham, and the philosopher-king presides over a Potemkin economy of charlatans and kleptocrats. So: is this in fact a fair description of where Slovakia and the Czech Republic stand today? And if so, how to explain the acquiescence of not only Garton Ash, but nearly all journalists, academics, and officials of international agencies, in a fraudulent story that will be smashed sometime within the next year or so? Peter
[PEN-L:4183] Re: Re: Re: circularities
In Canada, and I believe in the US, the 1st WW was the impetus to the prohibition movement. Women left the labour market in droves following the war leaving the situtation in circa 1920 more or less as it was in 19 13. Space for women only opened up after the 2nd WW. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba In the case of women's suffrage, if I remember correctly, a big push was given by WWI. German brewers here employed lots of women, and (therefore) also funded anti-suffrage campaigns. WWI knocked out the brewers, opening up space for the women. Bill
[PEN-L:3767] Re: Re: Re: Re: Serbia
Barkley, I know you trace the problem back to the 89 elimination of Kosovo's autonomy and to Milosivic's policies, but I do think that is something of an oversimplification. I was in Yugoslavia around that time staying with the senior civil servant in the Slovenian foreign affairs department and I can remember a long 3 hour discussion over what was happening in Kosovo and in Serbia and in Yugoslavia during the accellerating economic crisis and the impact on the other republics in the federation. Also at issue was the federal fund for the development of the lesser developed regions -- the last major redistribution fund for regional development which was one of the grievances that Slovenia and Croatia had with the federation -- they were big net contributors of many of the funds going to Kosovo and there were all sorts of allegations of misallocation of the funds by the Kosovan authorities (e.g. the building of the huge, ornate though quite beautiful, library in Pristina) rather than it going into economic development. That is, the fund was being used for nationalist monuments rather than development. My own investigation into the fund and the development planning in Kosovo indicated two things -- that the federal fund, because of the principle of self-management and the autonomy of Kosovo, could not determine the use of the funds and, secondly, that the Kosovan economic planners had little or no conception of development planning and I found little evidence that they could in fact allocate the funds in a rational or developmental manner. Secondly, of course, the Tito constitution had deliberately established a concensus machinery such that Serbia could not take any action without the approval of Kosovo which was blocking Serbia's attempt to deal with the crisis -- an attempt that to my mind was wrongheaded and doomed to failure in any case. Milosevic used this as the reason for ending the autonomy which it also did with Vojvodina with little or no similar opposition. Milosevic was also being pushed in a nationalist direction by Seselj and Draskovic on the right-nationalist side of the spectrum. This is not to say that Milosevic was right or that he is a nice guy -- merely that his actions were propelled by the economic and political crisis engineered by the IMF, Germany and the US. However, all that is not the point of my critique of Green. Rather it is his claim that the KLA represents the revolutionary working- class trying to overthrow the fascist imperialists. As you well know, the albanian nationalists are hardly the bastion of progressivism, particularly with respect to women's rights. In any case, it appears that a deal has been reached but I do hope that any peacekeeping force is not a NATO one but rather a UN or contact group force including Russian troups. But that I gather is yet to be negotiated. Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Paul, As you well know, I respect your knowledge of the situation in Yugoslavia, both current and former. I find myself very much at odds over the current situation. I do not like the idea of US troops in Kosovo. I agree with you that there has been a long term demographic shift with a political/ethnic push behind it by the Albanian/Kosovars to push out the Serbian/Kosovars, something which may continue in Macedonia. I am also aware that the ethnic Serbs have done some pretty awful things to the ethnic Albanians in the region, and that much of the current situation, including over all of the former Yugoslavia, stems from Slobodan Milosevic's removal of autonomy from Kosovo in 1989. It would be great to go back to Tito or perhaps some time in the 1980s and undo all that has happened since and "do it right." But that is no longer possible. Humpty Dumpty is now on the ground all in pieces. If you were the king, how would you put him back together again? Or more simply, what would you propose as the best possible policy strategy by the EU, the US, Russia, and the Yugoslav leadership at this point in time. Various list members would propose a working class revolution, which might be nice, but I am not holding my breath on that one either. BTW, Henry Kissinger, of all people, just published a column in yesterday's Washington Post criticizing the proposed entry of US troops into Kosovo. Barkley Rosser -Original Message-
