http://www.deltax.net/bissett/a-anniversary.htm ANNIVERSARY OF SHAME: MARCH 1999-MARCH 2002 "Bayronica", March 2002 * On March 24 Serbian people around the world will recall with horror the shameful destruction of their country by the US led NATO Alliance. Three years ago, for 78 days and nights, NATO aircraft pounded Yugoslavia inflicting terrible damage on the civilian infrastructure of the country. The use of cluster bombs and weapons containing depleted uranium caused hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries. The psychological scars inflicted on the people may never be reconciled. This was an illegal and unjustified act of blatant aggression. That it was carried out by the democratic nations of Western Europe and North America only added to the bewilderment and horror. The ongoing trial of the former Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, can only be seen as a desperate attempt to justify NATO's criminal actions. It will not succeed. The legacy of Madeline Albright's war will be the dishonour it has brought to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Kosovo was NATO's fatal error. For more than forty years, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization protected the West from the very real threat of aggressive Soviet communism. It was an organization respected and admired by all free men. NATO was more than just a powerful military alliance. It was founded on a bedrock of morality and high principle. It stood for the principles of the United Nations Charter. It stood for democracy, for the rule of law and for all of those things our fathers and grandfathers had fought for in two cataclysmic World Wars. All of this changed in the spring of 1999 when NATO bombers launched its unprovoked and illegal assault against the sovereign state of Yugoslavia. The idea for NATO grew out of a suggestion proposed in 1948 by the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Louis St. Laurent, that the European Defense Alliance of five European countries be expanded to include the United States and Canada. A year later in April 1949 the treaty was signed in Washington and NATO was born. NATO was a defensive alliance. The first article of the Treaty made this clear. Article 1 read in part, " The parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved, by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered.and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations." After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of the Warsaw Pact forces in Eastern Europe the reason for NATO's continuing existence began to come under serious scrutiny. Why maintain such a large and expensive military organization in Western Europe when any threat from the former Soviet Union had evaporated? Before this question could be resolved, however, a new role for the Alliance was discovered. The violent breakup of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the early 1990's provided NATO with a new mission- that of peace keeping. As violence and bloodshed spread in Croatia and Bosnia, the peacekeeping role turned into direct military action. Under the leadership of the United States, NATO intervened in the civil war in Yugoslavia and carried out air strikes against Serbian forces in Croatia and Bosnia. These air strikes were not conducted for defensive purposes. None of the NATO countries was threatened by the Yugoslav conflict. However, the strikes were carried out with the authority and approval of the Security Council of the United Nations. Therefore, while clearly in violation of the spirit of Article 1 of NATO's Treaty, it could be argued the military action was in keeping with the purposes of the United Nations. After Bosnia there was no further talk about dismantling NATO. On the contrary, the air strikes had given new life to the organization. Now the talk was of expansion and for new missions to be undertaken. NATO was on a slippery slope. Armed rebellion in the Serbian Province of Kosovo, [fomented as we now know by the intelligence services of at least three of the NATO countries] provided the United States with the opportunity of employing NATO in an attempt to bring down the despised Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic. Using as an excuse its failure to sign the infamous Rambouillet Agreement, NATO began to bomb Yugoslavia in March 1999. The bombing continued for 78 days until a peace treaty was brokered by the Russians and the United Nations. The bombing was a violation of NATO's First Article, a violation of the United Nations Charter and contrary to international law. Ironically- and shamefully- none of the democratic leaders of NATO member countries [with the exception of Greece] challenged the US led bombing. When Madeline Albright, the United States Secretary of State, was informed shortly before the bombing by the British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cooke, that lawyers in his Ministry believed the bombing to be illegal if done without UN approval, she abruptly dismissed his concern by telling him to, "Get new lawyers!" While the bombing continued, NATO celebrated its fiftieth birthday in Washington. This was the occasion to announce a new "Strategic Concept" for the organization. Now there was no reference to Article 1 of the Treaty, no mention of settling international disputes by peaceful means or complying with the principles of the United Nations. NATO was no longer a "defensive organization." It was to be modernized and made ready for the new century. The niceties of international law and the formalities of obtaining UN approval before intervening in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state were to be set aside in favour of, "conflict prevention," of "crisis management," and " crisis response operations. " These are the buzzwords that have turned the original treaty upside down. But nobody seems to care. We now have a "treaty on wheels" that can be used for whatever purposes the United States wants it to be used for. Wheel it out whenever it is convenient and use it when it is awkward to obtain legislative authority to wage war. A sad state of affairs and a dreadful indictment of the readiness of today's political leaders to mould international instruments and treaties in whatever image serves their immediate needs. If a Treaty is to be amended or changed it must be approved and ratified by the legislatures of the contracting states. This has not been done in the case of the North Atlantic Treaty and it is unlikely it will be done. NATO has become just another tool of American foreign policy. It serves as a useful political cover to justify United States use of military power. NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia will be regarded by future historians as the act that completely dismantled the international security framework so carefully crafted by democratic statesmen in the aftermath of two World Wars and the advent of nuclear weapons. It will be marked, as the point in history when other so-called democratic leaders acted dishonorably to set the clock back to the days prior to the Second World War when military might was the only criterion that counted in the conduct of international relations. James Bissett [Former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia 1990 -1992] *Newsletter of the Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
