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| As for the atrocities it
now seems that here again we were lied to about the extent
of the crimes committed. United States Secretary of Defense
Cohen told us that at least 100,000 Kosovars had
perished. Tony Blair spoke of genocide being carried out
in Kosovo. The media relished in these atrocity stories
and printed every story told to them by Albanian, “eye
witnesses.” The myth that the war was to stop ethnic
cleansing and atrocities continues to be perpetrated by
department spokesmen and large parts of the media. |
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William Cohen
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| No one wants to
defend atrocities and the numbers game in such circumstances
becomes sordid. Nevertheless numbers do become important if
they are used to justify military action against a sovereign
state. In the case of Kosovo it appears that about 2000 people
were killed there prior to the NATO bombing. Considering that
a civil war had been underway since 1993 this is not a
remarkable figure and compared with a great many other hot
spots hardly enough to warrant a 79-day bombing campaign. It
is also interesting to note that the UN tribunal indictment of
Milosevic of May 1999, cites only one incident of deaths
before the bombing…the infamous Racak incident… which
itself is challenged by French journalists who were on the
ground there and suspect a frame-up involving US general
Walker who sounded the alarm. |
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| The
Kosovo “War” reveals disturbing evidence of how lies and
duplicity can mislead us into accepting things that we
instinctively know to be wrong. Jamie Shea and other
NATO apologists have lied to us about the bombing. The sad
thing is that most of the Canadian media, and our political
representatives have accepted without question what has been
told to us by NATO and our own foreign affairs spokesmen. |
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3. AN
UNNECESSARY WAR
Perhaps the
most serious charge against the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia is
that it was unnecessary. NATO chose bombing over diplomacy.
Violence over negotiation. NATO’s leaders tried to convince
us that dropping tons of bombs on Yugoslavia was serving
humanitarian purposes. |
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| A UN Security
Council resolution of October 1998 accepted by Yugoslavia,
authorized over 1300 monitors from the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe [OSCE] to enter Kosovo and
try to de-escalate the fighting. From the accounts of a number
of these monitors their task was successful. While cease-fire
violations continued on both sides the intensity of the armed
struggle was considerably abated. |
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| The
former Czech foreign minister, Jiri Dienstbier, and Canada’s
own Rollie Keith of Vancouver… both monitors for the OSCE on
the ground in Kosovo… have publicly stated that there were
no international refugees over the last five months of the
OSCE’s presence in Kosovo and the number of internally
displaced only amounted to a few thousands in the weeks
leading up to the bombing. |
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| The
OSCE mission demonstrated that diplomacy and negotiation might
well have resolved the Kosovo problem without resorting to the
use of force. It was the failure of the United States to
accept any flexibility in its dealing with Belgrade in the
weeks leading up to the war that spelled diplomatic failure. |
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| The
adamant refusal of the USA to involve either the Russians or
the United Nations in the negotiations. The refusal to allow
any other intermediary to deal with Milosevic and finally the
imposition of the Rambouillet ultimatum which was clearly
designed to ensure that Yugoslavia had no choice but to refuse
its insulting terms. |
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| It is now
generally accepted by those who have seen the Rambouillet
agreement that no sovereign state could have agreed to its
conditions. The insistence of allowing access to all of
Yugoslavia by NATO forces and the demand that a referendum on
autonomy be held within three years guaranteed a Serbian
rejection. |
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| The
Serbian parliament did, however, on March 23, state a
willingness to “examine the character and extent of an
international presence in Kosovo immediately after the signing
of an autonomy accord acceptable to all national communities
in Kosovo, the local Serb minority included.” The United
States was not interested in pursuing this offer. NATO needed
its war. NATO’s formal commitment to resolve international
disputes by peaceful means was thrown out the window. |
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| The
Rambouillet document itself was not easily obtained from NATO
sources. The Chairman of the Defence Committee of the French
National Assembly asked for a copy shortly after the bombing
commenced but was not given a copy until a few days before the
UN peace treaty was signed. I hope that members of this
committee have a copy to look at and will be able to find out
when and if Canada was informed of its conditions. |
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4.