[PEN-L:3714] Re: Re: Re: Race as a construct
It was interesting -- I was teaching the difference between systemic and statistical discrimination today in my IR class and I was talking about discrimination based on perceived differences in group behaviour affecting the individual (statistical discrimination) ane related Peter's story of the treatment of his 'black' student vis a vis her biological brother who appeared 'white'. Immediately, two of my 'mixed parentage' students volunteered the same experience. One was a women of Chilean parentage (political refugees) who , as she put it, couldn't even get a tan when she tried in the summer, and her dark skinned brother, who was discriminated against. The other was an (I think Eurasian) female student who has a brother who looks totally 'white'. As she put it, she couldn't look 'white' no matter what she did and as a result was discriminated against because of her 'colour' while her brother faced no such discrimination. I think this gave my class a particularly good teaching experience today -- at least I was on a high -- because they really began to understand the meaning that 'race' (and gender) is a social construct, not a biological one. It always brings to mind the quotation from Andy Friedman's book on the UK auto industry -- that racism and sexism was not invented by managers, but that they just use it to divide and conquer the working class. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Charles Brown wrote: Skin color, hair texture and facial features are genetically determined in part, but they do not correlate with "humanity" "soulfulness", morality, "savagery", criminality, or intelligence, et al., as racists have asserted for hundreds of years. They (skin color, hair texture and facial features) don't even correlate with *themselves*. There are no "races" biologically. Peter Dorman
[PEN-L:3715] Re: Re: Serbia
First let me say I have some sympathy with John's position on Serbia/Kosovo. I can not say the same about Joseph's who appears to be totally ignorant of what has been going on in the area and what are the global involvements. He appears to be parrotting Ms. Albright and the Pentagon to an amazing degree. Has he ever been to Kosovo? Has he ever walked the streets and the back lanes of Pristina? Has he ever talked with the economic planners and academics of Kosovo (Kosovars, not Serbs)? Has he ever been hugged and honoured by working kosovars (restaurant workers)? Well, I have, and what he says is nonsense and a betrayal of the working class, the kind of 'impossibilist' rhetoric that has held back the left in America for generations. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba I don't have much time, but I should clarify a few things. First off, I am not hewing to the trot line of "military but not political support," or some such thing. You're right that I should clarify this, because there IS a great deal of slander directed against the Kosovars on the far left these days. (By the same token, there is a lot of nonsense on the liberal left, which several years ago was holding up the government of the Islamic fundamentalist, Alija Izetbegovic, as some kind of last holdout of multicultural democracy and pluralistic tolerance.) I was involved in an exchange on the Marxism List some months ago in which I criticized Diana Johnstone's CAQ piece as soft on Serbian chauvinism. This is a problem on the radical left, and my hunch is that you place special emphasis on things like Kosovo because you are trying to go after some of the prejudices of the left when it comes to regimes like this. Both you and your comrade Ben Seattle have produced some interesting stuff in this vein. All of this said, I must insist that my comparison of Kosovo with "plucky little Belgium" does not constitute "slander." To say that the Kosovar struggle is being manipulated by the Western powers for propaganda purposes does not constitute a denial of the oppression that the Kosovars are experiencing. However, it does question the usefulness of stridently calling for "self-determination for Kosovo!" at a time when the Big Powers are preparing for war against Serbia. You say that my strategy means abandoning Albanian villages to destruction. I have to admit the grim reality that it does, just as opposing Allied intervention in World War I would have meant abandoning Serbia and Belgium to the tender mercies of the Central Powers. It's cruel, but it involves a calculation that a full-scale war would be even worse. Of course I am in favor of working-class unity and the encouragement of proletarian trends in the former Yugoslavia. It's just that you haven't answered my question as to what exactly this would entail for leftists living in the United States. Forgive any possible melodrama on my part, but what is to be done? Comradely, John Lacny
