Yugoslavia: Notes Of An Analyst

R. Bogatyrev

  "The idea of justice is the most cruel and tenacious of all ideas that have ever invaded human mind. When it settles in the heart and muddles the eyes of man, people start killing each other. The most dangerous executions and murders in the harmony of life are not the ones carried out in the name of malice, personal revenge or spontaneous "beastly" emotions but the ones in the name of love to man and mankind. It is only the paroxysm of love that could create the Inquisition, religious wars and terrorism. And love is more dreadful and devastating than hatred because hatred is nothing more than a flower of fire expanding on the tree of love, that Burning Bush of mankind."

M. Voloshin

      The latest days soaked with grief and blood of thousands of people of many various nations (but most of all Serbs and Albanians) have inflicted a deep wound not just to Yugoslavia that has become an epicenter of the global conflict and even not just to Europe alone.
      The current situation is much more complicated that it could seem at first sight. A long time is to pass before we will be able to clear it out point by point. But even now that the events are in high gear we could try to weigh the facts, take into account the information from the open sources and make the first conclusions.
      As it is easy to see, at the present moment there are two polar points of view, one taken by the government of the USA and the other by the leaders of Yugoslavia.
      The former is accusing Yugoslavia in infringing the rights of Kosovo Albanians living in Kosovo and Metohija, their oppression and physical extermination. At the same time the US government is officially using the terms such as "genocide", "ethnical purges" and "humanitarian catastrophe". The special stress is put to the fact that the actions falling under these terms (to the mind of the President, Vice-President and Secretary of the State) were initiated by the government of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and not some unknown bandits. It is emphasized that the nerve center of Yugoslavian government and the source of the "humanitarian catastrophe" is none else but the President of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic.
      Now let us take a look at the opposite position. Yugoslavia is a full member of United Nations. In this sense and from the point of view of international law it has the appropriate status of a sovereign state. The territory of Kosovo belongs to Yugoslavia. It means that any steps of other countries towards separation of Kosovo from FRY are breaking international law. The members of the NATO and especially the US forces have and still are administering strike attacks to the territory of Yugoslavia. They are breaking its border both by air and by land (particularly the searching brigades of the NATO which are to rescue the pilots of shot-down planes). In this sense such actions of the NATO are believed to be aggression.
      Aggression is an armed attack of a country by another state (or several states) aiming to subjugation of its territory and subjection of the population, to economical or political subjection of one state to the other and political or economical change of the society.
      In the given context the actions performed in Yugoslavia since March 24 1999 by such countries as USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Turkey fall under the definition of aggression.
      These are not emotions or a personal look at the things. These are just facts.

Law and justice

      For some time past there has been much argumentation for the wide-scale NATO operation in mass media appealing to reason and justice. At the same time juridical ground for those actions seems to pale into insignificance.
      But how can one uphold justice and combine the matters that are impossible to combine? Culture, religion, polity, self-awareness of a nation are not verbalisms. Each state is a singularity and gives "flesh and blood" to these terms in it own unique way. Today’s look of this or that country, this or that nation or race has been formed by numerous generations of people. The actions that would seem allowable, moral, and rightful in one country due to its own history to the others could be wild barbarity that stands next to the insult of their religious and national feelings. Here we have a natural question: who can define grades of justice, what is the basis of such definition and what is the real way to do it? And the most important of all – who is given the right to execute or grant mercy, and could a man be given this right at all?