NATO’S CAMPAIGN A TOTAL FAILURE
We have
been asked to believe that the war in Kosovo was fought for
human rights. Indeed the president of the Czech republic
received a standing ovation in this House of Commons when he
stated that Kosovo was the first war fought for human values
rather than territory. I suspect even president Havel would
have second thoughts about that statement now that a large
part of Yugoslav territory has in effect been handed over to
the Albanians. |
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| The
war allegedly to stop ethnic cleansing has not done so. Serbs,
Gypsies, Jews, and Slav Muslims are being forced out of Kosovo
under the eyes of 45,000 NATO troops. Murder and
anarchy reigns supreme in Kosovo as the KLA and criminal
elements have taken charge. The United Nations admits failure
to control the situation and warns Serbs not to return. |
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| The war allegedly
to restore stability to the Balkans has done the opposite.
Yugoslavia’s neighbors are in a state of turmoil. Montenegro
is on the edge of civil war. Macedonia is now worried that
Kosovo has shown the way for its own sizeable Albanian
minority to demand self-determination. Albania has been
encouraged to strive harder to fulfill its dream of Greater
Albania. Serbia itself has been ruined economically….
embittered and disillusioned it feels betrayed and alienated
from the western democracies. |
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| The
illegal and unnecessary war has alienated the other great
nuclear powers, Russia and China. These countries are now
convinced that the west cannot be trusted. NATO expansion
eastward is seen as an aggressive and hostile threat and will
be answered by an increase in the nuclear arsenal of both
nations. After Kosovo who can with any conviction convince
them that NATO is purely a defensive alliance dedicated to
peace and to upholding the principles of the United Nations. |
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| More
seriously the NATO bombing has destroyed NATO’s credibility.
NATO stood for more than just a powerful
military organization. It stood for peace; the rule of law,
and democratic institutions. The bombing of Yugoslavia threw
all of that out the window.
No longer can NATO stand on
the moral high ground. Its action in Yugoslavia revealed it to
be an aggressive military machine prepared to ignore
international law and intervene with deadly force in the
internal affairs of any state with whose actions or behavior
it does not agree.
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5.CONCLUSIONS
There are
those who believe that the long standing principle of state
sovereignty can be over ruled when human rights violations are
taking place in a country. Until Kosovo the ground rules for
such intervention called for Security Council authority before
such action could be taken. Apologists for NATO argue that it
was unlikely Security Council authority could have been
obtained because of the veto power of China or Russia. So it
would appear rather than even try to get consent NATO took
upon itself the powers of the Security Council. I am not sure
we should all be comfortable with this development. |
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| Undoubtedly
there may be times when such intervention is justified and
immediately Rwanda comes to mind…but intervention for
humanitarian reasons is a dangerous concept. Because who is to
decide when to take such action and under whose authority?
Hitler intervened in Czechoslovakia because he claimed the
human rights of the Sudeten Germans were being violated. Those
who advocate a change in the current rules for intervention
are free to do so but until the rules change should we not all
obey the ones that still have legitimacy? |
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| NATO
made a serious mistake in Kosovo. Its bombing campaign was not
only an unmitigated disaster but it changed fundamentally the
very nature and purposes of the alliance. Does Article 1 of
the NATO treaty still stand? Does NATO still undertake to
settle any international disputes in which it may become
involved by peaceful means? Do the NATO countries still
undertake to refrain in their international relations from the
threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the
purposes of the United Nations? |
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| Kosovo
should serve as a warning call that Canadian democracy needs a
shot in the arm to wake it up to the realities that foreign
policy is important - important because as happened one day
last march Canadians can wake up and find they are at war.
Canadian pilots were bombing Serbia. Yet there was no
declaration of war. The Canadian parliament was not consulted.
The majority of the Canadian people had no idea where Kosovo
was – let alone understand why our aircraft were bombing
cities in a fellow nation state that had been a staunch ally
during two World Wars. |
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| It
was not only Yugoslav sovereignty that was violated by
NATO’s illegal action. Canadian sovereignty was also abused.
Canada had become involved in a war without any member of the
Canadian parliament or the Canadian people being consulted.
The ultimate expression of a nation’s sovereignty is the
right to declare war. NATO abrogated this right. |
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