[PEN-L:6565] (Fwd) CITIZENS MUST ARRIVE AT INDEPENDENT JUDGMENTS OF THIS WA

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Date sent:      	Fri, 07 May 1999 18:02:27 -0700
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From:           	Sid Shniad <shniad@xxxxxx>
Subject:        	CITIZENS MUST ARRIVE AT INDEPENDENT JUDGMENTS OF THIS WAR

The Boston Globe						May 4, 1999

CITIZENS MUST ARRIVE AT INDEPENDENT JUDGMENTS OF THIS WAR

	Ours is now an air war against the civic society of
	Yugoslavia; it has become a crime against humanity.

	Now that Jesse Jackson and Viktor Chernomyrdin have
provided an opening in the Balkans stalemate, President Clinton
should move through it.
	In his recent interview with UPI, Slobodan Milosevic went on
record with these proposals: a cessation of all military activities; the
simultaneous withdrawal of NATO troops from Yugoslav border
areas and the reduction of Serb forces in Kosovo to a normal
garrison level; the return of all refugees; continued negotiations
aiming at ''the widest possible autonomy for Kosovo within Serbia;''
free access of refugee relief teams from the UN and the Red Cross;
an economic recovery plan for the three Yugoslav Federation
states.
	A seventh point, made clear in the interview, was Milosevic's
acceptance of an international peacekeeping force, armed with
weapons of self-defense.
	Here is the heart of the Serb leader's proposal. ''The UN can
have a huge mission in Kosovo, if it wants. They can bear witness
to the legal behavior of our law-enforcement agencies, and to the
fact that everything is now peaceful.''
	Administration officials dismissed the Milosevic proposals as
''propaganda spewing from the highest source,'' and the Milosevic
approach through Jesse Jackson as ''a PR stunt.''
	It is not clear yet what yesterday's meeting between
Chernomyrdin and Clinton will lead to, but the initial dismissals of
this new attempt to open negotiations is not promising.
	We citizens must arrive at independent judgments of these
developments. In order to do that, we must return to the basic
question: What is the purpose of the NATO air war? If it is the
vindication of NATO, coupled with the humiliation of Milosevic,
then this new set of initiatives must be rejected. But if NATO's
purpose is the protection of Kosovar civilians, those hundreds of
thousands at the mercy of Serb forces, and, now, of disease and
hunger, then Chernomyrdin must absolutely be enabled to build on
the Milosevic proposals.
	These openings offer a way to stop the rapes, murders, and
further ''ethnic cleansing,'' and they offer the hope of a substantial
reversal of that ethnic cleansing. ''A huge UN mission in Kosovo''
right now is exactly what is required. On the crucial point of
whether that force is armed or not, Milosevic has already reversed
himself, backing down from his prior rejection even of sidearms.
His distinction between ''defensive'' and ''offensive'' weapons can be
read more as face-saving than as a deal-breaker.
	What counts now is the prompt introduction of many thousands
of UN peacekeepers, to stand with the vulnerable Kosovars, to
bring the eyes and ears of the world back into the killing fields, to
''bear witness,'' exactly, that the atrocities have stopped.
	NATO insists that any such presence be mainly made up of its
own forces, but what difference does it make to terrorized
Kosovars whether the helmets of their protectors are green or blue?
	Whatever happens, this is a turning point in the war. Until now,
there has been a painful division between those who see the conflict
as a tragic but necessary campaign to stop savage human-rights
abuses, and those who see it as a terribly misguided, if initially well-
intentioned, effort to stop one kind of unacceptable violence with
another. But a resolution to the killing phase of this conflict - a
precondition to political resolution of the intractable problems
remaining - is now possible.
	Such are the horrors facing the fugitive population of Kosovo
that everything must be put second to the urgent task of rescuing
them. Alas, despite the rhetoric of ''Never again!,'' NATO and the
White House seem to have lost sight of the endangered human
beings they set out to save. Having made the humiliation of
Milosevic the central meaning of this war, NATO now seems to be
defining negotiation with Milosevic as its own humiliation.
	If NATO clings to this refusal, we the American people in
whose name this war is being waged must understand what it
means. From here on out, any pretense that the violence is justified
by a defense of human rights is gone. Every woman raped, every
village burned, and every refugee dead of starvation or disease will
be on the conscience of the West.
	Meanwhile, NATO's savage air war escalates into its
''domination phase,'' which makes the true character of that
campaign crystal clear. NATO prides itself on the pains its flyers
take to avoid direct civilian casualties. As Saturday's obliterated bus
reminds us, ''collateral damage'' is inevitable. But NATO
expressions of regret do not remove the question of criminality.
	Ours is now an open air war against the civic society of
Yugoslavia - as Sunday's attack on the power grid of Belgrade
demonstrates. NATO is deliberately causing the destruction of the
Yugoslav economy, the pollution of its environment, the
degradation of everything necessary to civilization. However it
started, the air war has become a crime against humanity. If
President Clinton and his partners continue to slap away the
possibility of a true and quick rescue of Kosovar Albanians, NATO
here and now joins the ranks of the perpetrators, and America, for
its part, enters a new age of infamy.