I fear that you are right. As I said in my earlier response, the idea that the Rambouillet Accords could work was probably naive, although a genuine autonomy that both sides would support and work within with minority rights actually guaranteed still sounds awfully nice.
I am not sure that your proposed solution is necessarily any more likely or practical. However, you have raised a point that I have thought about but have yet to see mentioned in the media, and which may de facto be an outcome anyway. That is de facto partition. This may in fact explain what appears to be especially large outmigrations of Albanians from the Pec area, although it is really hard to tell what the heck is going on over there right now. The more heavily industrialized areas in the north might also be held back for a de facto Serbian zone as well. A partition may be where we are headed after the Serbs finish doing whatever it is that they are doing.
BTW, it may be that NATO thinks that it is getting revenge for Srebenica. But I think that the Serbs may be getting revenge for the mass expulsion of Serbs by the Croatians from the Krajina region, an expulsion that was not protested by the US or NATO and indeed was viewed as convenient for bringing about the Dayton Accords, which, for all their deep imperfections, have at least mostly stopped the fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Indeed, there are reports that the villages that have been "cleansed" of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo are (going to?) be populated with Serb refugees from Krajina.
Well, I hope that there are no Srebenicas going on in Kosovo. That would certainly befoul any outcome and ruin the standing of Serbia/Yugoslavia for a long time to come. The bombings by NATO are a violation of international law, but so far do not look as horrific as Srebenica, the memory of which still seems to me to explain why such normally pro-Serb countries as France and Greece are supporting the current NATO actions.
BTW, I referred to EU interests in an earlier post. But, clearly the issue is NATO, not the EU, although they have significant overlap. Non-EU NATO members include the US, Canada, Iceland (not participating in this), Norway, and Turkey (eagerly participating in this). Non-NATO EU members include Ireland, Sweden, Finland, and Austria, the latter being the only one actively opposing the current NATO actions, somewhat in opposition to its traditional anti-Serb position. I speculate that this is an assertion of its neutrality between strongly pro-Serb Russia and the West. Barkley Rosser -----Original Message----- From: phillp2 at Ms.UManitoba.CA <phillp2 at Ms.UManitoba.CA> To: pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu <pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu> Date: Monday, March 29, 1999 10:10 PM Subject: [PEN-L:4653] Re: Re: Re: Re: War & 'Public Relations,' or, 'Kuwaiti Babi
Barkley,
There can be no solution with NATO occupying Kosovo. This is akin to asking Heaven to accept the devil to conduct its heavenly choir. THIS IS A NON-SOLUTION. (period) Rambouillette is not a solution because it proposes an autonomous Kosovo leading to separation under NATO (totally biased) supervision. This was never on and nobody who knows anything about the history of the region ever thought it was. You must remember that the Kosovo region, particularly the area around Pes, it is the equivalent of Bethlehem for Christians, Jerusalem for the Jews, or Mecca for Islam for the Serbian Orthodox. (I don't know enough about the eastern religions to come up with comparable sites.) Nor am I religious in the conventional denominational sense to understand this entirely except that I see our aboriginal peoples risking jail and violence to protect holy spots etc. And, if we could observe the greatest hippocrits of all, the English, after trying to ethnically cleanse and then exterminatre the Irish, now trying militarily to enforce their domination of northern Ireland -- as they bomb Serbia for doing exactly what they are doing in norther Ireland -- trying to enforce their Rambouillette agreement as it falls apart. It turns my stomach.
There is now, in my opinion, only one solution with any long term chance of permanancy and any chance to end the bloodshed quickly and with a modicom of equity, if not justice.
1. Stop the bombing.
2. Negotiate a ceasefire.
3. Create a monitoring force UNDER UN SUPERVISION, not the murderous and partisan NATO.
4. Begin to negotiate a separation of Kosovo into two states, a Serb/orthodox state that would incorporate the religious core of the old Kosova region into Serbia, and a separate Albanian/muslim Kosovo which should be free (as the equivalent region of Serb Bosnia should be) to join whatever federation it wants.
This should allow for a settlement of the Balkan issue on a more or less permanent basis -- PROVIDING THE US AND EUROPE AND TURKEY AND ALL OF THE OTHER IMPERIALISTS IN THE REGION WOULD LET THEM BE.
How much more blood must we in the west, Canada included, have on our hands?
