European Appeal
For a just and durable peace in the Balkans
"Stop NATO, and support Kosovo self-determination" was too difficult a message for most of the west European left. The following pan European statement was the high point in a frustrating race against the bombers and the Serb paramilitaries. Paris, May 15, 1999 66 The participants in the international meeting, held in Paris on May 15,
1999, gave voice to numerous and converging appeals, in Europe and in the United States, that have expressed their opposition both to the ethnic purification in Kosovo and to the NATO bombings against Yugoslavia.
The states that have launched or supported this undeclared war, waged outside the bounds of international legality, have claimed that it is moral and legitimate, justifying it exclusively in terrms of the defense of the rights—and the lives—of a people.
They admit that "errors" or "collateral damage" have been committed, but these are said to be mere missteps in an effort that is "moving in the right direction" . All criticism of NATO, we are told, aids and abets the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, or at best refuses to combat his reactionary policies.
All this is untrue. What evaluation can be made of these past several weeks of NATO bombings? It has been a tragedy! With each passing day, the war ee International Viewpoint #313 July 1999 worsens the situation of the civilian population and makes it more and more difficult to resolve the national conflicts in Kosovo and throughout the Balkan region.
We cannot consider as moral or legitimate a war which • provides a pretext for a terrible aggravation of the fate of the Kosovar people-a people it claims to be helping and whose exodus it is in fact provoking • unifies the Yugoslav population around the repressive regime of
Slobodan Milosevic—a population that is thus blinded to Belgrade's responsibilities regarding the ethnic purification of the Kosovars; • reinforces the Milosevic regime and makes the democratic opposition in
Serbia and Montenegro even more fragile, and which destabilizes Macedonia • is based on a bombing campaign which kills civilian populations, and destroys infrastructure, factories and schools.
This war contradicts its own proclaimed goals in every respect. It has provoked a catastrophic chain of events from which we must escape as fast as possible: the intensification of the bombings, pursued in order that NATO may protect its "credibility", and the brutal and massive expulsion of populations, accompanied by a series of violent acts incomparably more serious than the repression carried out prior to the bombings.
It is not true that all other solutions had been tried nor that the bombings are an effective reply to Serb repression and an appropriate way to defend the lives and rights of the Kosovars. Nothing was done to maintain or expand the presence of OSCE observers nor to involve neighboring states and the populations concerned in the search for solutions.
Western governments have accelerated the disintegration of Yugoslavia and have never treated in any systematic way the interlocking national questions within the Yugoslav federation. They have given their blessing to the ethnic carve-up of Bosnia-Herzegovina, organized jointly by Belgrade and Zagreb. They have allowed the situation of the Albanians of Kosovo to fester because they preferred to ignore the expulsion of the Serbs from the Croatian region of Krajina.
During the negotiations oin Rambouillet, they chose to have recourse to the armies of NATO rather than proposing an international peacekeeping force, operating on a mandate from the United Nations, although such a proposal could have legitimately been imposed in the event of a refusal by Milosevic. Such a force would have been much more effective than NATO bombs in protecting the civilian populations.
Today we demand: . • the return of Albanian populations under international protection, and under the responsibility of the UN
General Assembly. • the withdrawal of Serb forces from
Kosovo; and, as a condition for attaining these objectives, an immediate halt to the bombings.
To re-open a process of negotiation on this basis, within the UN framework, would not only imply no confidence in Slobodan Milosevic but would indeed be more destabilizing to his regime than the bombs, which have only affected the Yugoslav population and the opposition to Milosevic.
Such an approach must rely on a well-defined principle and be accompanied by certain indispensable means. The principle is the respect of the right of peoples, and first of all the Kosovar people, to decide their own fate, in the framework of the rights of minorities. The indespensible means are: • economic aid to the Balkan statesan aid strictly conditioned on the respect of individual and collective rights * an independent inquest into the atrocities committed in Kosovo • respect of the right to asylum, according to the Geneva Convention, for all refugees who seek it and for
Yugoslav deserters, and their free circulation in all European countries.
Finally, we demand a public debate in our countries concerning the action of NATO and the role it has attributed to itself, and about the prospects of security in Europe.
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Pierre Lantz, Frederic Lebaron, Francette Lazar,
In our view, security cannot repose on a logic of war nor on an increase in arms spending in the aim of conducting a great-power policy, but first of all on a policy of development, the eradication of social misery and the realization of the universal rights of peoples and human beings, men and women.