By The Associated Press
BIELEFELD, Germany (AP) -- Greens party delegates today debated
pacifist calls for an immediate NATO cease-fire in Kosovo, testing
German support for the conflict and putting the 6-month-old governing
coalition at risk.
Leftist peace protesters disrupted the party congress from the start,
forming a human chain around the building to prevent delegates from
entering, chanting slogans and waving pictures of Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer with Hitler mustaches.
One demonstrator threw red paint at Fischer and another paraded in front
of the dais naked. Stunned and furious, Fischer wiped paint from his face
and neck with a paper towel as guards expelled the protesters.
An angry, impassioned Fischer implored his party to support NATO,
hinting that he would quit if delegates backed the cease-fire. He warned of
further bloodshed in the Balkans if NATO gives in to Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic.
``I plead with you to help me and give me your support -- and not cut me
off at the knees -- so I can emerge from this congress strengthened and
can continue our policy,'' he shouted, prompting cheers, a three-minute
standing ovation and a few jeers from the 800 delegates.
Fischer, the highest-ranking Green, has warned his party that adopting the
anti-war activists' stand would likely break up Germany's center-left
government by forcing Schroeder and his Social Democrats to seek
another partner.
A government collapse would be a blow to NATO unity as the alliance
tries to bomb Milosevic into accepting a peace plan for Kosovo, a southern
province of Yugoslavia. Schroeder and Fischer have staunchly supported
the war.
Greens leaders are mostly pragmatists who support Fischer. They
acknowledge that their efforts to unite the party behind him were
complicated by NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and
Yugoslavia's announcement of a partial troop pullout from Kosovo.
Party co-chairwoman Antje Radcke pleaded with the 800 delegates to
support Fischer's camp and work for peace from inside the government.
``Let's not play Russian roulette'' with the coalition, she said.
But it was a leading pacifist, Annelie Buntenbach, who received cheers
and a standing ovation after attacking the ``spiral of escalation'' by NATO
and declaring: ``War is not an option.''
``Stopping the bombing is a precondition for giving diplomacy a chance,''
she said. ``After seven weeks, I must ask what this war has achieved.''
Schroeder has expressed confidence the Greens would show ``common
sense'' during their meeting in the northwestern city of Bielefeld. ``First, the
foreign minister will not resign, and second, there is no government crisis,''
he said during a visit to China.
Fear of a wavering Germany has helped prompt a flurry of high-level
diplomacy, including a visit by President Clinton last week to bolster
Schroeder.
Leftists in Schroeder's coalition have been raising doubts for weeks about
the logic of NATO's air war, which involves Germany's first combat since
World War II.
A key pacifist motion -- one of dozens at the Greens congress -- would
force the party's lawmakers to work for a unilateral stop to the bombing
and a resumption of peace talks, a strategy NATO governments reject.
Yet, even a leading pacifist has appeared to soften. Lawmaker Christian
Stroebele, co-author of one anti-war resolution, insisted Wednesday he
didn't want to bring down the coalition.
Founded in 1980 by peace activists and environmentalists, the Greens last
fall joined the ruling coalition for the first time.