[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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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.