May 1999

Helsingborgs Dagblad 20 maj 2000-talets krig utkämpas nu mot Jugoslavien med nya vapenteknologier för svindlande kostnader. Det handlar om krig i rymden men också om krig med projektiler av radioaktiv uran. “NATOS KRIG mot Jugoslavien ger en aning om hur det 21:a århundradets krig kommer att se ut. Nya vapen har utvecklats med otroligt avancerad teknologi och till svindlande kostnader. Det som var fantasifull science fiction i går håller på att bli morgondagens svårfattbara realitet.” Goetz Neuneck från tyska Institutet för Fredsforskning och Säkerhetspolitik i Hamburg är en av deltagarna i ett seminarium om “militära teknologier och deras framtida inverkan på fred och säkerhet” under den nyligen avslutade fredskonferensen i holländska Haag, “The Hague Appeal for Peace 1999”. USA driver den vapenteknologiska utvecklingen och står för hälften av de globala militärkostnaderna. Den senaste budgeten ger Pentagon 281 miljarder dollar. Därtill kommer 112 miljarder i indirekta satsningar. Balkan har under de...

By Viktor ChernomyrdinFormer prime minister of Russia, now the Russian President’s special envoy for Kosovo. I deem it necessary to express my opinion on the Kosovo situation as the warfare escalates and the danger grows of a shift to ground operations, which would be even bloodier and more destructive. I also want to comment on certain ideas put forward by President Clinton in his contribution of May 16 to the New York Times. In particular, I am anxious to express my opinion of his premise that “Russia is now helping to work out a way for Belgrade to meet our conditions,” and that NATO’s strategy can “strengthen, not weaken, our fundamental interest in a long-term, positive relationship with Russia.” In fact, Russia has taken upon itself to mediate between Belgrade and NATO not because it is eager to help NATO implement its strategies, which aim at Slobodan Milosevic’s capitulation and...

By Jimmy Carter39th President of the United StatesChairman of the nonprofit Carter Center, which seeks to advance peace and health around the world. After the cold war, many expected that the world would enter an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Those who live in developed nations might think this is the case today, with the possible exception of the war in Kosovo. But at the Carter Center we monitor all serious conflicts in the world, and the reality is that the number of such wars has increased dramatically. One reason is that the United Nations was designed to deal with international conflicts, and almost all the current ones are civil wars in developing countries. This creates a peacemaking vacuum that is most often filled by powerful nations that concentrate their attention on conflicts that affect them, like those in Iraq, Bosnia and Serbia. While the war in Kosovo rages...

From London Review of Books, Volume 21, Number 11, Cover date 27 May 1999 Ferteze Nimari had lost two of her brothers and her husband was forced to bury all the dead in one grave. Later, packed into a stiflingbus with sixty fellow Kosovars, the couple held onto each other as he clutched a strap suspended from the ceiling. The bus stopped in the Stankovac I refugee camp in Macedonia and they told their story. ‘The tank came to our village of Sllovi. The Serb neighbours said not to worry – it was just there to observe us. But by lunchtime the next day a teenage girl lay dead in the street. Then another 15 people were killed. They told us to run into the woods and they started shooting us.’ I asked them so many questions about what they had seen. ‘What happened when your brothers were shot?’ ‘How...

Audrey Gillan tries to find the evidence for mass atrocities in Kosovo From London Review of Books, Volume 21, Number 11, Cover date 27 May 1999 Ferteze Nimari had lost two of her brothers and her husband was forced to bury all the dead in one grave. Later, packed into a stiflingbus with sixty fellow Kosovars, the couple held onto each other as he clutched a strap suspended from the ceiling. The bus stopped in the Stankovac I refugee camp in Macedonia and they told their story. ‘The tank came to our village of Sllovi. The Serb neighbours said not to worry – it was just there to observe us. But by lunchtime the next day a teenage girl lay dead in the street. Then another 15 people were killed. They told us to run into the woods and they started shooting us.’ I asked them so many questions about...

Press Release · Communiqué de presse(Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document)The Hague, 27 May 1999JL/PIU/403-E Today, Thursday 27 May 1999, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has announced the indictment of, and has issued warrants of arrests against: – Slobodan MILOSEVIC, the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY),– Milan MILUTINOVIC, the President of Serbia,– Nikola SAINOVIC, Deputy Prime Minister of the FRY,– Dragoljub OJDANIC, Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav Army,– Vlajko STOJILJKOVIC, Minister of Internal Affairs of Serbia. This follows the confirmation by Judge David Hunt, on Monday 24 May 1999, of an indictment against the five accused submitted on 22 May 1999 by the Prosecutor, Justice Louise Arbour. Judge Hunt granted the Prosecutor’s request for delayed disclosure of the indictment and the arrest warrants until today. The latter and other related orders were transmitted at noon today to...

