The
Horrendous Price of G8 Peace!
TFF PressInfo
69
June 9, 1999
"Here we go again: Media around the world tell us that
there is a 'peace' process, 'peace' negotiations and a
'peace' agreement soon to be concluded. There will be NATO
'peace-keepers' in Kosovo. They tell that Yugoslavia and the
Balkans are taking the first steps to long-term 'peace' and
stability.
To a peace professional it's all Orwellian Newspeak. This
authoritarian NATO operation bodes ill for the future, for
world order, normativity, lawful governance, democracy,
moral politics and indeed peace," says TFF director Jan
Oberg. "The present and future costs of this type of peace
policy are unacceptable and out of proportion with the
Albanian-Serb problem it purported to solve in the first
place. Today Serbs and Albanians are more polarised and
hateful than ever. The very least would be to stop using the
word 'peace' under circumstances like this.
There are those who say that there were no alternatives -
but they suffer from either a) lack of knowledge about
conflict-resolution, b) lack of political imagination, c)
self-censorship or d) authoritarian NATO-fundamentalist
attitudes - or perhaps all of it in some proportion. Here
are some facts."
Human costs and war crimes
Since NATO started bombing on March 24, the number of
refugees and displaced have increased from around 50.000 to
800.000; the number of dead and wounded increased from
around 2.000 to an estimated 15.000. Atrocities have been
committed by the Yugoslav/Serb side, by KLA and by NATO; the
latter has used depleted uranium bombs and cluster bombs and
otherwise violated internal law by deliberately destroying
predominantly civilian objects and terrorising millions of
civilians.
Cost of destruction, bombing and re-construction
The Kosovo - or independent republic of Kosova - we
wanted to preserve is demolished; the rest of Yugoslavia
partly in ruins. The immediate direct material costs range
between US $ 50 and 150 bn, the indirect and long-term costs
may be several times bigger. No one knows the costs of the
bombing - 33.000 sorties by 1100 planes, aircraft carriers,
bombs, missiles, ammunition, surveillance, international
coordination, fuel, supplies, wages, insurance, social
benefits, transport, etc - but if we estimate it at US $ 500
million per day, we come close to US $ 40 bn. The region now
faces a huge environmental destruction, the Danube in
particularly affected. The US has carried out most of the
destruction, the EU will be footing the bill for
reconstruction - a tremendous burden on the EU.
NATO in Yugoslavia/Kosovo - armed 'peace' and no
independent Kosova
50.000 NATO troops in Kosovo is more than the repressive
Yugoslav government ever had in the province. None of the
agreements or, rather, dictates make reference to
institutionalised consultations with the Yugoslav
government. Except for the possibility that a referendum may
be held later, there is no mention of an independent Kosova,
and the KLA/UCK must be disarmed. So, neither the Serb nor
the Albanian side is going to get or achieve anything beyond
what NATO will allow them to.
Next, likely exodus of Serbs
The G 8 document stipulates a complete withdrawal of
Yugoslav military and police (with the return of a few,
later) from the Kosovo province where, by the way, many of
them were born and raised. The region will be occupied
mostly by those NATO countries under US leadership that
bombed Yugoslavia into de facto capitulation. A Russian
contingent will be co-located and not cover any zone by
itself. If so, one can hardly expect many Serbs will feel
safe enough to stay, let alone return.
There will be more refugees, the majority won't go
back in the near future
Let's look at ALL the refugees. There are some 800.000
Albanian refugees. It is highly unlikely that they will be
able to go back this year; getting 50.000 troops operable in
a heap of ruins full of mines and with no water is not done
overnight. And what would they come home to? After 4 years
about 10% of the refugees have returned to
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Then there is the other - forgotten - refugee problem.
Since 1995 Yugoslavia has hosted some 600.000 predominantly
Serb refugees from Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia. There are
150.000 to 200.000 Serbs in Kosovo; if they choose to leave
the province, there are equally many Serbs inside and
Albanians outside waiting to come home.
Media attention is almost exclusively on the Albanians
and, thus, the willingness to bring humanitarian aid to all
in need is likely to be met with 'donor fatigue.' In
addition, the bombings have made many leave Belgrade and
other parts of Yugoslavia for Hungary and other European
countries (if they can) and displaced thousands inside
Yugoslavia. Finally, when the worst is over we may expect
hundreds of thousands of FRY citizens wanting to leave as
they see no future for themselves and their children in the
double cage of the Milosevic regime, the NATO occupation and
their combined devastation of the country. So the real
refugee problem may reach 2 million people.
Neighbouring countries suffer
Countries around have paid a multi-billion dollar price
too. Although some may capitalise on it, full compensation
is out of the question. Macedonia is on the verge of
collapse; Albania is converted to a combined refugee camp on
the one hand and a NATO base and UCK training ground on the
other. Croatia suffers a heavy blow to its tourist industry
this summer. All Yugoslavia's trade partners have lost that
market, first during years of sanctions and now because of
the devastation. It can not be disputed that this type of
peacemaking has destabilized the region for years to
come.
A new Cold War approaching
And there is a larger framework. The Ukrainian
parliament has voted unanimously to revert the country to
its former nuclear status. On April 30, a meeting of the
Russian National Security Council approved the modernisation
of all strategic and tactical nuclear warheads. It decided
to develop strategic low-yield nuclear missiles capable of
pin-point strikes anywhere in the world. The defence
ministry authorised a change in nuclear doctrine. Thus
Russians feel humiliated through the 1990s, but go along
with most US/Western demands because of its frail
leadership, its economic weakness - it can hardly pay for
its own troops to be deployed in Kosovo for years ahead -
and its dependence on the West. And in Beijing, the bombing
of the Chinese Belgrade embassy has resulted in a shift away
from the no-first-strike principle. Add the spy accusation,
human rights policies and WTO negotiations and we begin to
see the contours of a new Cold War. Russia, China and India
- and others - have learnt not to trust the stated peaceful
aims of the West. Many countries with secessionist
minorities are likely to anxiously wonder when they will get
the treatment Yugoslavia did.
Strengthening the principle that might makes right
Without being unduly philosophical, remember Gandhi's
famous dictum that 'means are ends-in-the-making.' Mighty
weapons, NATO dictates, de facto occupation and an
all-dominating US presence can not bring genuine peace and
democracy to the peoples of the Balkans. It is not diplomacy
backed up with force, it's force backed up with diplomacy.
The process has systematically marginalised small NATO
countries, non-NATO countries, the UN, OSCE and NGOs. It has
torn to pieces every vision of a multi-cultural,
participative world order and the principle of bringing
about peace by peaceful means. We are ALL worse off with
this outcome," says Dr. Oberg and ends:
"This whole process displays too much muscle, too little
intellect and no heart. It should be humanly possible to
imagine a slightly better balance between the three, and
only such better balance would deserve to be called
peace."
© TFF 1999
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