Ireland
Neutrality
Gerry Adams The people of Northern Ireland live in a State dominated by a foreign power, Britain, occupied by British troops, who are also NATO troops. We have had many years of first hand experience of how NATO troops behave, of how NATO turns a blind eye to the military excesses of one of its member states, and even how NATO seeks to use our situation as a testing ground of new weapons and surveillance technology, counter-insurgency techniques and crowd control methods. South Armagh is the most militarized region in Western Europe, and for three decades a testing ground for NATO technology.
Betore the Irish government takes the grave step of joining "Partnership for Peace" and abandons Irish neutrality, it should listen to those who have direct, daily experience of one of the NATO military powers.
Neutrality is not a mere antiBritish reflex. It reflects the democratic and internationalist ethos of radical Irish republicanism from Wolfe Tone to James Connolly. It has a world view as well as a distinctly Irish view.
As a people who have been fighting against colonialism for centuries, we should work with other nations to develop a bridge within Europe, between those emerging nations in eastern and disadvantaged through years of repression and poverty, and between Europe and the peoples of "the South'- who are crippled by a foreign debt which keeps them permanently impoverished.
We cannot do this through the creation of a European Superstate with a military arm. Sinn Fein believes there is no role for the European Union in military and defence matters. International peacekeeping should be under the auspices of the United Nations.
It is amazing how tons of bombs dropped on civilians in Serbia are morally and politically acceptable to the British government and the jingoistic media, while the silent guns of the IRA, we are told, are a threat to peace here in Ireland. * Excerpt from a recent address to the Peace And Neutrality Alliance Conference on Irish Neutrality © RM Distribution, Irish Republican News and Information http://irlnet.com/rmlist/ 10 International Viewpoint #312 June 1999
EL SCAR demonstration being organised for the same dates.
IU federations in Madrid, Catalonia and Valencia are among those who make
"stop the the double demand of bombing!" and "self-determination for
On 26 April, the Anguita leadership abruptly modified its position to satisfy these growing protests. But PC leader
Frutos and other prominent CPers refused to support the new policy.
Pressure on IU is also coming from the broad left "Manifesto for a just peace in the Balkans," which has been signed by a wide range of intellectuals and and political movements, including the prominent IU philosopher Francesco Fernandez Buey, and left trade union leader Augustine
Germany's PDS opposes the war and
NATO, criticises Milosevic's antidemocratic regime within Serbia and in its expulsion of Kosovo Albanians. But party leader Gregor Gysi rushed to
Belgrade for talks with Milosevic. He also visited Kosovo, but his handshake with the Serbian leader was very badly received by the PDS base.
The PDS has said nothing in defence of the democratic rights of the Kosovars.
At the European level, the PDS is proposing a "peace plan," inviting left parties in both halves of Europe to support a United Nations intervention, and a ceasefire by both Serbian and
Kosovar forces. The plan says nothing about a right of return for those Kosovars who have been expelled from their
At the same time, the PDS is active in the anti-war movement. Member of
Parliament Winfried Wolf persuaded the party to publish a war diary, which is now in its third edition (100,000, 300,000
Scandinavia
The communist-inspired newspaper
Il Manifesto has played a very positive
Most members of Norway's Socialist
Lening ted wal role in building the impressive Rome
Left party (Sosialistisk Venstreparti)
demonstrations. Leading columnist seem to oppose Party Leader Kristin
Rosanna Rossanda has incited Italian
Halvorsen's pro-NATO statements.
soldiers to disobey any orders to par-
The ex-Maoist Red Electoral Alliance ticipate in a ground war.
(RV) has supported the Kosovo
Spain's United Left (IU) has opposed
Liberation Army (UCK) in their "just the war in parliament and in the streets.
war against national oppression, though
But one wing of the movement supports we disagree with their attachment to
NATO, and their unclear politics."
Milosevic, while the other demands
Norway's daily revolutionary newsrespect for Kosovar democratic rights.
When the conflict started, IU leader paper Klassekampen (Class Struggle)
Julio Anguita took a pro-Milosevic line.
initially wanted to collect money for the he met with the Yugoslav ambassador in
UCK, until that organisation's internal the CP offices in Madrid, and disputed
'coup' against Adem Demaci and recent media reports of "alleged" massacres of pro-NATO statements.
Kosovar civilians. In one El Pais
The Danish Red Green Alliance interview, Anguita called Milosevic "a
(Enhedslisten) has used its parliamentary the k man of the left."
presence to denounce NATO interven-
The
The practical consequence of this tion, and support Kosovo self-determination. * pro-Milosevic line was an unsuccessful
T attempt to organise a separate I0 (PC)
the r anti-war demonstration, so as to split a
• The website version of this article is burni broader anti-bombing, pro-Kosovo constantly updated. Check it out!
ble re
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memberment of Bosnia (after its army had begun to win the war!), and the intent of the ramshackle agreement at Rambouillet, which specifically excluded the Kosovar Albanians' right of self-determination.
The facts of the immediate impact of NATO bombing on the fate of the Yugoslav democratic forces, and on the acceleration of killing and depopulation in Kosovo, are relevant but not ultimately decisive. After all, by all accounts the refugees fleeing Kosovo welcome the bombing and would prefer to see it intensified. As socialists and as revolutionary opponents of imperialism, we have to face the question uppermost in most ordinary people's minds: Shouldn't the world stop the genocide?