German PDS's Gysi letter to Slobodan Milosevic

Seth Ackerman SAckerman at FAIR.org
Thu May 13 14:17:42 PDT 1999


Nathan wrote:

>Also, for those who argued that Milosevic rejected a deal only because it

>involved NATO troops, note in the letter that Gysi emphasizes that even in

>private conversations, Milosevic was opposed to a UN force in Kosovo.

Gysi wrote:

>At the beginning of our conversation you rejected this suggestion; at the

>end, however, you assured me that you would think it over. I regard the

>results of your conversation with the Russian president's envoy, Victor

>Chernomyrdin, and the statements of your Vice-Prime Minister, Vuk

>Draskovic, as showing that this reconsideration is continuing. I appeal

>to you once again to open up this path.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nathan Newman [SMTP:nathan.newman at yale.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, May 13, 1999 4:25 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: German PDS's Gysi letter to Slobodan Milosevic
>
>
> A rather interesting letter to Milosevic from the leader of Germany's
> PDS,
> the only party there in opposition to the NATO bombing. It does show
> the
> strong integrity of the PDS in their stance. While I disagree with
> it, I
> admire their general politics and hope they gain political support
> based on
> it for the sake of the rest of their program.
>
> It is notable that even a relatively friendly critic of Milosevic
> notes
> that, from his own experience visiting the refugee camps, it was army
> expulsions, not NATO bombs that drove the Kosovars out of their homes.
>
> Also, for those who argued that Milosevic rejected a deal only because
> it
> involved NATO troops, note in the letter that Gysi emphasizes that
> even in
> private conversations, Milosevic was opposed to a UN force in Kosovo.
>
> --Nathan Newman
>
> -----------------
> A Letter from Gregor Gysi* to Slobodan Milosevic
>
> Translation: Eric Canepa (Source: the PDS's weekly press report,
> Pressedienst, No. 18, 1999 (May 7), in internet at: www.pds-
> online.de/1/pressedienst/9918/)
>
> *Gregor Gysi is the chair of the delegation of the
> Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) in the German Bundestag.
>
>
> Dear Mr. President,
>
> Mindful of our conversation of April 14, 1999 I am writing you this
> letter.
>
> Once again I stress my unequivocal rejection of NATO's illegal and
> completely unequal war against the
> Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and express my great dismay at the
> dead and
> wounded, especially within the
> civilian population, and at the ever more cynical destruction of what
> increasingly turn out to be civilian
> installations in Yugoslavia, as well as my condemnation of any kind of
> violation of human rights in
> Kosovo.
>
> I fear that the war will set back European integration and the
> relation of
> a number of European states to the Russian Federation for many years
> to
> come. This can only be in the interests of the U.S., as a way of
> hindering a political and economic competitor in Europe.
>
> Once again I ask you to give your consent to a UN peace force
> according to
> the UN charter--without participation of the aggressor NATO nations.
>
> If, in direct negotiations between the political leaderships of
> Yugoslavia
> and Kosovo, an accord should be reached with the participation of the
> United Nations, the return of hundreds of thousands of refugees must
> follow in a peaceful and secure manner.
>
> However, these refugees--and I will come back to this below--
> understandably have no trust in the Yugoslav army and police. On the
> other hand, I understand that those who are now bombing Yugoslavia
> cannot
> secure peace. There are, however, other countries which would be more
> suited to securing that peace.
>
> The deployment of a UN peace force after the retreat of your troops
> from
> Kosovo would not mean occupation; it would have a time-limit set, and
> due
> to UN sovereignty would be a completely different approach to a
> solution
> than that of NATO.
>
> At the beginning of our conversation you rejected this suggestion; at
> the
> end, however, you assured me that you would think it over. I regard
> the
> results of your conversation with the Russian president's envoy,
> Victor
> Chernomyrdin, and the statements of your Vice-Prime Minister, Vuk
> Draskovic, as showing that this reconsideration is continuing. I
> appeal
> to you once again to open up this path.
>
> NATO would thus be forced to decide what is more important to it, the
> desire to be the sole factor in the Euro-Atlantic order, or the desire
> for
> peace. Such a peace would be difficult enough to put into practice,