Juridical aspects. UN and Security Council resolutions

      Before we start analyzing the facts it is necessary to look at their juridical aspect. According to the Regulations of United Nations the Security Council is chiefly responsible for the maintenance of peace and international safety. At the same time in the clause 53 of the UN Regulations it is stressed that in the questions related to the maintenance of peace and international safety "no enforcement actions can be taken … without the powers given by the Security Council." It means that any enforcement actions including the ones using military force against sovereign states should be classified only as breaking the foundational rules of international law and should be considered by the Security Council and the highest adjudicatory body of UN – the International Court of Justice.
      If we take a look at the last four resolutions of UN Security Council related to Kosovo problem, we can see that all of them included the same point that postulated the commitment of all UN members to sovereignty and integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. "The principles of finding the way out of Kosovo problem should be based on the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." This point is of very high importance because all other recommendations, claims, and suggestions are built on these foundations.
      Now let us take a look at the documents.
      All UN Security Council resolutions (No. 1160, 1199, 1203 and 1207) show its disquietude about the situation in Kosovo (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). These resolutions contain disapproval of Serb police using excessive force against citizens taking part in peaceful demonstrations in Kosovo, of all acts of terror organized by Kosovo Liberation Army or by other groups and persons and also of any outside support of terrorism in Kosovo, including financial help, weapon supply and training.
      The resolutions mentioned above contain appeals to the government of Yugoslavia and Kosovo Albanians to "take immediate measures to co-operate with international efforts in improving humanitarian situation and preventing humanitarian catastrophe."
      It appears from this that the Security Council is worried by the present circumstances in this region and at the same time accepts the problems and peaceful ways out.
      In the given context it is of little importance even that the NATO actions are breaking its own normative acts and privity of contract with other countries. The fact of breaking the basis of international law is quite obvious. The way it goes, if the actions of countries taking part in the conflict will not be juridically classified from the point of international law there won’t be any international body left able to regulate such conflicts. UN will stop to function de facto.
      It is likely that the NATO operation itself is aimed at discrediting the work of UN in the eyes of global society and demonstrate its inability to solve conflicts like this one. And therefore the real aim may be to change the role of the North-Atlantic Union it has been playing – the military instrument of achieving collective security of various countries in the world. It is just a mere presumption though.
      So let’s come back to the facts.
      As we know the NATO Council made a decision to bomb Yugoslavia as early as October 13 1998. It was only after the negotiations between Slobodan Milosevic and Richard Halbrook(?) that peaceful solution seemed to be achieved and military actions were not allowed to start.
      At the same time one should pay attention to the fact that the Security Council has not reacted in any way to the NATO’s threats to start hostilities against Yugoslavia. On the other hand, such a reaction was hard to expect because the structure of the Security Council itself eliminates the possibility of finding any general solutions if there are contradictions between five permanent members who have the veto. On one side of the trenches there are Russia and China, on the other side – USA, Great Britain, and France. According to point 3 of the clause 27 of UN Regulations the Security Council decisions (excluding procedural matters) are accepted when they are supported by the votes of nine members of the Council, including the votes of all permanent members. In other words, any of the five countries mentioned can block the decision. And the votes of 10 remaining members don’t play any significant role. As you might know, on March 26 Russia presented to the Security Council the resolution it had worked out disapproving of the aggressive actions against Yugoslavia. Of 15 members of the Council it was supported only by China and Namibia. The resolution was not accepted.
      When the NATO air strikes at Yugoslavia started, they were followed by publications about de-facto breaking of one of the basic principles of international law that puts sovereignty above human rights. Any interference in interior problems of a sovereign state (to reclaim human rights) inevitably leads to separatism and changing of borders. Mind that ethnic conflicts like the one in Kosovo exist (sometimes in much more acute state) in Turkey, Russia, India, Great Britain and other regions of the world. Non-interference in domestic affairs is a principle of great importance, and if we reject it local conflicts would grow into large-scale wars. In this sense UN long since needs reforming, as it is very selective in such matters.
      The Security Council resolutions are not the only documents mentioned by USA officials and their NATO allies. We are speaking of the so-called agreements signed in Ramboullier (?). The story of these documents’ signature is more than strange. As you might know, these documents were worked upon by representatives of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Kosovo Albanians together with the Contact Group on Kosovo. Russia was also engaged in the discussion of the agreements. At first the aim was to work out just a political memorandum that declared the ways of giving Kosovo certain liberties regarding autonomy within Yugoslavia. After the points of this small document seemed to be cleared out, there appeared some multi-page appendixes covering military and police problems.
      It was there that the make-peace forces entry into Kosovo was fixed. Russia stressed that it was strictly against tying political and military questions together. The delegation of Yugoslavia was also indignant at that approach to negotiations. It looked like there were conscious steps taken to block the signature by making the conditions Yugoslavia could not possibly accept. So it happened that way. Yugoslavia delegation left Ramboullier and after that the delegation of Kosovo Albanians defiantly signed the pack of documents. There is a natural question: why did they need to sign the document in the unilateral way when it had no juridical sense at all? The answer is simple – this action is meaningless from the juridical point of view but not the point of pressing public opinion. And it is now that the "Big Eight" meetings are approaching United States and their NATO allies treat the Ramboullier documents rejected by Yugoslavia and Russia as one of the main conditions that should be met by Yugoslavia.
      It is obvious that a document signed under pressure may (and most likely will) be considered void. But no attention is paid to it now. In actual fact Yugoslavia (namely Yugoslavia and not Slobodan Milosevic!) is presented with the ultimatum. Either it will sign the documents that will make the sovereign state lose control over part of its territory, or it will face further intensification of hostilities which will lead to new victims and destruction.
      The juridical aspect of the NATO operation named "Allied Force" is one of the most vulnerable points of the Alliance actions. What is more, the leaders of Kosovo Albanians sent a letter to the Contact group immediately after their unilateral signature of the documents. In it they stressed that they were not going to give up the idea of full independence from Yugoslavia. This way they disavowed their own signatures to the agreement in Ramboullier. It is not surprising that Yugoslavian side does not consider Ramboullier agreements legitimate. Juridically is all very understandable.

