Posted on 03/09/2002 8:09:53 AM PST by John David Powell
"This is not war in the traditional sense . . ."
By JOHN DAVID POWELL
TMNS Contributor
March 15, 2002
Note: The war crimes trial of Former Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosovic continues in The Hague, amid fears among the Serbian people that they, too, are on trial in the eyes of the world. While there is little doubt about the carnage in Serbia and particularly in Kosovo, the troubling question remains about why the Clinton Administration and NATO chose to intervene in Kosovo and not in other nations, a question that will never be answered for millions of victims of civil terror and genocide, including those in Afghanistan who died at the hands of the Taliban. The following is a column that first appeared on the Morrock News Service on March 27, 1999. -- JDP
Below are excerpts from President Clinton's televised address to the nation March 24 concerning NATO's bombing of Serbia. Also included are excerpts of news stories that ran in the days leading up to the air strikes.
Each is offered without comment. Judgement belongs to history.
"We act to protect thousands of innocent people in Kosovo from a mounting military offensive . . . By acting now we are upholding our values, protecting our interests and advancing the cause of peace.
"Last fall our diplomacy, backed by the threat of force from our NATO Alliance, stopped the fighting for a while, and rescued tens of thousands of people from freezing and starvation in the hills where they had fled to save their lives . . ."
John Garang, leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, spoke at a press conference outside a meeting of the UN High Commission for Human Rights . . . "The war that is waged by the Sudanese government against its own people has resulted in 1.9 million people dead ... and the displacement of 5 million people," said Garang. "That is more genocide than Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda combined." -- The Associated Press
"And last month, with our allies and Russia, we proposed a peace agreement to end the fighting for good. The Kosovar leaders signed that agreement last week. Even though it does not give them all they want, even though their people were still being savaged, they saw that a just peace is better than a long and unwinnable war."
The rival sides in the Afghan conflict have accused each other of launching military offensives just days after reaching an agreement to share power. Afghanistan's ruling Taleban movement said the clashes over the past three days would affect the next round of peace talks.
Mullah Mutaqi denied reports by an opposition spokesman on Thursday that Taleban jets raided civilian areas in Parwan province north of Kabul, killing 12 people and wounding 20. -- The BBC
"Now, they've started moving from village to village, shelling civilians and torching their houses. We've seen innocent people taken from their homes, forced to kneel in the dirt and sprayed with bullets; Kosovar men dragged from their families, fathers and sons together, lined up and shot in cold blood."
More than 100 people have been killed on Borneo island in ethnic clashes among Indonesians in which victorious warriors have been parading the heads of victims. The ritual savagery has forced thousands to flee their homes which have been summarily pillaged and burnt. Thousands have now taken refuge in Pontianak, the regional capital of Kalimantan or Indonesian Borneo. More than 15,000 Madurese were reported to have fled in cars and boats or were evacuated in military lorries to escape the gangs of ethnic Malay, Dayak and Bugis men hunting them with spears, sickles, pitchforks, daggers, bamboo staves and swords. Bodies of victims have been cut open and their hearts eaten. -- The [London] Times
"This is not war in the traditional sense . . ."
Throughout the 1980s stories circulated in Belgrade of the horrors befalling Serbs in the southern province that communism had ripped away from them. The Albanians were held responsible for destroying churches, desecrating graveyards and raping women. -- The [London] Times
"And all around Kosovo there are other small countries, struggling with their own economic and political challenges -- countries that could be overwhelmed by a large, new wave of refugees from Kosovo."
In Sierra Leone, fear stalks a land devastated by military coups, a seven- year civil war and the consequent mass displacement of civilians. But in the past year levels of brutality have brought comparisons with recent events in Rwanda as well as with Cambodia in the 1970's.
Refugees have told consistent stories of rape, mutilation and murder by elements of the former government. Aid workers and government officials told a meeting in the capital Freetown, that 1000 people had had their limbs amputated and thousands more had been mutilated or executed since last spring.
According to the UNHCR, Sierra Leone has produced more than half a million refugees this decade. -- The BBC
"We learned some of the same lessons in Bosnia just a few years ago. The world did not act early enough to stop that war, either. And let's not forget what happened -- innocent people herded into concentration camps, children gunned down by snipers on their way to school, soccer fields and parks turned into cemeteries; a quarter of a million people killed, not because of anything they have done, but because of who they were. Two million Bosnians became refugees. This was genocide in the heart of Europe . . ."
Garang's rebel movement has been fighting since 1983 for more autonomy for the south's largely Christian and animist population from the Islamic north. The war and related famines have turned southern Sudan into one of the most pitiful regions on earth.
Garang accused UN aid agencies of being too compliant toward Khartoum and accepting the government's insistence that certain areas in the war-torn south are off-limits to international aid workers. And he accused the United Nations of staying silent for too long about women and children in southern Sudan being abducted as slaves. -- The Associated Press
"If we and our allies were to allow this war to continue with no response, President Milosevic would read our hesitation as a license to kill. There would be many more massacres, tens of thousands more refugees, more victims crying out for revenge."
A further 100 civilians are reported to have been massacred in the Democratic Republic of Congo . . . The massacre -- the latest outbreak of inter-ethnic fighting in the region -- is said to have happened early on Monday. It follows a report earlier this month by the Italian Missionary News Agency that 100 people had been massacred in villages in eastern Congo. The same organisation told of 500 civilians being shot during a reprisal by Rwandan-backed rebels in the new year.
Magunga's Village Chief Samson Muhizi said: "They encircled the village and started to kill people with machetes." -- The BBC
"Imagine what would happen if we and our allies instead decided just to look the other way, as these people are massacred on NATO's doorstep. That would discredit NATO, the cornerstone on which our security has rested for 50 years now."
The United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, is planning an independent inquiry into the UN's failure to halt the genocide in Rwanda five years ago. The UN had about two thousand peacekeepers there in 1994, but began to withdraw them before the start of the genocide, which left nearly a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead. Mr Annan, who headed the UN's peacekeeping department then, has been attacked for refusing to authorise UN troops to disarm Hutu militiamen, but has always denied negligence.
The BBC correspondent at the UN says the organisation's inability to prevent the killings has long been regarded as its worst failure. -- The BBC
"Our thoughts and prayers tonight must be with the men and women of our Armed Forces who are undertaking this mission for the sake of our values and our children's future. May God bless them and may God bless America."
Clinton legacy in a nutshell.
Because the last leg of the AMBO oil pipeline from the Caspian was to run through Kosovo to Durres, Albania where the crude would be tanker loaded. The only way the Albanians would allow Durres to be used was to get Kosovo back from the Serbs. Humanitarian actions my arse.
Accuse your enemy of what you yourself are doing.
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