[PEN-L:4625] [Fwd: [BRC-NEWS] War Resisters International Statement on Kosovo] boundary="------------24F6BAD278CABB7EF8A43FBD"

[Gar Lipow <lipowg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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Just in case anyone thinks all the peace groups support the Kosovo
bombing, the BRC news list got this from the War Resistors league. I
actually tried to send this before, but stupidly ended up forwarding
an announcement about a conference instead.
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	Sun, 28 Mar 1999 00:33:23 -0800 (PST)
	Sun, 28 Mar 1999 00:33:18 -0800 (PST)
	Sun, 28 Mar 1999 00:26:32 -0800 (PST)
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 00:26:31 -0800 (PST)
From: War Resisters League <wrl@xxxxxxx>
Sender: owner-brc-news@xxxxxxx
Subject: [BRC-NEWS] War Resisters International Statement on Kosovo
To: brc-news@xxxxxxx
X-WWW-Site: http://www.blackradicalcongress.com/

Statement of War Resisters? International on Kosovo

The War Resisters International, an international network of more than 70
pacifist groups in more than 30 countries, including the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia and Croatia, condemns the NATO bombing and the hypocrisy of
NATO governments in mounting this war.

The original rationale for threatening military action was to make
Milosevic sign a peace agreement. This fatally misreads Milosevic and the
mood of the Serbian people after years of nationalist propaganda. Far from
undermining Milosevic, this allows him to tap into the Serbian and
Yugoslav traditions of heroic military defence.

Now, the current rationale is that the bombing is to prevent a
humanitarian catastrophe. Already at the time of writing, it is clearly
precipitating an even greater disaster - and with the evacuation of the
OSCE verification mission and foreign relief workers and expulsion of
foreign journalists, there are now even fewer ways to respond.

NATO has been using the conflicts in the former-Yugoslavia to redefine its
role, pretending to be the world's police force. To this end, it pursues
its own institutional interests - against those of non-military
intergovernmental bodies, such as the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations - and it decides on military
action according to its own organisational logic. It is selective about
which 'crimes' it seeks to redress and what counts as a 'humanitarian
catastrophe'.

Far from weakening the Milosevic regime, and protecting Kosovo Albanians,
the NATO bombings are already having disastrous - and predictable -
consequences. In Kosovo itself, it is now 'open season' for Serbs - be
they police, military, paramilitary or armed civilians - against the
entire Albanian population and its institutions. In Serbia proper, the
Belgrade regime has already moved against anti-war voices, such as Radio
B92.

The governments that make up NATO displayed very little active interest in
supporting nonviolent efforts by Kosovo Albanians throughout the nine
years in which they refused to take up arms in response to Serbian
repression and violence. Indeed, they consented to the exclusion of Kosovo
from the Dayton accords. On those occasions when foreign governments did
acknowledge that the wholesale violation of 90 per cent of the population
of Kosovo was anything other than an 'internal affair' of Serbia, it was
to offer assurances that they did not even try to live up to. For eight
years the Albanians of Kosovo persisted in their strategy of refraining
from violence and concentrating on maintaining their social cohesion and
institutions such as parallel schools. Their nonviolent struggle using
strikes, boycotts, peaceful demonstrations and alternative institutions
was largely ignored by the world.

Instead of a world order based on NATO breaking international law to
pursue military action, War Resisters' International works to strengthen
nonviolent methods of dealing with conflict. We have worked against the
militarism of the Milosevic regime; we have worked through the Balkan
Peace Team to promote dialogue between Serbs and Albanians; and we have
worked to increase awareness of the variety of nonviolent methods of
social struggle that can be deployed in such situations. A more
understanding response to the Kosovo Albanian population on the part of
the governments now prepared to bomb Serbia, Kosovo, Vojvodina and
Montenegro could have made a decisive difference. Unfortunately, this was
not forthcoming. Their decision-making is dominated by short term
considerations of power-politics and 'military reality'. The 'criminal'
they now want to bomb to the negotiating table is the man they erected
into the 'guarantor of the Dayton peace'.

The mission of the OSCE 'verifiers' was too little, too late. Hastily
improvised, poorly prepared, and with a mandate that was inadequately
articulated, the OSCE verifiers succeed in de-fusing some flashpoints,
they were beginning to build some cooperation with civil society groups,
but they could not stem the rising tide of violence. Rather they
increasingly were verifying that an atrocity had been committed.
Nevertheless, their deployment was infinitely preferable to the NATO's
bombings.

NATO does not exist to protect populations condemned to live under
criminal regimes. How can it when its own members include countries like
Turkey, whose methods against the Kurds are equally horrific? NATO's
military strategy in Kosovo is not designed in the interests of the
population, but rather to minimise the risks to NATO's own soldiers -
whatever the consequences for those who are now hostage to Serbian
vengeance. NATO?s new strategy seems to be a test for new weapons systems
in a large scale attack against a Central European country, first use of
US Air Force B-2 Bombers, first active battle participation of German Air
Force since Second World War, military integration of new NATO-members
into the military command to European NATO headquarters. NATO?s attack on
Yugoslavia is a first precedent of the new NATO strategy, which will be
passed in April. In this strategy NATO explicitly stresses its ?right? to
intervene everywhere in the world on its own right, without the need of
being mandated by the UN or other intergovernmental bodies.

In the immediate circumstances, WRI calls for a halt of the NATO air
strikes and calls on its members to organise vigils and other
demonstrations against NATO at appropriate embassies or War Ministries or
at air bases. We call on the soldiers of all countries taking part in this
attack to refuse to participate in this war.

In the medium term, we will try to work alongside our friends in the
anti-war groups in Serbia and with people in Kosovo trying to create a
just peace.

In the longer term, WRI redoubles its commitment to promote civilian
responses to conflict - in particular the development of nonviolence as a
means of waging social struggles and the use of methods of nonviolent
conflict resolution and dialogue.


War Resisters International
5 Caledonian Road
London N1 9DX
UK

tel. 00 44 +171 278 4040
fax  00 44 +171 278 0444

warresisters@xxxxxxxxxx

http://www.gn.apc.org/warresisters

**********

War Resisters League
339 Lafayette St.
New York, NY 10012
212-228-0450
212-228-6193 (fax)
1-800-975-9688 (YouthPeace and A Day Without the Pentagon)

wrl@xxxxxxx

web address: http://www.nonviolence.org/wrl


[Messages on BRC-NEWS may be forwarded and cross-posted, as long as
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