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Date sent: Fri, 07 May 1999 18:03:20 -0700
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From: Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: The U.S. and NATO's New World Disorder in Kosovo - Misha
Kokotovic, Asst. Professor, UC San Diego
The U.S. and NATO's New World Disorder in Kosovo
Misha Kokotovic, Asst. Professor UC San Diego
Presentation to the World Affairs Council of San Diego
May 5, 1999
I would like to start by thanking the World Affairs Council and its program
co-chair Mr. Fred Nathan, as well as the San Diego Union Tribune, for
organizing and sponsoring this event. And I want to thank all of you for
coming tonight. We are a month and a half into a devastating U.S. and NATO
war on Yugoslavia, and while there has certainly been plenty of media
coverage, there have not been enough opportunities like this one for
Americans to discuss the objectives, methods, and consequences of the war
being waged in our name.
As is perhaps obvious from my name, I am originally from Yugoslavia, though
I have not been back there for at least 20 years. I have, however, closely
followed the destruction of my country of origin over the last 10 years,
and have kept in touch with relatives there, most of whom are currently in
Belgrade undergoing NATO bombardment. They, and I, have consistently
opposed Slobodan Milosevic since he rose to power, and we hold him largely
(though not solely) responsible for the destruction of Yugoslavia over the
last decade. So, my opposition to the U.S. and NATO war on Yugoslavia
should in no way be construed as support for Milosevic, his government, or
its policies.
Tonight I would like to address five points. I will begin by briefly
summarizing the situation on the ground in Kosovo in the months before the
NATO air war began. That is, the situation which has been used to justify
the war. Second, I want to raise the question of the need for foreign
military intervention in Kosovo. Third, I will argue that if such
intervention was required, only a body representative of the entire
international community could have legitimately authorized it, and only a
force with a consistent record of defending human rights might have had the
moral authority to carry out it out. The U.S. and NATO, unfortunately,
meet neither of these conditions. Fourth, I want to review the officially
stated "humanitarian" objectives of the war, and compare them to its actual
effects so far. And finally, I have a few comments about the new global
role the U.S. is attempting to define for NATO, in part through the war on
Yugoslavia.
I
The situation on the ground in Kosovo was much messier than U.S. and NATO
war propaganda would have us believe. NATO intervened in an internal armed
conflict between Yugoslav security forces and the separatist Kosovo
Liberation Army, which is estimated to have several thousand well armed
fighters. In 1997 and 1998, the KLA repeatedly attacked Yugoslav security
forces as well as civilians, both Serbs and those Albanians it considered
Serb "collaborators." By the summer of 1998 the KLA had gained control of
40% of Kosovo, and the Yugoslav Army responded with an offensive of its
own. In pursuit of their war against the KLA guerillas, Yugoslav security
forces drove some 200,000-300,000 Albanian civilians from their homes,
making them internal refugees. In addition, there is general agreement
that about 2000 people were killed in the year before the U.S. and NATO
began bombing. Sources differ, however, as to whom this total of 2000 dead
includes. Does it include all those killed on both sides, Yugoslav
soldiers and police as well as KLA guerillas? Or does it refer, rather, to
the civilian dead only? Or just to the Albanian civilians killed? Either
way, it was a human rights nightmare, but sadly not a unique one.
II
The question is, did this internal conflict, horrible as it was, require
foreign military intervention? Was such outside intervention justifiable?
I do not pretend to have a definitive answer for you, but I do believe that
more effort should have been put into negotiations before resorting to
violence. What went on at the Rambouillet talks was more of an ultimatum
than a negotiation. Whatever one might think of Milosevic and his
government, no head of state could reasonably have been expected to sign a
document like the one presented to Yugoslavia at Rambouillet, which
authorized NATO occupation not only of Kosovo, but of the entire country.
I would also point out that if Kosovo required foreign military
intervention, then there are several other regions in the world where we
should be intervening as well, for Kosovo is hardly a unique situation.
Turkey's repression of its Kurdish minority and its war against the Kurdish
separatist guerillas of the PKK are quite comparable. Yet instead of
intervening in Turkey on behalf of the PKK, which it considers a terrorist
group, the U.S. recently helped Turkey arrest and extradite PKK leader
Abdulah Ocalan. There is clearly a double standard at work here.
III
But let us assume that foreign military intervention was required in
Kosovo. If that was the case, then only a body representative of the
entire international community could legitimately have authorized such an
intervention. NATO, however, is not such a body. It does not represent
the international community as a whole. It is, rather, an exclusive club
of mostly powerful, mostly wealthy northern nations. In addition, NATO is
supposed to be a defensive alliance, and Yugoslavia had not attacked, nor
even threatened, any other country. NATO clearly had no jurisdiction in
the Kosovo conflict.
