The
NATO War, The Ethnic Cleansing - Is There a Way
Out?
TFF PressInfo
70
June 10, 1999
By Johan Galtung*
Dr hc mult, Professor of Peace Studies,
Director, TRANSCEND: A Peace and Development Network
TFF Associate
"Where do I stand: very simply, I am against the NATO
bombing, I am against ethnic cleansing, whether by Serbs or
anybody else -- for instance by the immigrants to North
America who in the period 1600-1900 cleansed away about
10,000,000 American Indians. I find nothing original in my
position. The only original position would be to be in favor
of both, a view probably only entertained by arms
dealers.
There are those who try to make us believe that you have to
make a choice between NATO and Milosevic; if you are against
one for sure you are in favor of the other. Nonsense. Early
on in this horrible decade many of the same people tried to
make us believe that you had to make a choice between the
Gulf war and Saddam Hussein; again, perfectly possible to be
against both.
Then, the second example of this terrible dualism, the
terror of the false dichotomy as we academics say: there was
no alternative, if you do not accept the NATO bombing it
means that you are co-responsible for ethnic cleansing in
Kosovo. Nonsense.
There was an alternative and even a very good one: step
of the number of observers in the OSCE Kosovo Verification
Mission (KVM) from 1,200 to, say, 6,000, 12,000. Handies and
binoculars, living in the villages, bringing in volunteers.
But at the same time there was a civil war going on from
February 1998, and one US ambassador had done what the US
did in connection with the Gulf war: he (Gelbard) told
Beograd that the USA was of the view that KLA were
terrorists - certainly also the Beograd position. The
alternative would have been to close the border by extending
the UN mandate on the Macedonian-Kosovo border, step up
OSCE, and then call a major conference on South East
Europe.
Nothing like this happened; as we know the war was
decided early last fall; only a question of preparing the
public through the media, and presenting Milosevic with an
ultimatum he could not accept. The Rambouillet charade was
about this. People started getting suspicious when they
discovered that the media did not bring the text; it had to
be dug out from obscure sites on the Internet. I asked some
journalists to make an inquiry in one of these 19
democracies, my own, Norway: no parliamentarian had read the
text. Democracy is about informed participation. The Serbs
knew: loss of sovereignty and territorial integrity,
unlimited NATO access to Serbia. No state signs itself into
occupation and dismemberment. The Kosovars also knew: this
was not the independence they wanted; it looked more like a
protectorate under NATO. So they voted no. In some way or
another they were made to change their vote well knowing
that the combination No-Yes would release the bombing of the
Serbs. It did, on 24 March, also releasing more hatred than
ever of the Kosovars, among Serbs. Fresh in their memory was
how the Croats have driven them out; with the help of USA
and Germany.
Anyone could have told in advance; that the Kosovars
would escape everybody knew. To claim the opposite is only
possible if you live an isolated existence in some boys'
club in a war room, capable of whipping the media into
obedience so that dissenting voices are not hear. There is a
difference between now and last time in the Gulf, however:
on the Internet anybody can read some of the most brilliant
people of our time as a counterweight to lobotomized media
who bring important information, like what Rambouillet was
about, two month later. Too late for democracy, good enough
for democratic totalitarianism (Zinoviev.)
Did NATO bombing bring about the ethnic cleansing of the
Kosovars in addition to producing close to one million
refugees, or would the Serbs have engaged in ethnic
cleansing anyhow? Again, the alternative to NATO bombing was
never to do nothing, as pointed out above. There are fascist
forces among the Serbs, the chetniki, Arkan's tigers,
Sesel's Eagles - it is almost unbelievable that the media
and the tribunal have not focussed more on them. Why not -
because Milosevic is the symbol of the Serbian nation and
the Republic of Yugoslavia, he is the one they want to hit,
not the key architects of the cleansing. But leaving that
aside: this is one more case of a false dichotomy.
Of course the NATO bombing was stimulated, among other
factors, by Serbian ethnic cleansing in Croatia and Bosnia -
regardless of complex causes and others who did the same
these were facts and the West (calling itself "the
international community") was frustrated, aggressive, "never
again".
And of course the NATO bombing led to ethnic cleansing as
pointed out above: just imagine the post-Rambouillet hatred
and the comparison with August 1995. Three times have the
Serbs been maneuvered into a minority positions exposed to
their old enemies without the federal protection that was
basic to Tito's Yugoslavia: in Croatia, in Bosnia, in
Kosovo. Three times have they overreacted, inexcusably, but
not unexplainably.
Ethnic cleansing brought about the NATO bombing, the NATO
bombing brought about more ethnic cleansing in a vicious
circle of mutual causation. Murder, killing, destruction,
hatred. trauma; NATO torturing the Serbs, the Serbs
torturing the Kosovars, soon the time will come to the
Kosovars.
How do we get out of this? Here is one set of
ideas:
Peace, if wanted, could be near; guided by former UN
General Secretary Perez de Cuellar's advice to Genscher
December 1991: be sure that any recognition is acceptable to
minorities, that parts of Yugoslavia are dealt with
symmetrically, and that there is a policy for Yugoslavia as
a whole. But first a basic assumption that holds the key to
a peace beyond ceasefire:
[0] Equal recognition of the suffering and rights
of all: They are all victims, most of them more innocent
than others, of a situation most nations would have found
impossible. They need compassion, help; not guns and bombs.
Divide them into "worthy" and "unworthy" victims, and peace
becomes unattainable. They have all the same right to
recognition and self-determination.