By Jonathan Granoff ETHICAL AND MORAL FRAMEWORK FOR ADDRESSING THE ISSUE: In his concurrence with the historic opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued July 8, 1996, addressing the legal status of the threat or use of nuclear weapons,1 Judge Ranjeva stated, “On the great issues of mankind the requirements of positive law and of ethics make common cause, and nuclear weapons, because of their destructive effects, are one such issue.”2 Human society has ethical and moral norms based on wisdom, conscience and practicality. Many norms are universal and have withstood the test of human experience over long periods of time. One such principle is that of reciprocity. It is often called the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you wish to be treated.” It is an ethical and moral foundation for all the world’s major religions.3 Several modern states sincerely believe that this principle can be abrogated and...

LAGOS- Finally, at the end of this week, Nigeria will step out of the shadows cast by the single-mindedness of oppressive military rule into the uncertain daylight of democratic government. And a few days later South Africa is to re-confirm its short-lived democracy with a general election–though with mixed feelings, as President Nelson Mandela steps down in favour of Thabo Mbeki. This is the new Africa, one that pessimists have always maintained could never happen. They could still be right. Post-Mandela, South Africa may degenerate into the self-serving ways of a one party state as a triumphant African National Congress, wielding a two-thirds majority in parliament, amends the constitution to suit itself, tramples on any opposition, black as well as white, and rides the gravy train for its own benefit, alienating both foreign investors and home-bred capitalists. In Nigeria, a country where the state has already been looted dry, the president-elect,...

Outside Natoland, the situation about the war is extremely serious. The Ukraine was the only country in the world to renounce nuclear weapons and unilaterally disarm. A few weeks ago its parliament voted unanimously to revert to its former nuclear status. The deputies claimed that they had foolishly believed the United States when it had promised a new norm-based and inclusive security system. Nato’s war on Yugoslavia had destroyed all their illusions. If Kiev is angry, Moscow is incandescent. The military-industrial complex is one of the best-preserved institutions in the country. Its leaders have been arguing with the politicians for nearly two years, pleading that they be allowed to upgrade Russia’s nuclear armoury. Until March 24 this year they had not made too much headway. On April 30, a meeting of the National Security Council in Moscow approved the modernisation of all strategic and tactical nuclear warheads. It gave the...

Helsingborgs Dagblad Natos nya stadga har gett världen ett nytt ord för krig: “krisreaktionsoperation som inte utförs enligt stadgans artikel 5”. Men Nato bryter mot internationell rätt. FN måste hantera krisen på Balkan. “NATOS KRIG mot Jugoslavien handlar framförallt om att slå fast en ny strategi för militärorganisationen”, säger Michael Klare, under en diskussion om kriget under fredskonferensen i Haag. Klare är amerikansk professor från PAWSS, Peace and World Security Studies. Nato fyllde 50 år den 23 april. – När Clinton inledde bombningarna den 24 mars hade Nato bråttom. Jugoslavien skulle kapitulera i god tid före den 23 april, fortsätter Klare. Nu gällde det Natos framtid och USA:s nya strategiska doktrin som ensam supermakt. Därvid offrades det kosovoalbanska folket. Alla med kunskap om Balkan visste att bombningar skulle skapa en humanitär katastrof. CIA och Pentagon varnade politikerna, som inte lyssnade. – Man startade bombningarna utan någon som helst planering för...

Helsingborgs Dagblad Vad är humanitär intervention? Kan rättvisa skapas mot krigsförbrytare? Varför motsätter sig USA en permanent krigsförbrytardomstol? “Humanitär intervention” är den term med vilken Nato rättfärdigar bombningarna av Jugoslavien. Människorättskränkningarna ledde till att bombningarna blev humanitärt nödvändiga, menar man. Kritikerna menar tvärtemot att Nato vållat och utlöst en humanitär katastrof genom att bomba i stället för att arbeta med konfliktlindrande åtgärder. Ett seminarium under fredskonferensen i Haag ägnades åt att försöka reda ut vad begreppet “humanitär intervention” egentligen står för. – En grundfråga är hur man ska bemöta massiva människorättskränkningar, sa Mient-Jan Faber, från holländska sektionen av människorättsorganisationen Helsinkikommittén, HCA. Kan man hejda kränkningar av mänskliga rättigheter med bomber? Eller förvärrar bomber bara? Vehid Sehic kommer från Medborgarforum i bosniska Tuzla, en av sex städer som under kriget i Bosnien förklarades som säker zon under FN-beskydd. – Medborgarna i Tuzla försvarade sig själva. Det var varken Nato eller FN...

Aid Workers are struck by contrasts in food, shelter and health care.They cite culture, race as reasons By T. CHRISTIAN MILLER, ANN M. SIMMONS, Times Staff Writers SKOPJE, Macedonia- When veteran refugee worker Lynne Miller arrived here from Africa earlier this month, she stepped into a different world. Miller had just spent three years monitoring food supplies at a remote refugee camp in Somalia, and one of her first crises in Macedonia was anurgent request from a medical team. A diabetic refugee had crossed the border. Could she provide a special diet? She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, much less that she was able to fulfill the request. “In Africa, we don’t have special food or diets. There are no diabetics in the camps,” she said. “They just die.” The outpouring of aid in recent weeks for ethnic Albanians ripped from their homes in Kosovo has stunned humanitarian groups, which...