What do the USA count on?

      What do the USA and the NATO really count on? Why did the NATO Secretary-General Havier Solana give a command to start the operation "Allied Force" on March 23? Here we have to branch out into discourse as we can only guess the true reasons.
      In 1995 Milosevic agreed to sign the Daiton(?) agreements after the first strikes (partly under the influence of Russia). Then he gave away Bosnia. Now he happened to be much more consistent in his actions because he understood he had no backing space. Serbs respect Kosovo as their national shrine with a lot of Orthodox churches situated there. During the first phase of operation "Allied Force" missile and bomb strikes aimed mostly at suppression of Yugoslavian air defense system. But those tasks were left unsolved. The air defense system was partly destroyed but retained its capacity due to intentional "silence". Yugoslavia took a safe position of a victim that was ruthlessly shot with the whole world to see it.
      In the second phase of the operation the NATO forces attacked military objects (airfields, army barracks and storehouses, mainly in Kosovo and Pristina area). As a result there started an immense flow of refugees. One can speak a lot of the humanitarian catastrophe and ethnical purges but it’s not that easy to switch reasons and consequences. The main flow of refugees crammed into a small piece of land between Yugoslavia, Albania, and Macedonia and numbering several hundred thousands people formed after and not before the air strikes started.
      To speak of weaponry, Yugoslavians are playing cat-and-mouse with the NATO by continuous relocation of their forces. In fact the total guerilla war in Yugoslavia against the NATO has started already. It may be of use to recall the words of Vermacht General Lotar Rendulic. In the beginning of 50-s he wrote in his memoirs: "Balkans are a classical region in the history of guerilla wars… Balkan nature and landscape themselves are absolutely ideal conditions for a guerilla war. The mountains that are high and difficult to access occupy much of the territory. These mountains are covered with endless and practically virgin forest… The country can thus give shelter even to considerable guerilla forces. It is unusually hard to find them and combat them here."
      Time is now working against the NATO. They have to assume some measures. So the Alliance forces got down to operations of purely intimidating character. Demonstrative explosions in the center of Belgrade on April 2, destroying bridges and oil reservoirs, bombing factories and Belgrade steam power plant which is the largest in South Europe. All this is beyond a joke because hundreds of thousands citizens have suffered, now jobless and lacking fuel and hot water. Probably the NATO counts on panic starting in Belgrade and other cities of Yugoslavia, people rising against its government. But so far it is just the opposite. Yugoslavians come out into the streets wearing paper targets to assist the NATO pilots’ hits. They come out to protect bridges and plants with their own bodies. For the time being Yugoslavian government doesn’t attract people’s attention to the real losses among citizens in order not to provoke panic. But sooner or later they will bring the statistics into the open, and then the speculations of several dozen deaths that are still unconfirmed will be matched against the tragedies of hundreds thousands and millions of people. And all those tragedies were caused by the military aggression of the leading countries of the world.
      In such a situation when the public opinion in Europe has accumulated serious doubts about the necessity of this particular way to solve the conflict and experts do not find juridical background for going on with the hostilities, the NATO has got the only way out of it. It is the acts of provocation, the outbreak of propaganda war, and involving the army in the operation.
