A bull in a china shop
WHAT began as a comic television remake of the American landing at
Normandy seems to have culminated in a tragedy, judging by the course of events in Mogadishu in the last days of February. The Marines have
International Viewpoint #243 March 1993
Bosnia which he had previously — and quite rightly — denounced for its ratification of "ethnic purification". The official line is that it would be impossible for the different "ethnic groups" to live together again after all that had occurred between demonstrated once again just how trigger-happy they really are, not flinching at the idea of firing upon a hostile crowd.
UR television screens have provided ample proof that when it comes to their treatment of young Somalians, American soldiers are in the same league as Israeli soldiers who regularly deal in the same way with young Palestinian stone-throwers.
A strange humanitarian intervention, indeed, in which the "heros" look more and more like an army of occupation! And on account of an entirely paradoxical, though foretold, "turn of events", the good deeddoers of the American army now imperil the work of all the genuinely humanitarian organizations.
The result is that the Somali people now face the prospect of being even worse off after the departure of the American troops than they were before the intervention. It seems that the Pentagon's soldiers are about as comfortable doing humanitarian work as a herd of bulls would be tending a china shop. From Somalia to ex-Yugoslavia
Yet now we find them putting these same belated humanitarian pretensions to use in the former Yugoslavia. And this time it's because they dare not try anything more
In the Iragi desert, a vast stretch of flat emptiness, the American war resembled a gigantic war game with a real life playing field and real life victims. The Pentagon's soldiers were lions, taking no risk and reaping no glory.
It's another story altogether in the former Yugoslavia. There, the so-called "surgical strikes" carried out by the war machines have to be guided by divine mercy and not by computers.
There, even all the military knowhow of that great conqueror of Saddam Hussein's decrepit army, General Schwarzkopf, would not be sufficient to let his boys get away unscathed - that is, unless their tanks and their carpet bombing pummel not only civilians in uniform, but also those in civilian clothes, including women, children and the elderly.
The Vietnam syndrome
The Pentagon, no matter what claims are made to the contrary, is still heavily traumatized by the quagmires of Vietnam and Beirut (recall the mass graveyard of Marines created by the suicide operation of the Islamic Jihad). It is this same Pentagon which — with the help of its friend, Defense Secretary Les Aspin, and the support of the Secretary of State Warren Christopher - has advised the White House's new tenant, more proficient in matters of the saxophone than those of international affairs, to change his tone regarding the former Yugoslavia.
Hence, the grandiose threats of military intervention have produced...yet another humanitarian intervention, at least for the moment. This has more to do with Clinton's desire to not totally lose face and to be able to pretend to have done "something"
From the idea of giving aid to Bosnians under siege, we now see aid going to all sides without distinction. This is not only to conform to the humanitarian organizations' code of conduct, but also — indeed, primarily — because "surgical" drops are not yet technically possible in a region where the "ethnic groups" are so inter-mixed.
The former Yugoslavia appears more and more, for the new rulers in Washington, as a hornets' nest from which it is best to keep one's distance.
And this is crowned by yet another worrying threat — that the Russian army, in an advanced state of decay, will burst forth from its imposed silence in an impassioned defense of its Serbian Slav brothers.
This is a Russian army that could perceive an American intervention against the Serbs as an intolerable affront to its already much-maligned dignity.
And so Clinton suddenly embraced the very Vance-Owen plan for the division of them.
How easily hypocrisy comes to those whose principles vary according to calculations of interest and risk. We've seen it all before in Lebanon: for fifteen years the Lebanese Christian right-wing insisted that it was impossible for the Christians of Lebanon to live together with their Muslim compatriots. They called unceasingly for the cantonization of the country - which everyone knew would produce a de facto partition and not something along the lines of the Swiss model.
Lebanese Muslims — alongside the left and all those allergic to fanaticism, from all the different religious communities — rejected outright the proposals of the Christian right-wing who, moreover, were faced with an unfavourable regional and international situation.
As a result, for more than two years now, since the ending of the war thanks to the regional shake-up precipitated by the Gulf crisis, the country is rebuilding itself and its different regions and communities are progressively reintegrating themselves.
Fifteen years of a vicious fratricidal war, fed by fanaticism, have not prevented the majority of the population from co-existing once again in peace and in confidence — as attested to by the daily intermingling of the different communities.
Of course, Lebanon could very well be the scene of new explosions provoked by a resurgence of regional conflicts. But it would take a lot for the population itself to be mobilized in the way it was before. In any case, there is now proof that when the fanatics' militias are neutralized, civilians want only to peacefully live together based on mutual respect for one another's differences.
It is in this way that we should today be working for the "Lebanonization" of Bosnia and the whole of the former Yugoslavia. This can be achieved if the world declares itself resolutely opposed to ethnic segregation and dissuades the fanatics from continuing their murderous adventures — by strengthening the embargo on arms destined to the latter, and arming those who support the idea of living together. *
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EDITORIAL
ex-YUGOSLAVIA