(Fwd) Bombings - Incompatible With Humanitarian Concerns (fwd)

FYI

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Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 18:59:24 +0000
From: Nikolai S. Rozov <rozov@nsu.ru>
To: PHILOFHI@YORKU.CA, Peter Grimes <p34d3611@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Subject: (Fwd) Bombings - Incompatible With Humanitarian Concerns

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Date:          Thu, 25 Mar 1999 00:20:32 +0200
To:            TFF PressInfo # 60 <tff@transnational.org>
From:          Transnational Foundation TFF <tff@transnational.org>
Subject:       Bombings - Incompatible With Humanitarian Concerns



P r e s s I n f o  # 6 0


B O M B I N G S   -   I N C O M P A T I B L E   W I T H

H U M A N I T A R I A N   C O N C E R N S


March 24, 1999 23.00



"NATO's unwise, counterproductive and non-legal bombing of sovereign
Yugoslavia is justified by President Bill Clinton, EU and other Western
leaders and media with reference to humanitarian concerns. Supposedly air
strikes serve to stop ethnic cleansing, future massacres, refugee flows,
and prevent innocent children and women from being killed. Diplomatically
expressed, this comes from the marketing department. Bombings will to
produce what it purports to prevent," says Dr. Jan Oberg, TFF's director,
right after the bombing campaign has started. According to Oberg, this
argument lacks credibility for the following reasons:


NO VIOLENCE-PREVENTION
Why did the West do absolutely nothing before this crisis became violent?
There were many opportunities for a negotiated solutions. TFF, for
instance, has suggested a variety of options since 1992 that could have
prevented violence and the killing we've seen the last year. In no other
conflict has there been so many early warnings and so little preventive
diplomacy. Kosovo's catastrophe was among the most predictable of all. It
is intellectual nonsense that 'everything else has been tried and NATO
bombings was the only option left.'

HUMANITARIAN WORK MADE IMPOSSIBLE BY NATO THREATS
The immediate consequence of the threats of NATO air strikes is that OSCE's
Verification mission had to be withdrawn and that almost all humanitarian
organizations withdrew to protect their staff. More refugees are now
running over the border to Macedonia. With fewer ears and eyes on the
ground, its free for all sides - NATO included - to step up the killing.

THIS WILL MAKE SERBS AND ALBANIANS HATE EACH OTHER (MORE)
NATO bombings will be perceived as a punishment of Serbs and a clear
support to Albanian hardliners. Serbs will feel that it was the Albanian
side that called this hell upon them. Thus, the little hope we may have had
about Serbs and Albanians living peaceful together or as trustful
neighbours in the foreseeable future, is now gone. Producing hate is the
opposite of a humanitarian effort.

MANY MORE DIE IN OTHER CONFLICTS, WITHOUT HUMANITARIAN CONCERNS
The Kosovo war has caused the death of about 2.000 people during the last
year. This is serious, every human life is sacred. However, the
international community has chosen NOT to intervene in the following when:
80.000 have been killed in Algeria; perhaps 10.000 in the
Ethiopian-Eritrean war the last couple of weeks; 820,000 in Rwanda the last
five years; 1.500,000 in Sudan the last 15 years; more than 1 million
people have died because of the Western sanctions against the Iraqi people;
perhaps as many as 500,000 have died in Burma since 1948.

THE WORLD'S REAL HUMANITARIAN PROBLEMS ARE NOT ADDRESSED
An estimated 100.000 people's die PER DAY, around the world - not in wars
but because they lack the most basic such as water, clothes, shelter, food,
medicine. 100 mill people have no home; there are already some 40 million
refugees; 70 Third World countries have lower standards of living today
than 30 years ago; at least 800 million people go hungry to bed. In money
terms, a fraction of the world's military expenditures could alleviate most
of that suffering.

THERE IS ALWAYS MONEY FOR WEAPONS BUT NOT FOR HUMAN BEINGS
The world's military expenditures - NATO making up most of it - equals the
combined income of the 50% poorest of the world's population. Pentagon
alone spends 20 times more than the entire budget of the United Nations.
And the UN - the world's most important humanitarian organization - is
completely ignored in the Kosovo conflict and, these very days, forced out
of Macedonia. When will the media begin to ask what this type of
'peace'-making costs - and what we could do in terms of real relief and
peace for a similar sum?

THERE HAVE LONG BEEN LARGER HUMANITARIAN PROBLEMS IN YUGOSLAVIA
250.000 citizens are now displaced inside Kosovo or refugees in Macedonia -
about 10% of the Kosovo-Serbs and 10% of the Kosovo-Albanians. They
certainly need help. But so do the 650.000 mostly Serb refugees (according
to UNHCR) who have fled from Croatia, Bosnia and elsewhere during the
dissolution of ex-Yugoslavia, about half of them ethnically cleansed from
Croatia in 1995. from Croatia. It's Europe's largest refugee problem -
largely going unnoticed.

SANCTIONS CREATE HUMANITARIAN PROBLEMS
Why has the West upheld various types of sanctions against the people of
Yugoslavia since 1991? The majority of citizens suffer one way or the other
from that, not the least the sick and the pensioners. They and everybody
else will stand behind President Milosevic in this crisis.

IS THIS RHETORIC AIMED TO CONVINCED WOMEN?
All the 'soft' humanitarian coating of this type of militarist policies is
probably an attempt to  convince women, soldiers' and pilots' wives and
mothers and the general do-good sentiment in the American public. But will
they still believe this when the casualty figures rise?

Says Dr. Oberg: "Our thoughts go to all friends and colleagues of the
foundation, Serbs, Albanians, Macedonians and others in all of the region,
innocent good-hearted people who are again to pay the price for 'politics'
and power game by their own leaders and the international community's
leaders. Citizens in NATO countries were not heard either. Thus, I draw the
following conclusion about this type of B-52 humanitarianism," says Dr.
Oberg:

1) Humanitarian concerns is the rhetoric of the smiling Western crocodile.
It is either deliberate misinformation or a view based on incomplete
analysis. There IS no global political will to do something about
humanitarian problems where they really exist.

2) In Kosovo, we risk blowing up a low-casualty war to become a major war
and creating a tenfold larger humanitarian catastrophe.

3) It seems the only humanitarian problems in which there is a political
will to do something are those which seem fit for 'NATO treatment' - in
short, it is faked.

4) What a wonderful world it would be if the world's most powerful nation,
its president and its allies WERE determined TO DO SOMETHING to alleviate
suffering around the world.

5) Now the combination of their limited creativity, their unlimited
cocksureness and overwhelming military power threatens to only  INCREASE
the world's humanitarian problems."


c TFF 1999
  
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Dr. Jan Oberg
Director, head of the TFF Conflict-Mitigation team
to the Balkans and Georgia

T F F

Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research
Vegagatan 25, S - 224 57 Lund, Sweden
Phone +46-46-145909 (0900-1100)
Fax +46-46-144512
Email
tff@transnational.org
http://www.transnational.org


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