The United Nations, on the other hand, could have authorized a legitimate
intervention, but the U.S. and NATO ignored the UN because they knew Russia
and China would likely veto a military intervention in Kosovo. The U.S.
and the NATO nations that sit on the UN Security Council no doubt expect
their own vetoes to be honored, but evidently consider the UN an
organization that deserves respect only when it suits them. This kind of
behavior can only erode what little we have of the international rule of law.
A U.S.-led NATO also had no moral authority to intervene in Kosovo. A
force which violates national sovereignty on human rights grounds must
itself have a consistent record of support for human rights if it is to
avoid the charge of hypocrisy. The U.S., however, has very little
credibility in this area. I have already mentioned the case of Turkey,
where the U.S. has supported, and continues to support, a government
engaged in the violent repression of an ethnic minority. In Guatemala, the
U.S. installed a military dictatorship in 1954 and supported its various
incarnations over the next 40 years, despite the military's massacre of
some 200,000 mostly indigenous Guatemalans, 100,000 of them in the early
1980's alone. The UN human rights commission for Guatemala described this
as genocide, and during his recent visit to Guatemala, President Clinton
apologized for the U.S.'s role in it. In Mexico, the U.S. has supported
the Mexican government's war on indigenous Zapatista guerillas in Chiapas,
who certainly have at least as many, if not more, grievances against the
Mexican state as the Albanians have against Milosevic's government. And a
final example more directly related to the present case: the U.S. did
nothing to protest the Croatian Army's 5-day blitzkrieg in August 1995, in
which some 200,000 Serbs were "ethnically cleansed" from the Krajina region
of Croatia. The U.S., in fact, had advised, trained and supplied the
Croatian Army. (Milosevic, I might add, did nothing, demonstrating that he
is perfectly willing to sacrifice Serbs when it suits him.)
IV
But perhaps these questions of international law and moral authority are
mere niceties, time consuming formalities we can not afford when faced with
human rights emergencies. Perhaps the U.S.-led NATO war should be judged
instead by its publicly stated "humanitarian" objectives and the degree to
which these have been achieved. Judged by these more practical criteria,
the war is a disaster so far, and threatens to become even more disastrous
the longer it lasts.
The air war against Yugoslavia was necessary for 3 reasons, the U.S. and
NATO initially claimed:
1) to protect Albanians in Kosovo from further Serb attack
2) to prevent the destabilization of the entire region
3) to weaken Milosevic
The bombing campaign, however, has been an abject failure on all three
counts. It has, in fact, accomplished just the opposite of its stated
objectives,
1) by exposing the Albanians in Kosovo to an intensified Serb
attack in
retaliation for the NATO air strikes
2) by producing a mass exodus of 1.5 million refugees from
Kosovo,
which threatens to overwhelm neighboring countries such as Macedonia
and
Albania
3) by uniting the Yugoslav population in defense of their
country and
thus undermining internal opposition to Milosevic
Let's take a closer look at each of these consequences of NATO's air war.
First, the NATO bombing has only increased the killing in Kosovo. By
forcing the withdrawal from Kosovo of unarmed international observers from
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (who have expressed
great bitterness about this), and by putting Serbs in a position in which
they had nothing left to lose, the NATO bombing has created a situation in
which Yugoslav security forces can act with impunity. It has, in fact,
created the ideal conditions for "ethnic cleansing" to proceed unhindered.
As a result, far more people have died and been forced from their homes in
the last 6 weeks than in the entire year before the U.S. and NATO began
bombing. In addition, NATO admits (as of April 4th) to 159 civilian
victims of the bombing itself, both Serbs and Albanians, whom it refers to
as "collateral damage." The real number is probably higher, and these
direct victims of NATO will multiply as the target selection is expanded to
include more and more civilian facilities, and as B-52's are deployed to
carpet bomb the country. The "collateral damage" of NATO's air war may
soon exceed the 2000 dead of the original conflict between Yugoslav
security forces and the KLA's guerilla army.
Second, the NATO air war is destabilizing the region rather than promoting
stability. The Albanian refugees fleeing intensified Serb attack have
poured into impoverished neighboring countries, which do not have the
resources to accommodate them. The U.S. and NATO are, fortunately, though
rather belatedly, providing some assistance to relieve the heart wrenching
scenes of human misery we see each night on the news. This, however, is
only a temporary solution. The official goal is to return the refugees to
Kosovo, but will the bombing leave anything for them to return to? The war
has also brought the U.S. into confrontation with Russia, and plays into
the hands of Russian ultra-nationalists at a moment when Russia itself
seems none too stable. Such provocation of Russia seems particularly
ill-advised with Russian parliamentary and presidential elections coming up
in the next year.