      The USA play the crucial role in this conflict. It includes direction of the operations, participation of the Armed Forces, political pressure, economical measures, and propaganda war. Why are the USA so aggressive against the states (and not politicians as they would like the international community to believe) that do not voluntarily agree to their very specific idea of the peacemaker mission? The part of the answer could be found in the words of Richard Nixon. The former US President writes in his memoirs in 1990: "To play the role of the Great Power and serve the cause of freedom worldwide we should clearly understand the conditions under which the USA must use its tremendous military power. Nobody will dispute the fact that the decision to take part in war in each particular case should be also motivated by the moral criteria… It is an illusion that peace could be secured by the formation of the global government. The League of Nations founded after the First World War and the United Nations after the Second World War were noble but inefficient attempts to establish peace with the help of an organization that would guarantee collective security. Both of these organizations failed to fulfill this mission."
      So what did the USA achieve? Due to their attempts the situation in Europe, in the Balkans is on the brink of the large-scale war with most of the Old World drawn in the conflict. Today the NATO armed forces involved in it include Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and other European states. Turkey and Albania are somewhat aside still but it won’t go on like that for a long time. The idea of creation of Greater Albania is still alive. And Kosovo and Metohija are so attractive that Albania would hardly refuse them.
      Sharp rejection of the NATO position by Austria, negative reaction in Switzerland, Sweden, and Finland, Greece aboil with indignation, demonstrations in Belgium, Spain, Germany and the government crisis brewing up in Italy are just a beginning. Europe is in a kind of hypnotic state so far and doesn’t seem to realize what a shake it will have to suffer very soon, even if the hostilities will be suddenly stopped. Though the debase of euro and financial losses due to the hostilities and the flow of refugees can be seen by the naked eye. European air companies have already lost millions of dollars. Tourist agencies and many companies that had joint ventures and placed orders with Yugoslavia suffer serious damages.
      Who will make up for the damage caused by the combat action? Two missiles hit the territory of Bulgaria by mistake, and this fact alone was the ground for lodging a complaint against EU worth 10 million dollars. The international community started co-operating hurriedly to solve the problem of Kosovo refugees leaving the scene of war. Somehow nobody remembers the population of northern and central regions of Yugoslavia that tries to leave the country through the adjacent territories of Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. The flow of refugees to these countries is not yet so large as from Kosovo (where hundreds of thousands people leave their homes). But it has been growing after the bombing of Vojevodina. And after the NATO Army enters Yugoslavia through Albania this flow will become immense. In spite of its fine words about the humanitarian catastrophe the NATO has in fact caused such a catastrophe with its actions that Europe will have to deal with its consequences for a number of years.
      A famous French diplomat and one of the main builders of Napoleon’s empire, Charles Maurice Taleiran wrote the following lines after coming back from America more than 200 years ago, in 1794. The words you will read here may well be a prophecy: "Europe should always look at America with its eyes open. It should not give America any excuse for accusations or repression. America is getting stronger day by day. It grows into a great power, and there will come a day when it will want to put in a word and lay hands on the affairs of Europe that will get more easy to access as a result of new discoveries. Political awareness will then make the Old Continent governments watch carefully for not giving any excuse for such intrusion. The day America comes to Europe peace and security will be cast out of it for a long time."