Cameron Duodu:LETTER FROM THE NORTH
Are you as confused about the Kosovo situation as I am? On the face of it, Nato is doing a great job: bombing Slobodan Milosevic into stopping the atrocities he’s been inflicting on the ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo.
The stories of these atrocities are harrowing. Young men rounded up and shot because they could form part of the guerrilla army that the ethnic Albanians are using against the Yugoslavs. Old people, women and children are driven out of their homes and sent packing in an endless line of refugees across three borders. A terrible phrase is tossed about: “ethnic cleansing”. All extremely awful.
So Nato decides to intervene to stop these atrocities. But it starts off by ignoring the United Nations. Nato’s politicians decide that if they ask the Security Council – the only organ of the UN that has the authority to sanction the use of force by nations against another – for approval of the intervention, the Russians and the Chinese would veto the request. So they go it alone. Illegally.
Thus we have, immediately, a classic diplomatic conundrum. Can a group of nations decide on their own to “do good” in the international arena by first “doing bad”? Should they? Very worrying news to vulnerable little countries, like those in Africa who have always relied on the UN for protection.
Nato was only able to intervene because it calculated that, with its weak financial position, Russia would not be able to do anything – especially militarily – to stop the Nato action. And Europe is too far from China.
But what about the precedent that Nato has set? If Russia’s finances improve tomorrow, and it enters into some sort of neo-Warsaw Pact arrangement with some nations that can bankroll military action, what can prevent it from becoming a “do-gooder” under its own brand name? Or does Nato really think Russia’s nuclear claws have been broken for ever?
Or suppose the Russians were inclined to get together with the Yugoslavs and they were to arm terrorist organisations like the one that bombed Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Does Nato not expect Yugoslavia to seek to avenge the bombing it is enduring? We all know how the innocent are the first to die in such cases of revenge. Poor Kenyans and Tanzanians who had probably never heard of the United States or Afghanistan – dead for nothing. Can the world afford any more loss of innocent lives?
The other confusing thing is that the bombing which was supposed to halt the suffering of the ethnic Albanians appears rather to be making their plight worse. Nato, which is supposed to have intelligence-gathering techniques of the first order, appears to have been caught unprepared to deal with the consequences of the bombing. There are few reception facilities for the refugees. The countries into which they are pouring are stretching their resources to the limit and getting fed-up doing so. And the refugees just suffer and suffer and suffer.
And we have to ask: why is Nato willing to spend gigantic amounts of money to bomb Yugoslavia and yet has not seen fit to make a financial commitment of a similar size – or something even minutely approaching it – to help the refugees on the ground? Are we to take the cynical view that the bombing will provide profits for the military- industrial complex of Nato countries and therefore that its cost is acceptable, whereas humanitarian aid does not guarantee any such profits?
Whatever the answer, the Nato countries ought to be told that they are not looking good to the rest of the world. The ratio of military expenditure to expenditure on the humanitarian front in this instance is too lopsided to demonstrate good faith. If you are going to spend money to do good, then spend money to do good on all fronts. Otherwise you reveal yourself to be unbalanced in your judgment.
Another indictment of Nato is that it doesn’t want to put in ground forces to neutralise the murderous Yugoslavs and enable the Kosovars to go back home, because putting in ground forces would mean that some Nato personnel return home in body bags. Dead soldiers make bad news for Nato politicians. So they want to rely almost exclusively on massive high-tech bombing.
Here again we have to ask, what is the primary purpose of Nato in this action against Yugoslavia? If it is to safeguard the lives of the Kosovo population, how can you do that from the air only?
The feeling is inescapable that Nato wants to have its cake and eat it. It wants to demonstrate that it can destroy any country that refuses to obey Nato’s instructions. It wants to use the ethnic Albanian people of Kosovo to prove this point, irrespective of what actually happens to them on the ground. It seeks to make it look as if it is concern for these people that made it act.
But its efforts in this direction are pathetic. You should see the reaction of the right-wing press in Britain, for instance, to the prospect of 10 000 or so ethnic Albanian refugees being allowed into Britain. They even appear to have frightened Prime Minister Tony Blair into going back on an expressed intention to allow them in.
And as for the poor old US, well, it wants to take 20 000 ethnic Albanians to its military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Ha, Cuba has its uses to Uncle Sam, heh?
It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.