[PEN-L:3602] Re: Serbia Article
centerboldcolorparam0100,0100,0100/paramFontFamilyparamC03 Swiss Roman 10pt/paramSEEING YUGOSLAVIA THROUGH A DARK GLASS:/center centerPolitics, Media and the Ideology of Globalization/center /bold boldby Diana Johnstone/bold boldDiana Johnstone/bold was the European editor of underlineIn These Times/underline from 1979 to 1990, and press officer of the Green group in the European Parliament from 1990 to 1996. She is the author of The Politics of Euromissiles: Europe in America's World (London/New York, Versa Schucken, 1984) and is currently working on a book on the former Yugoslavia. This article is an expended version of a talk given on May 25, 1998, at an international conference on media held in Athens, Greece. center* * */center Years of experience in and out of both mainstream and alternative media have made me aware of the power of the dominant ideology to impose certain interpretations on international news. During the cold War, most world news for American consumption had to be framed as part of the Soviet-U.S. contest. Since then, a new ideological bias frames the news. The way the violent fragmentation of Yugoslavia has been reported is the most stunning example. I must admit that it took me some time to figure this out, even though I had a long-standing interest in and some knowledge of Yugoslavia. I spent time there as a student in 1953, living in a Belgrade dormitory and learning the language. In 1984., in a piece for "In These Times", I warned that extreme decentralization, conflicting economic interests between the richer and poorer regions, austerity policies imposed by the IMF, and the decline of universal ideals were threatening Yugoslavia with "re-Balkanization" in the wake of Tito's death and desanctification. "Local ethnic interests are reasserting themselves". I wrote, "The danger is that these rival local interests may become involved in the rivalries of outside powers. This is how the Balkans in the past were a powder keg of world war." Writing this took no special clairvoyance. The danger of Yugoslavia's disintegration was quite obvious to all serious observers well before Slobodan Milosevic arrived on the scene. As the country was torn apart in the early nineties, I was unable to keep up with all that was happening. In those years, my job as press officer for the Greens in the European Parliament left me no time to investigate the situation myself. Aware that there were serious flaws in the way media and politicians were reacting. I wrote an article warning against combating "nationalism" by taking sides for one nationalism against another, and against judging a complex situation by analogy with totally different times and places. "Every nationalism stimulates others". I noted, "Historical analogies should be drawn with caution and never allowed to obscure the facts." However, there was no stopping the tendency to judge the Balkans, about which most people knew virtually nothing, by analogy with Hitler Germany, about which people at least imagined they knew a lot, and which enabled analysis to be rapidly abandoned in favour of moral certitude and righteous indignation. However, it was only later, when I was able to devote considerable time to my own research, that I realized the extent of the deception-which is in large part self-deception. I mention all this to stress that I understand the immense difficulty of gaining a clear view of the complex situation in the Balkans. The history of the region and the interplay of internal political conflicts and external influences would be hard to grasp even without propaganda distortions. Nobody can be blamed for being confused. Moreover, by now, many people have invested so much emotion in a one-sided view of the situation that they are scarcely able to consider alternative interpretations. It is not necessarily because particular journalists or media are "alternative" that they are free from the dominant interpretation and the dominant world view. In fact, in the case of the Yugoslav tragedy, the irony is that "alternative" or "left" activists and writers have - frequently taken the lead in likening the Serbs, the people who most wanted to continue to live in multi-cultural Yugoslavia, to Nazi racists, and in calling for military intervention on behalf of ethnically defined secessionist movementssmaller1FontFamilyparamC03 Swiss Roman 08pt/paramsmallersmaller1bigger "Ethnically defined" because, despite the argument accepted by the international community that it was the Republics that could invoke the right to secede, all the political arguments surrounding recognition of independent Slovenia and Croatia dwelt on the right of Slovenes and Croats as such to self-determination.FontFamilyparamC03 Swiss Roman 10pt/parambigger - all supposedly in the name of "multi-cultural Bosnia", a country
[PEN-L:3601] Re: Serbia