> but
> it would have a real chance [of inhibiting] the current hegemonic
> strivings, especially those of the U.S.
>
> In our conversation, as in others I had in Belgrade, we went on to
> speak
> of the fate of Kosovo-Albanians. You claimed that before NATO's
> bombing
> of Kosovo there were--and this is incontrovertible--much fewer
> refugees
> from Kosovo. As causes for their flight in the period before the
> bombing,
> you pointed to KLA attacks and the civilian populations's fear of
> falling
> victim to the battles between your army and police and the KLA. The
> dramatic rise in the number of refugees since the end of March 1999
> is, in
> your opinion, solely attributable to the NATO bombing. To my
> counter-arguments you replied that news reporting in Germany is
> one-sided,
> that the refugees are coached by clan chiefs, and moreover that the
> refugees only have a chance of being received in a Western country if
> they
> criticize the Yugoslav army and police.
>
> I told you that I wanted to travel to Albania and speak with refugees,
> and
> you thought that there I would see your account confirmed. But this
> in no
> way turned out to be the case.
>
> At first I followed the advice of a top official in your Foreign
> Ministry,
> and I looked at the Germany Foreign Ministry's status reports and the
> decisions of German high courts on deportation of Kosovo-Albanians
> during
> this year. I have to confirm that in these status reports and in the
> decisions of the high courts reaching through March 1999, expulsions
> and
> "ethnic cleansing" aimed at Kosovo-Albanians is expressly refuted.
>
> In these reports and decisions, the battle between your army and
> police
> and the KLA was confirmed as the motivation for flight; that
> Kosovo-Albanians were persecuted due to their belonging to "an
> Albanian
> ethnicity" was expressly negated. On this basis and with reference to
> the
> relevant status reports of the Foreign Ministry, deportations to
> Yugoslavia, especially to Kosovo, were approved by the German High
> Courts.
> It is correct to say that the German administration's current claims
> that
> expulsions and "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo have been occurring for a
> long
> time, especially since December 1998/January 1999, and during the
> Rambouillet negotiations, is sharply contradicted by these reports and
> decisions.
>
> During my trip to Albania, I visited the Spitalle refugee camp and
> spoke
> with several refugees from Kosovo. I myself determined the
> conditions,
> that is, I made the choice myself and did it randomly. I was alone
> with
> their families; I took along my own interpreter; media people were
> not
> present, and everything remained anonymous. I neither asked for names
> nor
> for personal information. Thus there could have been no
> understandable
> reason for one of these refugees not to tell me the truth. I also
> have no
> reason to doubt the truth of their statements, especially because
> those
> concerned clearly differentiated between their own experience and
> information they heard, and after they felt more confident, they also
> spared no criticism of the KLA.
>
> They thus told of attacks and of accusations of collaboration leveled
> by
> the KLA whenever a Kosovo-Albanian cooperated with any Yugoslav
> authority,
> of the hiding of young men from rigorous recruiting, etc. In no way
> did
> they deny their fear of being hit by NATO bombs. However, this for
> them
> was not the reason for leaving Kosovo, no more than it is the bombing
> that
> makes most Serbs and other Yugoslavs leave Yugoslavia.
>
> In all their stories, the reason given me was the expulsion on the
> part of
> the Yugoslav army and police, which, as is known, was instituted on a
> massive scale after the NATO bombings began. Expulsions seriously
> violate
> human rights. As an example, I will report only two stories I was
> told:
>
> An exile who had to flee a city began his story with a criticism of
> Germany. He had lived there in the state of Schleswig-Holstein from
> 1995
> to 1998. In 1998 his asylum petition was finally rejected, and he was
> deported to Kosovo. Immediately after his arrival the heavy fighting
> between the KLA and your army and police began. Yet he remained.
> After
> the beginning of the NATO bombing he was sought out by the Yugoslav
> police. They accused him of collaboration with the KLA and with OSCE
> observers. He denied both accusations. The accusation of cooperation
> with OSCE observers I find specially objectionable, since the latter
> were
> in Kosovo with your consent. He and his family were unambiguously
> ordered
> immediately to leave the country, because otherwise, as they were
