European Appeal
For a just and durable
peace in the Balkans
"Stop NATO, and support Kosovo worsens the situation of the civilian self-determination" was too difficult population and makes it more and more a message for most of the west difficult to resolve the national conflicts European left. The following pan in Kosovo and throughout the Balkan European statement was the high region. point in a frustrating race against We cannot consider as moral or the bombers and the Serb legitimate a war which
• provides a pretext for a terrible paramilitaries.
aggravation of the fate of the Kosovar people—a people it claims to be helping and whose exodus it is in fact Paris, May 15, 1999
• unifies the Yugoslav population 66 The participants in the international around the repressive regime of meeting, held in Paris on May 15, Slobodan Milosevic—a population 1999, gave voice to numerous and that is thus blinded to Belgrade's converging appeals, in Europe and in the responsibilities regarding the ethnic United States, that have expressed their purification of the Kosovars; opposition both to the ethnic purification • reinforces the Milosevic regime and in Kosovo and to the NATO bombings makes the democratic opposition in against Yugoslavia. Serbia and Montenegro even more
The states that have launched or sup- fragile, and which destabilizes ported this undeclared war, waged Macedonia outside the bounds of international • is based on a bombing campaign legality, have claimed that it is moral and which kills civilian populations, and legitimate, justifying it exclusively in destroys infrastructure, factories and terrms of the defense of the rights-and the lives—of a people. This war contradicts its own proc-
They admit that "errors" or laimed goals in every respect. It has pro"collateral damage" have been com- voked a catastrophic chain of events mitted, but these are said to be mere mis- from which we must escape as fast as steps in an effort that is "moving in the possible: the intensification of the right direction". All criticism of NATO, bombings, pursued in order that NATO we are told, aids and abets the regime of may protect its "credibility", and the Slobodan Milosevic, or at best refuses to brutal and massive expulsion of combat his reactionary policies. populations, accompanied by a series of
All this is untrue. What evaluation violent acts incomparably more serious can be made of these past several weeks than the repression carried out prior to of NATO bombings? It has been a the bombings. tragedy! With each passing day, the war It is not true that all other solutions 4 pee International Viewpoint #313 July 1999 had been tried nor that the bombings are an effective reply to Serb repression and an appropriate way to defend the lives and rights of the Kosovars. Nothing was done to maintain or expand the presence of OSCE observers nor to involve neighboring states and the populations concerned in the search for solutions.
Western governments have accelerated the disintegration of Yugoslavia and have never treated in any systematic way the interlocking national questions within the Yugoslav federation. They have given their blessing to the ethnic carve-up of Bosnia-Herzegovina organized jointly by Belgrade and Zagreb. They have allowed the situation of the Albanians of Kosovo to fester because they preferred to ignore the expulsion of the Serbs from the Croatian region of Krajina.
During the negotiations in Rambouillet, they chose to have recourse to the armies of NATO rather than proposing an international peacekeeping force, operating on a mandate from the United Nations, although such a proposal could have legitimately been imposed in the event of a refusal by Milosevic. Such a force would have been much more effective than NATO bombs in protecting the civilian populations.
Today we demand:. • the return of Albanian populations under international protection, and under the responsibility of the UN
General Assembly. • the withdrawal of Serb forces from
Kosovo; and, as a condition for attaining these objectives, an immediate halt to the bombings.
To re-open a process of negotiation on this basis, within the UN framework, would not only imply no confidence in Slobodan Milosevic but would indeed be more destabilizing to his regime than the bombs, which have only affected the Yugoslav population and the opposition to Milosevic.
Such an approach must rely on a well-defined principle and be accompanied by certain indispensable means. The principle is the respect of the right of peoples, and first of all the Kosovar people, to decide their own fate, in the framework of the rights of minorities. The indespensible means are: • economic aid to the Balkan statesan aid strictly conditioned on the respect of individual and collective rights * an independent inquest into the atrocities committed in Kosovo • respect of the right to asylum, according to the Geneva Convention, for all refugees who seek it and for
Yugoslav deserters, and their free circulation in all European countries.
Finally, we demand a public debate in our countries concerning the action of NATO and the role it has attributed to itself, and about the prospects of security in Europe.
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In our view, security cannot repose on a logic of war nor on an increase in arms spending in the aim of conducting a great-power policy, but first of all on a policy of development, the eradication of social miserv and the realization of the universal rights of peoples and human beings, men and women.
We shall continue to pursue
• our action of solidarity with the political, trade-union, associational, and feminist democratic oppositions that are resisting the reactionary powers.
• our action of solidarity with the expelled populations, in defense of their right to asylum and their right of return and self-determination. Germany: Joachim Bishoff, Franzisca Brautner, Richard Detj, Wolfgang Gehrcke, Frigga Haug, Wolgang Fritz Haug. Alex Neumann, Jakob Schaffer, Dr. Peter Strutynski, Frieder Otto Wolf Austria: Wielfried Graf Belgium: Mateo Alaluf, Francois Vercammen Denmark: Soren Sondergaard Spain: Francisco Fernandez Buey, Jaime Pastor, Carlos Taibo, Manuel Vazquez Montalban, Asceu Uriarte United Kingdom: Sebastian Bogden, Daniel Singer Italy: Salvatore Cannavo, Giuseppe Chiarante, Rossana Rossanda Sweden: Anders Fogelstrom USA: James Cohen France: Nils Andersson, Olivier Azam, Nicholas Bell, Daniel Bensaid, Martine Billard, Alexandre Bilous, Pierre Bourdieu, Philippe Boursier, Suzanne de Brunhoff, Philippe Chailan, Jean-Christophe Chaumeron, Patrice Cohen-Seat, Marianne Debouzy, Francoise Dielhmann, Zorka Domic, Bernard Doray, Yves Durrieu, Danielle Espagnola, Concepcion de la Garza, Elisabeth Gauthier, Serge Guichard, Michel Husson, Isabelle Kalinowski,
601920040202 Pierre Lantz, Frederic Lebaron, Francette Lazar, Catherine Levy, Isabelle Lorand, Henri Maler, Roger Martelli, Anne Mazauric, Jean-Paul Monferran, Aline Pailler, Claude F. Poliak, Jean Sagne, Catherine Samary, Anick Sicart, Jeanne Singer, Marie-Noelle Thibaut, Rolande Trempe, Catherine Tricot, Patrick Vassalo, Raphel Weil, Francis Wurtz. * The meeting received messages of support from: Joachim Bishopp and Richard Detje (Germany), Arthur Mitzman, Marcel van der Linden and Michael Kratetke (Netherlands), Tony Benn and Ken Loach (Britain), Ignacio Ramonet (France), Noam Chomsky and Edward Said (USA).
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