I must say I agree with Louis on Serbia/Kosova. In fact, I would go further and suggest that supporting Kosovar independence is to support a new American and German imperialism. This is outlined in a very long article that I will send as a separate post (so that those who are not interested or who have to scan through the article before they exit can delete before they open it.) Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:3582] Re: Serbia
Tom, I don't remember exactly when the crisis was but I think your characterization of the post-crisis events as an Albanian invasion is not quite accurate. The KLA is, to the best of my knowledge, made up of native 'Serbians' -- ethnic Albanians who have lived for generations in the Serbian province of Kosovo (which they have been in the process of ethnic cleansing of native ethnic Serbs for decades.) What the riots and crisis in Albania did produce was raids on police and army bases resulting in the seizure of large volumes of sophisticated arms which have been smuggled into Kosovo to arm the KLA and which has allowed the KLA to mount a fairly effective guerrilla campaign against the Yugoslav police and army in Kosovo. I think it is highly likely that if the KLA succeeds (with military and political aid from the US and NATO) the process will repeat itselft in the western part of Macedonia where ethnic Albanians are gradually cleansing the area of Macedonians (slavs) and which is also coveted as a part of 'greater Albania' by the Albanians. Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Pen-L, Does anyone recall in what month and year the Albanian stock market(ponzi scheme) collapsed? I'm pretty sure it was two or three years ago---anyone remember the exact month and year. Next question does anyone see a connection between the Albanian stock market collapse and the Albanian invasion of Serbia? Your email pal, Tom L.
[PEN-L:3529] Re: Re: Canadian Budget
Sam, you asked in your previous post if John Loxley, Cho!ses and the CCPA put out an alternative budget this year. The answer is yes and they did meet with martin prior to his issuing of the budget but, as usual, he paid little attention to the AFT. The AFT was released at press conferences across Canada, including Vancouver, two or three weeks before Martin's fiasco. Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Sam wrote: I forgot to add that the Finance minister will _not_ be making the usual post-budget bum-sniffing tour of Wall Street to ensure Moody's and Salomon Bros. that everything is eh-o.k. As already noted on the list, the gov't has increased CPP premiums and has been covering the budget deficit using the surplus resulting from the massive cuts in unemployment insurance eligibility. SP
[PEN-L:3427] Re: Re: Re: Canada (Ken)
Date sent: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 22:28:24 -0600 From: Ken Hanly [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:3424] Re: Re: Canada (Ken) Now here is something I can agree with and heartfully endorse. Traditionally the social democrats have relied on regulation of capital as their method of control. This is why foreign ownership was so difficult -- it put capital beyond their regulatory grasp -- but also made foreign ownership an important issue (as it still is). Ken, however, has laid out the issue succinctly. I don't think that it is altogether true that social welfare programs were brought in to serve contingent ruling class interests. If that were so why did the ruling class consistently oppose progressive measures every step of the way? Minimum wages, UI and improvements to it, pensions, closed shop legislation, pay equity, you name it. While the welfare state may have saved capital from even more radical demands and staved off revolutionary demands, the welfare state was more or less forced upon the ruling class. Surely Capital railed against the welfare state, and enlisted all its legions of flacks and PR people to try to defeat those promoting the welfare state every step of the way. The welfare state was a great victory for the working class. The ruling class didnt suddenly decide they didnt need the welfare state any more--although the disintegration of actually existing socialism may have been a factor in precipating the assault against the welfare state. In my view the welfare state was a feature of the Social Structures of Accumulation of what has been called the Golden Age of Capitalism... Burgeoning debt, problems in maintaining adequate levels of capital accumulation, plus many other factors such as increased global competition among capitals, the growth of the Asian tigers, etc. led to Capital's forceful attack on the welfare state. You are right the constellation of class forces has changed in that global capital has the upper hand at them moment. However, not all struggles against cutbacks and attacks by capital have failed. If anything the greatest failure has been with social democratic parties who have sacrificed any pretense of being the leaders in the counter-atttack against global capital and are bending over backwards to show that they are "responsible" i.e. they will kiss corporate ass just as well as any old-line party or as in the UK and NZ and I guess OZ too actually leading the way for global capitalism. The welfare