[1] Build on the symmetry Croatia-Bosnia/1995 and
Serbia/1999: The 650,000 Serbian refugees in Serbia were in
part driven out by the Croats/USA from Krajina/Slavonia
August 1995. Serbian ultra-reactions included total
condemnation of the international community, and "we can do
the same". The Western media found little or no space for
their suffering. Hence, both must be recognized as basic
problems, they must all be guaranteed their safe return. And
then upgrade the status of Krajina/Slavonia in Croatia, and
Kosovo/a in Serbia, possibly to republic status.
[2] A possible quadrilateral deal: A (Croats)
gives return and status to B (Serbs), B gives return/status
to C (Kosovars), C gives access to mineral resources/harbors
to D (Slavic Muslims) and D inclusion of the Croat part of
Bosnia/Herzegovina to A.
[3] A Yugoslav confederation: If some autonomy is
given to all minorities in Yugoslavia we end up with close
to 15 parts. "Jedinstvo", a unitary or federal state, is
out. But "bratstvo" as confederation of human rights
respecting countries, is not.
So much for a peace outcome. For that to happen there
has to be a peace process. Here are elements of a peace
process:
[4] The killing on all sides stops,
NATO/Serbia/KLA forces are withdrawn, NATO from the Balkans;
Serbian and Kosovar forces from Kosova, UN forces with OSCE
observers, with a composition acceptable to all parties, and
in big numbers, take over.
[5] The UN Secretary General appoints a board of
mediators known for wisdom and autonomy, like Jimmy Carter,
Perez de Cuellar, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Julius
Nyerere, Mary Robinson, Richard von Weizsaecker for
one-on-one dialogues with all parties to identify acceptable
and sustainable outcome.
[6] The UN Secretary General convenes a
Conference for the Security and Cooperation in South East
Europe (CSCSEE), with all parts of Yugoslavia, and all SE
European countries as members, with points like
[1]-[3] on the agenda, pending the report
from the team mentioned in [5] above.
[7] The Presidents of Slovenia and Macedonia
convene a civil society conference, using expertise in all
parts of Yugoslavia, to project images of future relations
within ex-Yugoslavia, and does the same for future relations
within South East Europe (in cooperation with, say, Hungary
and Greece).
[8] The peoples of Yugoslavia are invited to
participate in the peace process, forming multi-national
dialogue groups all over, coming forward with concrete ideas
based on local dialogues.
[9] Reconstruction is systematically used for
reconciliation by having belligerent groups cooperating,
doing the task together, not giving that enormous task away
to outside entrepreneurs.
[10] If any border has to be drawn or redrawn the
principles of the Danish-German 1920 Schleswig-Holstein
partition are used.
However, however. I started by saying that I am against
both NATO bombing and ethnic cleansing. Like most people in
the world, I assume, perhaps not in belligerent Western
Europe, filled with the self-righteousness of their
interpretation of how society should be governed. Nine
hundred years ago, when they launched the Crusades, it used
to be their special interpretation of God and Jesus Christ,
not Jewish, not Orthodox, not Muslim. They killed as many as
they could lay hands on, limited only by their more
artisanal killing technology those days.
As indicated above, I feel the problems of Yugoslavia can
be solved, with more good will, more creativity, a little
time and less dualism, less demonization. Milosevic is very
far from a new Hitler. He does not have a new concept of
world order, run from above. He is essentially an
administrator of very unfortunate traits in the Serbian
psyche, a megalomania and paranoia almost as high as that of
the USA, about at the same level as can be found in Saddam
Hussein's Iraq. In addition there are elements of the mafia
boss, but they are ubiquitous in these globalizing days.
The other problem, NATO bombing, is more problematic. But
the bombers have one good question to which they have the
wrong answer. The question is: what do we do when the
doctrine of national sovereignty protects the state that
insults the human rights of its own population? The answer
cannot possibly to insult these human rights even more.
Rather, we could learn from the USA: there are federal
crimes, and there is federal police pre-stationed all over.
How about pre-stationing UN observers and UN troops all over
as a preventive measure?
Human rights are universal. They are also indivisible, a
country cannot detach the economic and social rights,
accepting only the civil and political. Many criminals would
like to do the same to the criminal code in their country as
the USA does to the International Bill of Rights, ratifying
one of the 16 December 1966 covenants, not the economic and
social rights.
We are heading for a major world confrontation between
the 19 NATO countries and, probably, much of the rest of the
world, particularly the part caught in the US pincer move of
expanding
NATO eastward at the same time as they expand AMPO
westward. Eurasia, the home of more than half of humanity is
watching what happens with great anxiety. Who is next in
line to be bombed? Or, could it be in Latin America, like
Colombia, the USA not using NATO but using TIAP, the Latin
American military system?
The world today has a major problem. That problem has a
name. The name is not Milosevic, he is the small town
villain. The name of the problem is United States of
America.
Their sense of exceptionalism, being above ordinary
states and nations, is attractive. To break that many
international law paragraphs can only be justified if you
are above the law, in a direct relation to a God of the
universe who "created America to bring order to the world"
(Colin Powell) or, in more secular terms, "a global nation
with global interests" (Shalikashvili). Smaller states flock
to the Exceptional one to reflect, like the cold moon, some
of the light, not to mention the heat, burning the
non-believers. An old Western tradition.
Let us hope that this intoxicating frenzy of violence to
torture the Serbs into capitulation will be followed by some
soberness. Preferably in time to prevent a Third world
war.
* TV/Radio Interviews, Meetings; Sergels Torg, Stockholm
May 24, 1999
© TRANSCEND, Johan Galtung & TFF 1999
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