Growing numbers in Europe believe enemy is America
By David Filipov, Globe Staff, and Toula Vlahou,
Globe Correspondent, 04/04/99
MOSCOW - A new menace is stalking Europe, threatening to plunge
the entire continent into a devastating war. Its leaders espouse
the geopolitical ideas of Nazism and the tactics of Hitler.
And for damning proof of its existence, all one need do is look at
what is happening in Yugoslavia.
What is the name of this evil? If you guessed "ethnic cleansing,"
guess again. Try "America."
That, at least, is the increasingly popular view shared by people in
a wide swath of the planet stretching from Russia's Pacific coast to
the Balkans, where NATO's airstrikes against Yugoslavia have set off
a virulent anti-American backlash.
The US-led alliance portrays its air strikes as an effort to
prevent Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic from carrying out
a policy of repression and ethnic cleansing, or forced expulsion,
of Albanians from the southern Serbian province of Kosovo.
But at Friday's antiwar concert attended by some 60,000 people
in Salonica, Greece, the United States was the bad guy: President
Clinton was compared in posters to Hitler; NATO was spelled out
as "Nazi American Terrorist Organization"; and posters warned of
"a new Vietnam" in Europe.
These were the same slogans at protests in Moscow last week, where
a masked gunman tried to fire a rocket at the US Embassy and where
an Alexander the Great impersonator fired an arrow at the American
ambassador's residence. The same sentiments were evident in the
former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, on Cyprus, and in Slovakia,
where American embassies have been pelted with eggs, paint, and
debris in the past week.
The simplest explanation for the anti-US mood in these places is that
many people in these countries sympathize with the Serbs because they
share the Christian Orthodox faith. That certainly plays a role.
But the larger issue is that what the West perceives as "pax Americana,"
a time of peace and prosperity guaranteed by a responsible American
superpower intent on spreading the wealth, people in parts of Eastern
Europe seem to view as an effort at US world domination.
"We in the Balkans fought against the Nazis. Now we have to face an
attack by the Americans," said Costantis Tripos, 42, a farmer who
cultivates American sweet corn, during an all-night candlelight vigil
in front of the American embassy in central Athens. "The first American
government was fighting for freedom. Now the Americans aren't fighting
for freedom anymore. They try to dominate the world."
Naturally, this feeling is strongest where the bombs are falling in
Belgrade. There, Serbs who waved American and European Union flags
during pro-democracy protests against President Slobodan Milosevic
two years ago are now singing patriotic Serb songs, waving Serbia's
tricolor, and - driving home the sense of betrayal - trashing the
Belgrade McDonald's and the American embassy.
Outside Serbia, the countries where the protests have been strongest
are important to America in different ways.
Greece, a NATO member, provides vital logistical support to the
allied operations; equipment and supplies pass through Salonica,
and in the event of a ground assault, so would NATO troops.
Macedonia, a candidate to join NATO, provides the alliance's troops
with a foothold close to the Yugoslav border.
And Russia, which this decade has enjoyed an unprecedented partnership
with NATO after a 50-year standoff, has been the West's most important
post-Cold-War success story until the recent chill in relations.
In Russia, even the most liberal media refer to "the NATO aggression,"
and even the most staid officials, such as Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov,
use Cold-War-style hyperbole to denounce the alliance's "barbarism."
The negative feeling has spread throughout the country: A Siberian movie
theater refuses to show American movies and replaces them with Yugoslav
ones; Mormon missionaries from the United States are banned from the
Pacific port of Vladivostok; a St. Petersburg institute director orders
four visiting US professors off his premises.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, many Russians embraced the West,
and America in particular. But disillusionment about America has been
growing in Russia as the country's economic crisis deepens despite
US political and financial support for the Kremlin's so-called market
reforms. Although Russia's corrupt leadership and endless political
battles are probably more responsible for the country's problems than
anything the United States did, the perception here is that America
failed Russia.
American officials say they expected an anti-American backlash in Russia,
but they may not have expected it to run so deeply.
"We thought the United States was going to teach us to be a part of
the civilized world, and help us become a wealthy democracy," said
Vladimir Levin, a Moscow businessman. "But all America wanted was for us
to be weak and dependent, so it could sell us its cheap goods and exploit
our resources. And now we have America bombing Yugoslavia as a result,
and we have to wonder if they will bomb us next. They would have never
done that if we still were the Soviet Union."
In Macedonia, tensions have been growing since last Sunday's riot outside
the US Embassy. The growing Slav backlash there is directed at the large
influx of ethnic Albanian refugees in Kosovo, and threatens to spread the
hostilities - another problem NATO and the United States may not have
considered thoroughly enough before deciding to station troops there.
And when the US ambassador to Athens, Nicholas Burns, held several
meetings with Greek Foreign Ministry officials asking for support for the
NATO campaign, it caused a furor in the country's parliament, where the
American envoy's diplomacy was denounced as pressure.
"Mr. Burns comes and goes from the ministries like they were his home,"
said Communist Party deputy Dimitris Costopoulos during a heated exchange
in parliament this past week.
But it is not just the politicians who are questioning the motives behind
NATO's military attack. "On the eve of the 21st century, I'm distressed
that we can't find another solution to the problem," said Tallye Maroulis
of Tampa, who now lives in Greece. "I believe in America, and I am
heartbroken that my country would behave in such a way."
David Filipov reported from Moscow;
Toula Vlahou contributed to this report from Athens.
This story ran on page A27 of the Boston Globe on 04/04/99.
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* Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
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