state is not gone. Its reduced. If there had been no struggle the situation would be much worse than it. The left may think that all is lost but the right knows damn well that the welfare state is still popular. There are plenty of aging conservative voters in Manitoba. Prior to an election here the Conservatives are pumping money back into our health care system--after savage cuts of course. They know, and the polls show them this, that people want the health care system and want it improved. While the social democrats in power in the province next door refuse to pay nurses a decent wage and do away entirely with the provincial pharamacare plan, the Conservative govt. in Manitoba is pumping more money into the system and contented itself with raising the kick-in limits in the pharamacare plan. The game plan. I grant you the proper game plan for a revolution doesnt seem clear. At least in advanced capitalist societies, revolution doesnt seem to be on the agenda for the moment. This doesn't mean that capital cannot be opposed though. I will concentrate upon issues not specifically directed to gay and lesbian rights, aboriginal or race issues, or the quesion of separatism. Oppose privatisation of all kinds. Some opposition to privatisation has been successful and any widespread opposition will make governments provincial or otherwise to think twice about trying it. Although provincial govt. here privatised the provincial phone company there was a great deal of opposition and the govt. lost a lot of support. They have not moved to privatise Manitoba Hydro or the auto insurance monopoly. Privatisation of hte phone company gave a perfect opportunity for the NDP to have as a plank that they would take the phone company back into the public sector. If they have such a plank, they certainly have been mighty quiet about it. The NDP should be pressing for privatised firms to be taken back into the public sector. Again no bloody leadership, rather the NDP goes with the flow doing some privatisation itself as in Saskatchewan where the public road construction sector was privatised. In Saskatchewan though there is still a publicly owned bus company providing service throughout the province. SaskPower still controls gas
[PEN-L:3329] Biker Buddy
I apologize to Bill if I misinterpreted his initial comment but his comment "I don't have too much of a problem arguing against helmet laws" implied to me that he opposed helmet laws -- i.e. supported Biker Buddy's position. I am glad to see that he, in fact, supports helmet legislation. 1. I too am skeptical of the biker argument that helmets increase medical costs. In Manitoba where I (and Ken) live we have mandatory public (non-profit) auto and bike insurance. The public insurer has strongly supported helmet legislation on the grounds that it reduces the cost of insurance to everyone. In this it has been supported most vociferously by doctors who have had to treat what they consider to be needless head injuries. Since they are either salaried doctors or paid by medicare, they have no monetary interest in supporting helmet laws. 2. The victims of head injuries are not just the bikers themselves. If you know anyone who was involved in an accident in which someome else was killed or seriously injured whether or not the accident was his/her fault, you will know the anguish and pain suffered for years and years, often for a lifetime, by the person. It is even worse when the death or serious injury could have been easily prevented by the simple act of wearing a helmet. 3. I do not buy the parallel with forcing people to eat broccoli etc or banning liquor or tobacco consumption as some have suggested to me off-list. First of all, we do try to compensate, in part, for the costs of tobacco and liquor in our health costs by "sin taxes" which are paid *only by those that indulge*. And indeed, in the case of tobacco, restrictions on its use are becoming more and more common -- e.g. at the University of Manitoba, smoking is banned in most if not all the buildings. This is true also of all government buildings and in all stores. In some Canadian cities, smoking is also banned in restaurants. Nor is this just in Canada. The alternative to helmet laws would be to charge an insurance surcharge to bikers who refuse to wear helmets but the cost of enforcement might be prohibitive, or the cost of the insurance might then be prohibitive. That still would not compensate the 'innocent victim' in 2 above. Further, driving/riding is not a necessity or a basic human right -- it is subject to certain rules -- that you have a valid drivers licence; that if you eyesight is impaired, that you wear corrective lenses; that your vehicle meets certain safety standards; that your vehicle is equipt with certain safety and environmental protection devices, etc. Helmets can be seen as just one of those safety protection devices. Ya it is not as important an issue as poverty and starvation, but it is easier and relatively costless to solve. Anyhow, this is the last I will post on this issue.
[PEN-L:3288] Re: Re: Biker buddy... sorta...
