Why NATO won't free Kosova
With half the Kosovar population forced to flee their homeland, it is necessary for all progressive people to take a clear position against the war in the Balkans.
To make a stand against this war of terror, it is necessary to oppose the Serbian occupation of Kosova, support self-determination for the Kosovar people and to oppose the US/NATO air strikes (and any use of US/NATO ground troops).
TV footage of desperate Kosovar refugees has led many people to accept the justification used by the US-led NATO alliance for its air war: military intervention is supposedly for the "humanitarian" purpose of saving the Kosovar people from Serbian military repression.
It would be a mistake to believe that saving the Kosovar people from the Serbian dictatorship's terror and ethnic cleansing is either Washington's goal or the likely outcome of its intervention.
That the US/NATO claim of humanitarian motives is totally hypocritical is reflected by the following:
- The West did not oppose the Serbian regime's abolition of the Kosova provincial assembly and brutal repression of resulting protests in 1989. It has consistently opposed the Kosovar resistance struggle.
- It was not until 1996, when the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) took up arms, that the US and other Western countries started to voice concern at the Serbian regime's oppression of Kosovar people.
- The US and NATO still refuse to lift the arms embargo that prevents the KLA from obtaining the weapons it needs to defend the Kosovar people from genocide at the hands of the Serbian military and death squads.
- The US and other NATO countries are spending a minuscule amount of money on aid to the Kosovar refugees compared to the amount they are throwing away on the military campaign.
- Despite being aware that air strikes would provoke the Serbian regime into massively escalating its ethnic cleansing (as happened in Bosnia in 1995), no preparations were made to feed, clothe, shelter and protect the Kosovar refugees.
- The US has proposed a protectorate in southern Kosovar for refugees, which would be guarded by US/NATO troops. This would represent a step towards partition and the acceptance of the results of the Serbian regime's ethnic cleansing.
The real purpose for the US/NATO war is twofold. First, it aims to win public acceptance of the unilateral US "right" to intervene militarily anywhere in the world.
The second goal is to disarm the KLA so as to ensure that the Kosovar people are completely dependent on, and under the military and political control of, the US-led NATO alliance. This is the situation in Bosnia and Macedonia.
None of the problems and injustices in the region can be overcome by the US/NATO military intervention in the Balkans. The Kosovar people cannot gain their freedom by exchanging the rule of one oppressor nation for another. Washington is just as implacably opposed to genuine national self-determination for the Kosovar people as is the Serbian regime.
This does not mean that the world should turn its back on the Kosovar people. There are a number of things which need to be done to prevent further slaughter and expulsion of Kosovars. They include:
- Lift the arms embargo on the KLA and provide them with the arms and resources they need to defeat the Serbian army.
- End the US/NATO air strikes and divert the money being spent on them to the Kosovar refugees.
- All countries should accept as many Kosovar refugees as possible and allow any Kosovar refugee seeking residency to be granted that status with full citizenship rights.
- Reject any imposed partition of Kosova, because this would deny the Kosovar people the right to national self-determination.
Peace activists in some countries have begun to organise demonstrations calling for an end to US/NATO air strikes without raising the demand for self-determination for Kosova. This is a serious blunder.
Unless demonstrations against US/NATO air strikes also call for genuine national self-determination for Kosova, they will be implicitly supporting the Serbian regime's genocidal war against the Kosovar people.
Anti-war demonstrations need to take a firm position against Serbia's war against Kosova as well as against US/NATO
military intervention.
The Australian government's support for the US/NATO military alliance makes it an accomplice to the war. Activists in this country need to demand that the Australian government:
- withdraw support for the US/NATO military intervention;
- stop the Australian/US bases like Pine Gap, near Alice Springs, from assisting the US/NATO air strikes on Serbia;
- massively increase aid to the Kosovar refugees from the current insignificant $6 million; and
- offer permanent residence to all Kosovar refugees wishing residence in Australia, with full rights. This means that they should not be housed in remote regions of Australia, away from the rest of the Albanian-speaking community. As many refugees as wish to come should be offered a place of refugee here.
[Kosova's long struggle for independence: page 13.]