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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 June 1999 Issue No. 432 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 June 1999 Issue No. 432
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Interview Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Heaven under fire
By Hoda Tawfik
On Memorial Day in the United States, America did not have to mourn its loved ones lost in action in the Balkans, even though its airplanes have been bombarding Yugoslavia and Kosovo alike for over 72 days, turning these once paradisal countries into a living hell.
NATO's bombs make no distinctions, when it comes to killing, between Serbs and Kosovars, military and civilians. But so far, there have been no American fatalities. Stealth bombers, F16s and F15s all fly at more than 15,000 feet above the earth. From there, they can still enjoy the beauty of the land almost as it was before their missiles levelled so many of its inconvenient details.
Even as the strikes intensify, so the Yugoslav crisis seems to deepen. If armed conflict escalates and a shift to ground operations becomes inevitable, the future may well be even bloodier and more destructive than the past. And even if Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic yields to NATO's conditions, there is little hope of any return home within the next year for most of the Kosovars. Their country will never be the same again, with foreign forces stationed all across it. How many Serb soldiers will be allowed to continue in uniform? Milosevic, meanwhile, will be left to preside over the rubble and the corpses trapped beneath.
In the next two weeks, NATO will find out whether a political solution is possible or not. The new peace deal presently under consideration would entail, for the first time, Milosevic's acceptance of NATO forces in Kosovo. Likewise, for the first time, the Alliance had agreed to allow Serb forces to remain stationed there. But there is no certainty that the Yugoslav president will accept the five conditions the West wishes to impose in return for an end to the air war.
"So far, Milosevic has accepted the principles of the G-7 and Russia as a basis for further clarification", said the Yugoslav representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Jovanovic. "We reaffirmed that we accepted the document adopted by the G-8 group," he added, "and we are ready to discuss the details, whether with Mr Chernomyrdin or Mr Ahtissaari, the Finnish president."
Meanwhile, America stood firm. "We have made very clear that there are terms and conditions for the ending of this, and that Milosevic and the other leaders have to accept those terms and conditions," said Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She added that there will be no negotiations or deals.
According to Clinton administration officials, there is considerable overlap in the conditions laid down by NATO, and those set out by the G-8, including an immediate end to fighting in Kosovo, the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from the province, the return of refugees and deployment of an international NATO-led force.
While some NATO members want to think that Milosevic is now moving in the right direction and has accepted the G-8 principles, the United States insists that there has been no real movement on the Yugoslav side. The final word from Washington was that the strikes will continue, while the pressure on Milosevic intensifies. "No bombing pause," said NATO's military commander Gen. Wesley Clark, speaking to CNN this week.
"It is the bombing that's impelling the diplomacy," Clark added, "and so, the premise that you have to stop the air campaign in order to have discussions is a faulty premise." He also rejected as a bad idea the suggestion that a pause in the strikes might persuade Belgrade to accept the Alliance's conditions.
As a result, it is increasingly obvious that the US is calling all the shots in NATO, thanks to their monopoly on the sophisticated military technology that is being deployed.
After a meeting with Albright, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told reporters in Washington that his country was counting on a diplomatic outcome. He expressed hope that a solution would be reached by 18 June, when the G-7 and Russia meet in Cologne, Germany. "Germany would like to have a Security Council resolution endorsing the expanded security force," he added. "In two weeks, we will know whether we are successful at the Security Council."
But Milosevic's indictment is putting the breaks on the negotiating process, and constraining the mediators, who insist on using the word "talks" instead of "negotiations" to describe their dealings with the supposed criminal.
The objective of mediation is to ensure "a clear undertaking from the Yugoslav leader," a Clinton administration official told Al-Ahram Weekly. "We need a clear binding commitment of withdrawal according to a rapid timetable."
So still the question remains: why indict Milosevic now? The answer is, that the timing is a victory for the Clinton administration. It helps to take the heat off the US president to use ground troops, as the clock ticks forward towards one of the most important decisions of his presidency -- whether to start assembling the type of invasion force that would be needed to drive Serb troops out of Kosovo once and for all.