> told,
> they would be shot. Thus began their sad journey as exiles. He also
> reported to me that intellectuals, especially medical doctors in his
> city,
> were supposed to have been shot, but in this case he only heard about
> this; he himself had not witnessed it.
>
> Another exile came from a village. In this village only Kosovo-
> Albanians
> were living. Serbs lived in both neighboring villages. There was
> peaceful co-existence.
>
> According to his account, after the bombing began, Yugoslav soldiers
> and
> police personnel came and herded the villagers together. They were
> given
> one hour to leave the village and Kosovo for good. No accusations of
> any
> kind were uttered. The Serb inhabitants of the neighboring villages
> had
> no part in the action. The refugee told me that the inhabitants of
> his
> village returned to their houses and simply stayed there. And then
> each
> night for a whole week the houses, especially the roofs, were shelled.
> Nobody ventured out of their house. After a week they were forcibly
> driven out of their houses and herded together. This time the
> soldiers'
> and policemen's faces were painted so as to be unrecognizable. When
> the
> villagers were told they would be shot if they did not leave the
> village,
> they left. On the road they were sent back as they were told that
> they
> could take along their tractors, cars, etc., but could never return.
> They then got their vehicles and other things. Then too their sad
> journey
> as exiles began.
>
> These examples should suffice.
>
> >From this I get the following inescapable impression: until the
> beginning
> of NATO's war against Yugoslavia there were refugees from the armed
> clashes between your army and police on the one side, and the KLA on
> the
> other, which affected the civilian population. There were excesses
> and
> provocations against the civilian population from both sides. One
> should
> also remember the accusation--by no means effectively countered--of
> the
> massacre in Racak, about which I had at the time written you a strong
> letter of protest. But at that point there was, as is known, still no
> "ethnic cleansing" or systematic expulsions in Kosovo. This is shown
> not
> only by the significantly lower numbers of refugees, but also by the
> status reports of the German Federal Republic's Foreign Ministry and
> the
> decisions of German high courts.
>
> The battle against the KLA is certainly constitutional and legal from
> the
> point of view of international law. But such armed troops [i.e. the
> KLA,
> ed.] do not arise if a population has not for many years been
> significantly disadvantaged, a state of affairs which began with the
> removal of Kosovo's autonomy in 1989. This is true, despite the
> significant external support for the KLA.
>
> However, here it is decisive that the end of the Rambouillet
> negotiations
> and the beginning of the bombing on the part of NATO were clearly used
> massively and systematically to expel Kosovo-Albanians. This is also
> shown by the trains that are sent, filled with Kosovo-Albanians, to
> Macedonia. These massive expulsions significantly violate the human
> rights of the people concerned. And the account you gave me is
> clearly
> false. Precisely the sudden transformation in the behavior of the
> Yugoslav army and police after the beginning of the bombing rules out
> the
> possibility that what is involved are only isolated excesses. Here
> direction had to come from the center. Indications of massacres are
> also
> becoming more frequent. In my view, these occurrences make the NATO
> bombardments even more insane and pernicious. However, the bombing in
> no
> way justifies the actions of the Yugoslav army and police against the
> Kosovo-Albanians.
>
> As President you have a duty to care for and protect all Yugoslav
> citizens, including the Kosovo-Albanian population.
>
> I can only appeal to you to prevent without delay any expulsion or
> worse
> in Kosovo. At the same time you must give credible signs of the
> possibility of a peaceful and secure return of refugees and exiles. I
> call your attention to the beginning of this letter. To the degree
> that
> you cooperate with these requests, the rejection of the illegal war of
> the
> U.S. and NATO against Yugoslavia will grow in Europe.
>
> I would be grateful for your answer.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Dr. Gregor Gysi
>
>
> ____________________________
>
> Eric Canepa
> 56 East 87 Street (Apt 6A)
> New York, NY 10128-1039
> tel (212) 289-2001
> mobile (917) 687-3859
> fax (212) 722-6506
> <ecanepa at igc.apc.org>
>
>
>
>



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