Commentary on the Nato action in Kosovo in 1999 by Johan Galtung
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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. Theonly original position would be to be in favor of both, a view probablyonly entertained by arms dealers.
There are those who try to make us believe that you have to make achoice between NATO and Milosevic; if you are against one for sure you are infavor of the other. Nonsense. Early on in this horrible decade many ofthe 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 againstboth.
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 ofobservers 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 inconnection with the Gulf war: he (Gelbard) told Beograd that the USA was of theview that KLA were terrorists - certainly also the Beograd position. The alternative would have been to close the border by extending the UNmandateon 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 presentingMilosevic with an ultimatum he could not accept. TheRambouillet charadewas about this. People started getting suspicious when they discoveredthat the media did not bring the text; it had to be dug out from obscuresites on the Internet. I asked some journalists to make an inquiry in one of these 19 democracies, my own, Norway: no parliamentarian had read thetext. Democracy is about informed participation. The Serbs knew: lossofsovereignty and territorial integrity, unlimited NATO access to Serbia. Nostate 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 theywere 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 ofUSA and Germany.
Anyone could have told in advance; that the Kosovars would escapeeverybody 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 mediainto obedience so that dissenting voices are not hear. There is a difference between now and last time in the Gulf, however: on the Internetanybody can read some of the most brilliant people of our time as acounterweight to lobotomized media who bring important information, like what Rambouillet was about, two month later. Too late for democracy,goodenough for democratic totalitarianism (Zinoviev.)
Did NATO bombing bring about the ethnic cleansing of the Kosovars inaddition to producing close to one million refugees, or would the Serbshave engaged in ethnic cleansing anyhow? Again, the alternative to NATObombing was never to do nothing, as pointed out above. There arefascistforces among the Serbs, the chetniki, Arkan's tigers, Sesel's Eagles – it is almost unbelievable that the media and the tribunal have not focusedmore on them. Why not - because Milosevic is the symbol of the Serbiannation and the Republic of Yugoslavia, he is the one they want to hit,notthe key architects of the cleansing. But leaving that aside: this isone more case of a false dichotomy.
Of course the NATO bombing was stimulated, among other factors, bySerbianethnic cleansing in Croatia and Bosnia - regardless of complex causesandothers who did the same these were facts and the West (calling itself"theinternational community") was frustrated, aggressive, "never again".
And of course the NATO bombing led to ethnic cleansing as pointed outabove: just imagine the post-Rambouillet hatred and the comparison withAugust 1995. Three times have the Serbs been maneuvered into a minority positions exposed to their old enemies without the federal protectionthatwas basic to Tito's Yugoslavia: in Croatia, in Bosnia, in Kosovo. Threetimes have they overreacted, inexcusably, but not unexplainably.
Ethnic cleansing brought about the NATO bombing, the NATO bombingbrought 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 SecretaryPerez de Cuellar's advice to Genscher December 1991: be sure that anyrecognition is acceptable to minorities, that parts of Yugoslavia are dealtwith symmetrically, and that there is a policy for Yugoslavia as awhole.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 allvictims, most of them more innocent than others, of a situation mostnations would have found impossible. They need compassion, help; not guns and bombs. Divide them into "worthy" and "unworthy" victims, and peacebecomes unattainable. They have all the same right to recognition andself-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/USAfrom Krajina/Slavonia August 1995. Serbian ultra-reactions included total condemnation of the international community, and "we can do the same".TheWestern media found little or no space for their suffering. Hence, both must be recognized as basic problems, they must all be guaranteed theirsafe return. And then upgrade the status of Krajina/Slavonia inCroatia, 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 minoritiesin Yugoslavia we end up with close to 15 parts. "Jedinstvo", a unitary orfederal 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 peaceprocess. 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 inbig numbers, take over.
[5] The UN Secretary General appoints a board of mediators known forwisdom 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 andCooperation in South East Europe (CSCSEE), with all parts of Yugoslavia,and all SE European countries as members, with points like [1]-[3] on theagenda, pending the report from the team mentioned in [5] above.
[7] The Presidents of Slovenia and Macedonia convene a civil societyconference, using expertise in all parts of Yugoslavia, to project images of future relations within ex-Yugoslavia, and does the same for futurerelations within South East Europe (in cooperation with, say, Hungaryand 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 havingbelligerent groups cooperating, doing the task together, not giving thatenormous task away to outside entrepreneurs.
[10] If any border has to be drawn or redrawn the principles of theDanish-German 1920 Schleswig-Holstein partition are used.
However, however. I started by saying that I am against both NATO bombingand ethnic cleansing. Like most people in the world, I assume, perhaps not in belligerent Western Europe, filled with the self-righteousness of theirinterpretation of how society should be governed. Nine hundred yearsago, when they launched the Crusades, it used to be their special interpretationof God and Jesus Christ, not Jewish, not Orthodox, not Muslim. Theykilledas 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, withmore good will, more creativity, a little time and less dualism, lessdemonization. Milosevic is very far from a new Hitler. He does not have anew concept of world order, run from above. He is essentially anadministrator of very unfortunate traits in the Serbian psyche, amegalomania 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 thereareelements of the mafia boss, but they are ubiquitous in these globalizingdays.
The other problem, NATO bombing, is more problematic. But the bombers haveone good question to which they have the wrong answer. The question is:what do we do when the doctrine of national sovereignty protects thestatethat insults the human rights of its own population? The answer cannot possibly to insult these human rights even more. Rather, we could learnfrom the USA: there are federal crimes, and there is federal police pre-stationed all over. How about pre-stationing UN observers and UN troopsall over as a preventive measure?
Human rights are universal. They are also indivisible, a country cannotdetach the economic and social rights, accepting only the civil andpolitical. Many criminals would like to do the same to the criminal codein 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 NATOcountries and, probably, much of the rest of the world, particularly the part caught in the US pincer move of expanding NATO eastward at the sametime as they expand AMPO westward. Eurasia, the home of more than halfofhumanity is watching what happens with great anxiety. Who is next inline to be bombed? Or, could it be in Latin America, like Colombia, the USAnotusing NATO but using TIAP, the Latin American military system?
The world today has a major problem. That problem has a name. The nameisnot Milosevic, he is the small town villain. The name of the problem isUnited States of America.
Their sense of exceptionalism, being above ordinary states and nations,isattractive. To break that many international law paragraphs can only bejustified if you are above the law, in a direct relation to a God of theuniverse who "created America to bring order to the world" (ColinPowell) 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 thenon-believers. An old Western tradition.
Let us hope that this intoxicating frenzy of violence to torture theSerbsinto capitulation will be followed by some soberness. Preferably intimeto prevent a Third world war.
Johan Galtung is a Professor of Peace Studies and the director of TRANSCEND: A Peace and Development Network.
