Banking on the Balkans

Sam Pawlett rsp at uniserve.com
Thu Jun 3 18:08:23 PDT 1999


Chris Burford wrote:
>
> If peace on NATO terms now looks likely, we should watch the economic fine
> print.
>
> Fischer continues to promote an aid plan from which capitalists will
> definitely benefit.
>
> The Guardian this Saturday had an article by Alex Brummer.
>
> The EU has provided aid of the order of $20 billion to the Balkans in the
> last 10 years. Now various European orgnisations are talking of a 10 year
> programme of rebuilding in the region of he order of $100 billion.
> Stiglitz, of the World Bank, has also talked of this figure.

Pretty heavy demolition costs. I remember seeing a docu on Lebanon where the Falange were shelling a part of Beirut while simultaneously looking over plans for what they were going to put in place of the destroyed buildings. "We'll put the Burger King here, the mall over there" etc. This war will certainly be a blessing for those who want to make every city in the world look like Muncy Indiana.

BTW, the World Court yesterday wimped out and ruled against Yugoslavia in its charge of genocide against NATO. It ruled on a technicality that Yugoslavia is not a member of the UN and is thus not in its jurisdiction. The Court threw out other charges made against the U.S. on grounds that the U.S. *had opted out of an important genocide convention in the U.N. charter on which Belgrade's case was based.* NATO did not argue the case on its merits, it instead challenged the jurisdiction of the World Court. But what would you expect? Law experts quoted in the National Post agreed that Belgrade had a very strong case and would certainly have won if the case had been argued on its merits.

Sam Pawlett



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