Dovidjenje, Paul Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb at jmu.edu> To: <pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu> Copies to: <lbo-talk at dont.panix.com> Subject: [PEN-L:4646] Re: Re: Re: War & 'Public Relations,' or, 'Kuwaiti Babi Date sent: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 17:14:36 -0500 Send reply to: pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu
> Paul,
> Maybe this is just terribly naive, but what would
> be wrong with the autonomy proposal (with NATO
> troops on the ground and enforcing) that was made
> at Rambouillet? Seems better than either side
> having more or less control and engaging in
> slaughter/removal, etc., if extremely imperfect.
> I realize that this is probably a delayed version of
> turning over more ultimate control to the KLA. But
> with NATO in there perhaps a system to guarantee
> rights for the Serbs can be implemented as a condition
> of any removal of peacekeepers. After all, I understand
> that one of the remaining disagreements had to do with
> whether or not Serbs would be tried in Serbian courts or
> in Kosovan courts with imported Serbian judges. Seems
> like an awfully fine point to be fighting over, unless one is
> simply hoping to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of its Albanians,
> a plan which if successful will indeed be pretty horrific and
> seems to be what is going on now unless we are just being
> totally mislead by the TV pix of people crossing the borders.
> BTW, I remain opposed to the bombing for a number
> of reasons. But I find myself contemplating the fact that there
> is what is to my mind a surprising level of support for this
> from the EU, including even such traditionally pro-Serbian
> countries as Greece and France. That may change. But it
> raises the possibility that either the EU really is calling the
> shots on this one with the US as flunky/waterboy, as Dennis
> Redmond claims (because of US debts to the EU), which I
> find unconvincing, or it is some desire of the EU to somehow
> control and end the various ethnic conflicts on the European
> continent once and for all before the century is out. Or maybe
> this is the grand project of the bourgeois EU, the same folks
> who want to undo workers' ownership/management in Slovenia
> as a condition of that country's entry into the blessed realm.
> I do not find Greg Nowell's Danube theory particularly convincing,
> much less oil pipeline stories. It is certainly the case that the
> US has an anti-Serb bias based on ideology and this would
> explain the lack of US action regarding the Kurds in comparison.
> But, frankly, I am somewhat mystified about just what the motive is,
> especially given the clear evidence that the outcome of the bombing
> is exactly what was supposedly being prevented, an accelerated removal and
> slaughter of the Kosovar Albanians, just what the motive is. I do not
rule
> out sheer stupidity, given that apparently US administration spokespersons
> could not even answer accurately whether the Kosovar Albanians are Ghegs
or
> Tosks before a congressional committee recently. But this explanation
would
> not seem to fly for the Europeans.
> Barkley Rosser
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Phillips <phillp2 at Ms.UManitoba.CA>
> To: pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu <pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu>
> Date: Monday, March 29, 1999 2:36 PM
> Subject: [PEN-L:4643] Re: Re: War & 'Public Relations,' or, 'Kuwaiti Babi
>
>
> Barkley,
>
> Let me ask you the question. Should the Serbs retreat and stop
> trying to oust the KLA and their Albanian supporters? You realize I
> know that that would bring about the extermination of the Serbs in
> Kosovo. Once the bombing started what alternative did the Serbs
> have?
>
> Paul
> Paul Phillips,
> Economics,
> University of Manitoba
>
>
> > From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb at jmu.edu>
> > To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
> > Cc: <pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu>
> > Subject: [PEN-L:4638] Re: War & 'Public Relations,' or, 'Kuwaiti
> Babies Torn fromIncubators'
> > Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 11:54:04 -0500
> > Reply-to: pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu
>
> > Yoshie,
> > I am someone who opposes the US actions in
> > Kosovo and who (unfortunately accurately) forecast
> > that the bombing would bring about the very humanitarian
> > catastrophe that it was allegedly implemented to prevent.
> > I also agree with much of your analysis of the reasons
> > for the disintegration of Yugoslavia and exaggerated
> > reporting of atrocities in various cases.
> > But, are you going to suggest that the reports we
> > are now getting of mass emigration from Kosovo are
> > inaccurate? Does the bombing actually justify the horrific
> > actions that Milosevic is now carrying out, even if the
> > reporting of them might be somewhat exaggerated?
> > It is one thing to forecast a catastrophe. It is quite
> > another to applaud it or to attempt to justify it. I do
> > not applaud any of the parties in this particular tragedy,
> > and I certainly don't view Milosevic as some sort of hero.
> > Barkley Rossre
> >>
>
>