"Bombing the Baby with the Bathwater"

The air strikes against Yugoslavia were supposed to stop the Milosevic
 war machine.  The ultimate goal is ostensibly to support the people of
 Kosovo, as well as those of Serbia, who are also victims of the
 Milosevic regime.
 
 In fact the bombing has jeopardised the lives of 10.5 million people
 and unleashed an attack on the fledgling forces of democracy in Kosovo
 and Serbia.  It has undermined the work of reformists in Montenegro
 and the Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina and their efforts to
 promote peace.
 
 The bombing of Yugoslavia demonstrates the political impotence of US
 President Bill Clinton and the Western alliance in averting a human
 catastrophe in Kosovo.  The protection of a population under threat is
 a noble duty, but it requires a clear strategy and a coherent end
 game.  As the situation unfolds on the ground and in the air day by
 day, it is becoming more apparent that there is no such strategy.
 Instead, NATO is fulfilling the prophecy of its own doomsaying:  each
 missile that hits the ground exacerbates the humanitarian disaster
 that NATO is supposed to be preventing.
 
 It's not easy to stop the war machine once its power has been
 unleashed. But I urge the members of NATO to pause for a moment and
 consider the consequences of what they are doing.  Analysts are
 already asking whether the air strikes are still really about saving
 Kosovo Albanians.  Just how far are NATO members prepared to go?  What
 comes next after the "military" targets?  What happens if the war
 spreads?  All of these terrifying questions must be answered, although
 I suspect that few will want to live with the historical burden of
 having answered them.
 
 The same questions crowded my mind as I sat in a Belgrade prison on
 the first day of the NATO attack on my country.  Whiling away the
 hours in the cell I shared with a murder suspect, I asked myself what
 the West's aim was for "the morning after".  The image of NATO taking
 its finger off the trigger kept coming to mind.  I've seen no
 indication so far that there is a clear plan to follow up the Western
 military resolve.
 
 My friends in the West keep asking me why there is no rebellion.
 Where are the people who poured onto the streets every day for three
 months in 1996 to demand democracy and human rights?  Zoran Zivkovic,
 the opposition mayor of the city of Nis answered that last week:
 "Twenty minutes ago my city was bombed.  The people who live here are
 the same people who voted for democracy in 1996, the same people who
 protested for a hundred days after the authorities tried to deny them
 their victory in the elections. They voted for the same democracy that
 exists in Europe and the US.  Today my city was bombed by the
 democratic states of the USA, Britain, France, Germany and Canada! Is
 there any sense in this?"
 
 These people are now compelled to take up arms and
 join their sons who are already serving in the army. With the bombs
 falling all around them nobody can persuade them - though some have
 tried - that this is only an attack on their government and not their
 country.
 
 It may seem cynical that I am writing this from the security of my
 office in Belgrade - secure, that is, compared to Pristina, Djakovica,
 Podujevo and other places in Kosovo.  But I can't help asking one
 question: How can F16s stop people in the street killing one another?
 
 The free media in Serbia has for years opposed nationalism, hatred and
 war. As a representative of those media, and as a man who has more
 than once faced the consequences of my political beliefs, I call on
 President Bill Clinton to put a stop to NATO's attack on my country.
 I call on him to begin negotiations which aim at securing the right to
 a peaceful life and democracy for all the people in Yugoslavia,
 regardless of their ethnic background.
 

 (excerpts)
 
 Veran Matic, Editor in Chief
 Radio B92, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
 
 From: "Radio B92"   [email protected] 

Last updated:    April 23, 1999

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