Anti-war greens paint Joschka Fischer red

Jason Zanon jzanon at ncadp.org
Thu May 13 10:55:19 PDT 1999


New York Times / Filed at 9:33 a.m. EDT

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.



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