Third, the NATO air war has succeeded in destroying much of Yugoslavia's
military and civilian infrastructure, but has done nothing to weaken
Milosevic. It has, in fact, only strengthened him as Yugoslavs have
rallied to the defense of their country. The NATO attack on Yugoslavia has
made internal opposition virtually impossible, and Milosevic has taken
advantage of the bombing to eliminate his opponents. The owner of two
independent newspapers critical of Milosevic, for example, was gunned down
in the streets of Belgrade recently. My cousins, who participated in
massive opposition rallies against Milosevic two years ago, are reluctant
to discuss the internal political situation with me when I call because
they assume the phones are tapped.
The U.S. and NATO now appear to be targeting Milosevic himself by bombing
at least one of his residences. There is a great irony to this, for the
U.S. and other NATO countries have at one time or another tacitly supported
the man they now demonize as the incarnation of Hitler. In the late
1980's, for example, Margaret Thatcher hailed Milosevic as a Boris Yeltsin
style "reformer." And two years ago in the winter of 1996-1997, when some
200,000 Yugoslavs took to the streets of Belgrade to protest against
Milosevic, the U.S. did nothing to help them drive him out. Some support
for the opposition movement at that time might have rid the country of
Milosevic, but the U.S. provided none.
The U.S. and NATO war on Yugoslavia, then, has failed miserably to meet any
of its publicly stated "humanitarian" objectives, and has in fact
accomplished quite the opposite. It has, in short, made a bad situation
infinitely worse. This was perfectly predictable, and it is impossible to
believe that U.S. and NATO planners were unaware of the likely consequences
of the air war. Indeed, in recent weeks U.S. officials have indicated that
they are not surprised by the results of the war. These statements, if
they are to be believed, are astonishing, for they reveal that the U.S. and
NATO launched this war fully aware that it would achieve the opposite of
its publicly articulated goals. One can only conclude that the stated
"humanitarian" objectives of the war are not the real ones, or at least not
the most important ones.
V
And indeed, the U.S. and NATO's public rhetoric has shifted in recent
weeks. While the increasingly less convincing "humanitarian"
justifications continue, we have heard more and more about how crucial this
war is to the survival of NATO. NATO, formed as a defensive alliance
against possible Soviet invasion of Western Europe, lost its reason for
being with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The U.S., however, has been
striving ever since to redefine this Cold War relic in a way that would
ensure continued U.S. hegemony over all of Europe.
According to recent statements by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,
Secretary of Defense William Cohen, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and
others, in a globalized world, threats to NATO members' interests can come
from anywhere, not just Europe. NATO's new role is to defend against such
perceived threats, and even situations which it believes might become
threats, wherever they may originate. Moreover, the new NATO, we are told,
will defend not only its material interests, but also "our values." Thus,
when no plausible material interest can be articulated, "values" will be
pressed into service, as in the case of Kosovo, where, nonetheless, the
U.S. and NATO have shown wanton disregard for the values they claim to be
defending.
Now, however much I may agree with the values espoused, this strikes me as
an extremely dangerous rationale for armed aggression. Countless horrors
have been perpetrated in the name of imposing the "correct" values on those
who are alleged to lack them. Vague talk of potential threats and the
defense of values can and will serve as a blanket authorization for any
U.S. and NATO intervention anywhere in the world. What is being proposed
is the transformation of NATO from a defensive alliance into a Globocop on
a moral crusade, in which an unrepresentative body, an exclusive club of
wealthy and powerful countries, arrogates to itself the right to police
global values. A dangerous precedent is being set in Kosovo, one which
threatens to further undermine the only institutions of international law
we have and replace them with the imperial logic of might makes right.
Even this is being done badly, for NATO has allowed itself to be maneuvered
into a corner by Milosevic, such that the fate of the alliance now appears
to rest in the hands of a third rate demagogue at the head of a dismembered
and bankrupt Balkan nation. This, perhaps, goes further toward explaining
the increasing ferocity of NATO's war, than do its ostensibly
"humanitarian" objectives.
Milosevic has in recent days expressed a willingness to accept an unarmed
UN peacekeeping force in Kosovo, and has made the goodwill gesture of
releasing 3 U.S. POW's. Rather than dismiss this gesture or interpret it
as an act of desperation and an indication of imminent capitulation, for
this would be to misread Milosevic yet again, the U.S. and NATO should
reciprocate, as Jesse Jackson has suggested. The Rev. Jackson has also
demonstrated that successful negotiations with Milosevic are possible.
This war must stop. It has gone on too long and accomplished nothing but
senseless death and destruction. Diplomacy was never really given a chance
before the air war commenced, and it is time now for an immediate
suspension of the bombing and a return to negotiations. In his recent
comments on the Columbine High School killings in Colorado, President
Clinton pleaded that "We must do more to reach out to our children and
teach them to express their anger and to resolve their conflicts with
words, not weapons." It seems to me that the President's statement
describes equally well the way out of the conflict with Yugoslavia, and we
should hold him to it. Thank you.
[PEN-L:6563] (Fwd) The U.S. and NATO's New World Disorder in Kosovo - Misha
ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224] Sun, 9 May 1999 21:46:39 -0500
