Women Would Have Been Better Leaders

Interview with Diana Post, USA

What is the public opinion in the West about the NATO activities in Yugoslavia?
Diana Post: Many citizens of the USA and other NATO countries support air raids on Yugoslavia because they know what Milosevic is up to and they believe that he must be stopped. We are under the influence of our mass media propaganda, same as you are under the influence of yours. Like you, we are not told everything. The situation is presented so that Milosevic is killing everybody, that is why we suppose that he must be punished.

What is your own attitude to the NATO military intervention in the Yugoslavian conflict?
- I consider that from the legal point of view the decision to bomb Yugoslavia by the NATO forces violates the UN Charter. It would have been more righteous to address the Security Council and have the consent of all its members to undertake a military action. It had not been done because it was known in advance that Russia would veto the decision. As a result, the military action in the Balkans is based only on the NATO decision..
      Unfortunately, the steps taken by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in relation to Yugoslavia led to undesirable consequences: innocent people are suffering and Milosevic’s power has considerably increased. That is why I think that the policy pursued in the Balkans is wrong. But on the other hand I agree that the intervention was necessary.
      As for the violation of sovereignty, after World War11 the fundamental principles of international relations were outlined in Nuremberg. In particular, there was an item that the world community ought to react to genocide in any country, even though it concerns its own population. It means that no state can with impunity violate human rights, which are part of the international law, on the grounds of it being sovereign.
      I can give a vivid example understandable to many. Some men say : " I can do in my home whatever I wish and no one has the right to interfere with my life. I can abuse my wife and children - this is my home and my family." Some countries do exactly the same: they violate the rights of their citizens, kill them, let women be raped with impunity and they are sure that nobody will be able to stop them.
      The NATO has violated the UN Charter, it made its choice between complete inactivity and at least some response to genocide against the Albanian population in Kosovo.

There was a similar situation with the Kurds in Turkey, but the West actually did not react to those events.
- Americans helped the Turks, Iraq helped the Kurds. In both cases politics was considered in terms of power, it did not involve human lives. Many times Americans have supported disgusting regimes in the Dominican Republic, in Africa only because those were hostile to the Soviet Union. And they were hostile only because we backed them. There were good people among Marxists too, but many of us protested against Marxism and supported a different ideology. We were often completely wrong.
      Now the conflict in Yugoslavia has turned into a political problem of world-wide importance. Quite recently, Iran offered to send its ground troops to separate Serbia and Albania. This initiative was rejected. But, in my opinion, it was a much better decision than what is happening now.

What, do you think, should be the way out of the Yugoslavian crisis?
- There are some procedures designed to settle similar conflicts without violating any norms and rights. They are used all over the world. These procedures should have been applied long before the bombings. I cannot say what exactly should have been done. But the result of the wrong policy is evident: instead of trying to solve the problem by negotiations we appeared to be split - the NATO and USA on one side, Russia and Milosevic on the other.
      To my mind, it can happen when politics is considered in terms of power without thinking of people. Immediately there comes separation instead of cooperation. Women would have been better leaders because we consider politics from the human point of view and are ready to cooperate and also because a woman will never send her son to kill the son of another woman.

Interviewed by Elena Chernomazova.