Bill Lear writes: I don't have too much of a problem arguing against helmet laws. My take is that if a person does not hurt another person, then they are free to hurt themselves and the state should not regulate that behavior --- if it can be shown that not wearing helmets poses a threat to others, no red-blooded American should protest efforts to curb the harm. My guess is that helmet laws and seat-belt laws were done at the behest of insurance companies, not a cadre of pajama-wearing socialists. Well I do have a problem. We have banned helmetless riders because of the selfish cost they impose upon others. Cyclists without helmets cause an enourmous extra cost to the insurance system that is passed on to other sensible drivers/riders. It is the equivalent of arguing for the elimination of laws against drunk driving because the cost such idiots cause end up being passed on to others and, in our case, to the health system which must be paid by everyone. I am all in favour of individual freedom -- up to the point that it begins to destroy other, innocent people's freedom. Helmet and seatbelt laws are the beginning of freedom for others on the road. It is sentiments like that of BigWayne that makes me question the rationality of American discourse. That Bill Lear supports it makes me sad and despondent! Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:3287] Re: Re: Ernest Mandel on long waves
Jim writes: It doesn't negate the swing interpretation as much as provide and apply an alternative framework. (To recap: I interpret the history of the 20th century -- including the 1930s Collapse -- in terms of aggressive accumulation causing overinvestment crises that appear in different forms depending on the institutional framework that exists at the time. Aha! I agree and this is the point of the SSA/RT approach Some of institutional framework part gets close to long-wave thinking, in that one can point to alternation of labor-abundant and labor-scarce periods, but I don't see how bringing in "swings" helps in any way. On the other hand, I can't see the international environment of capitalist nations struggling for (and sometimes winning) hegemony as behaving in a swing-like manner. I have never seen this as part of the long wave approach. Goldstein's book on long cycles treats the hegemony stages as complementary to long swings, rather than reducing those stages to those swings.) Nor am I convinced by the Glick/Brenner criticism though I haven't looked at that stuff recently. Further, the French Regulation school involves a number of writers, all of whom are not on the same wave length. ... as it were. But what I appreciate is their dialectic approach between accumulation variables and institutional and power variables, something which is also core to the SSA approach. I also apply a dialectical perspective on these issues, though I put a much larger emphasis on the aggressiveness of capitalist accumulation, and how it progressively undermines even its own status quo. I think that its theoretical absence of this aggressiveness is a problem for both Regulation and SSA thought. Why? I see it as part. Boyer has some very interesting and complex analysis that is very useful for heuristic purposes -- students find it extremely interesting as a way of seeing the processes of capitalism. I find it particularly useful in teaching economic history because students can understand a 'system' of accumulation and the relation with the state, labour, the farmers' movement, imperialism, etc. And, they can also understand the contradictions that produce the depression, war and the rise of Fordism etc. In short, long swings give structure to periods of economic history, periods of capitalist development. I have used various stage and swing frameworks in teaching, including Louis Hacker's (not Proyect's) scheme from his TRIUMPH OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM. As far as pedagogy is concerned, I usually don't concentrate on debates among leftists, so that most schemata will do, especially as I reinterpret them. But in terms of understanding the world, however, I have problems with much that has come out of the Regulation approach. Glick and Brenner's critique, which is empirical, is relevant here. Also, Regulation-influenced books like WHO BUILT AMERICA? volume II of the American Social History Project overemphasize ideas such as "welfare capitalism" in the 1920s, where the bosses controlled labor in a paternalistic way but provided all sorts of non-wage benefits. The research I've seen indicates that this was true of a relatively small percentage of corporations. Most companies took advantage of labor's weakness to drive workers to produce surplus-value in the old-fashioned way, with none of the paternalism. Yea but I don't think this is representative of RT/SSA thinking -- at least not my thinking on the subject. I think if you look at the literature on it, this period was one of experimenting with different ways of controlling labour, the fruit of which did not mature until the post-war period. That, certainly is my understanding of G,ER and of my own research on the subject. Of course, as a control strategy it could not prevail until war brought a new 'swing' of capital accumulation. And, despite all, the swings are there in the statistics so how else do you interpret them? I've found that if one starts with the prior conviction that swings appear in the data, one finds them. If one doesn't, one doesn't find them. Further, the main evidence for K-waves concerns prices, not real variables. I disagree. For Kondratieff, yes prices. For Shaik, profits. For G,ER growth rates. For my own research on Canadian data, growth rates are the best indicator though obvious discontinuities in institutional structure supplement. (and which are significant in time series regressions.) Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
[PEN-L:3085] Re: Re: Re: Re: Ernest Mandel on long waves
Date sent: Mon, 08 Feb 1999 11:37:26 -0800 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:3035] Re: Re: Re: Ernest Mandel on long waves Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jim and Sam, I think there is some confusion and misunderstanding about long wave/swing theory. The term wave or swing was substituted for cycle precisely because of the debate over whether the process was sinusoidal (cyclical) or sigmoidal (series of upswings followed by stagnations with different and non-endogeous causes). As I understand Mandel, the upswing was induced by exogenous causes (technological change or more usually, war) while the stagnation phase was endogenous caused by the falling rate of profit a la Marx. For the Schumpeterians, the upswing was caused by major innovations -- technological or market (e.g. imperialism/ change in labour process, etc.) Others saw in it batches of invention accumulating until a critical mass was achieved at which the innovation of one brought a flood of new products/processes/technology unto the market promoting bursts of investment etc. (The principle is that of the septic tank.) Others (Forrester I think) approach it more, as I understand it, from the Sante Fe approach based on swings in capital formation, if I remember correctly, tied to long term infrastructure investment. (a kind of long term accelerator.) Many of these are laid out in several issues of FUTURES Journal some years ago and collected in a book edited, if my memory serves me correctly, by Williamson. However, I think the most useful variant of long swing theory is that developed by the French regulation school and the American Social Structures of Accumulation school, both of which have strong marxist underpinnings. For statistical evidence see Gordon, Edwards and Reich, Segmented Work, Divided Workers or the Van Dijn volume, The Long Wave. For a succinct statement of the SSA/ Marxian theory of "stages of accumulation", see David Gordon, "Stages of Accumulation and Long Economic Cycles" in T. Hopkins and I Wallerstein, eds, PROCESSES OF THE WORLD- SYSTEM, Sage 1980. Louis wonders why we spend our time and effort investigating such things. Well, capitalism is a relationship that is in constant flux and unless we understand how and why it is changing, we will not be very effective in opposing it or countering its effects on people. After all, isn't that why Marx developed his whole theoretical analysis of the origin and the laws of motion of capitalism? Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba At 10:07 AM 2/8/99 -0800, Sam P. wrote: I don't know much about long wave theory, but from the summary accounts I've read there is some empirical evidence for it. But, what exactly hinges on the existence of long waves? Just the ability to explain and predict economic growth? As a non-believer in long waves, I guess I shouldn't answer this. But I will anyway. The usual long-wave argument is that we're starting a long-wave upturn because of one of the periodic technological revolutions is taking hold. This means that we'll enjoy more supply-side growth (increases in labor productivity) than in recent decades, even if we go into a demand-side depression in the near future (with the US joining most of the rest of the world in stagnation) and/or global warming destroys civilization. The supply side should be booming even though people's lives are being disrupted and AIDS is killing large numbers in Thailand, India, and Africa. But while one could argue that there's empirical evidence for _past_ waves (mostly concerning price changes) that doesn't mean that the waves will continue in the future. Just because a clock is ticking now doesn't mean that it will tick forever; it could wind down or the batteries could die. And given the complexity of the economy and incomplete information about it, it's really unclear whether it's "ticking" or not. It's a little like those gestalt pictures: is it a picture of two people facing each other -- or is it a goblet? But it's worse: we're seeing the gestalt picture through a dense fog. The picture might be a third thing, or nothing at all. Until we get a good theory for what's behind the perceived long waves, a good understanding of what's behind them, I think that long-wave thinking is deceptive, a snare and a delusion. It's true that there are forces like technology that develop out of human control, but once we understand them better, we might use that understanding (if we had the power) to end the wave-like effects that some see as resulting from perceived waves of technological change. Similarly, technology doesn't simply drop from the sky; it's not exogenous. It's a societal product and is thus affected by class relations and the like. (As Braverman argued, because we live in a capitalist society,
