Mediterranean Quarterly

It should have been obvious to anyone who had been associated with events in the Balkans since the early 1990s that Kosovo was a powder keg waiting to explode—particularly after the fighting that resulted in the emergence of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) as independent nations. It is therefore inexcusable that the Western powers failed to address the Kosovo issue in 1995 when, led by the United States, they secured what even by their own rather dubious standard was a superficial, fragile, and artificial arrangement at Dayton. Although Kosovo was not directly connected with the events in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the imminence of the current conflict was clear. Was the oversight a deliberate sop to President Milosevic for what the Western powers secured from him in terms of assistance with the Bosnian Serbs? Was it yet another instance of the incompetence of those who seek to run the international system? Or was it sheer indifference induced by the euphoria of having secured an agreement of some sort in an environment that promised none?

Whatever the answer, there can be no gainsaying the fact that someone is answerable for the lapse. The tragedy, of course, is that when matters came to their present head, a scapegoat needed to be found. And who better to fill that role than the evil Serb community (so effectively demonized by the electronic and print media of the West during the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina), [End Page 15] as personified by Milosevic. All the arrangements made when the Kosovo crisis first assumed serious proportions in 1998 fell apart because of military attacks and counterattacks of growing intensity and strength. The Yugoslav government indicated preparedness to abide by provisions of an agreement that called for such actions as implementing a cease-fire, granting greater autonomy to the Kosovar Albanians, and so on, but they insisted that the status of Kosovo as part of Serbia was not negotiable, and they would not agree to the stationing of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces on the soil of Yugoslavia.

Ultimatums were issued to Yugoslavia to the effect that unless it adhered to the terms of an agreement drawn up at Rambouillet, NATO would undertake bombing. To make the decision easier for NATO, the radical Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leadership, which was also reluctant to sign anything that did not grant the Albanians of Kosovo independence, were coaxed, cajoled, and possibly coerced into putting their signatures to a document. With this concurrence, NATO apparently had all the legal and moral authority it felt necessary to undertake military operations against a country that had, at worst, been harsh on its own people.

With the authority of the signature of the KLA on a document drafted by the Western alliance, on 24 March 1999 NATO launched attacks with cruise missiles and bombs on Yugoslavia, a sovereign state, a founding member of the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement, and the home of a people who had been at the forefront of the fight against Nazi Germany and other fascist forces during World War II. The Yugoslav armed forces have not attacked or threatened to attack any other country, yet Yugoslavia has been attacked in a most vicious and devastating manner by a group of nineteen countries with some of the best military capabilities in the world and led by the world’s sole superpower. A developing country of about 10 million people emerging from a traumatic vivisection, Yugoslavia has been attacked by a group representing a combined population of about half a billion. These attacks continued with a one-sided aerial bombardment, the ruthlessness of which was matched only by the apparent indifference of the political leadership of the NATO countries to the fate of the innocent civilians being killed, maimed, and rendered homeless and the general destruction of a nation and its society [End Page 16] .

Having completed a one-year tenure as the force commander and head of mission of the United Nations forces in the former Yugoslavia from 3 March 1992 to 2 March 1993, I declined an offer of extension in the assignment by the UN secretary-general and returned to the Indian army, primarily because I had become cynical about the machinations of the international community (much of which I was privy to, but none of which could I halt or contain) and was quite disgusted by the unabashed bias of the Western media. However, the main reason for not accepting an extension of my assignment was my assessment (later proved correct) that NATO would assume an increasingly intrusive and substantive role in the running of the UN operations in the region.

As things turned out, NATO (led by the United States) used the UN as a front and a shield for as long as it suited its purpose and then unceremoniously dumped the UN into the cesspool of history. Just as there is much that some UN monitors in Iraq (other than the Americans) and some Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitors in Kosovo (according to press reports) have to say about the manner in which their missions were usurped by the compulsions of pursuing an agenda of the sole superpower, there is a great deal that could be said of the manipulations and pressures that were brought to bear on UN activities in the former Yugoslavia.

The ongoing NATO operations against Yugoslavia raise a number of issues that need objective understanding and analysis to assess the direction in which we are headed in terms of the establishment of a just and equitable world order. I cannot resist making the point, however, that if what is being done by the NATO forces to the people of Yugoslavia reflects the combined will and understanding of the “civilized world” (which is what the developed world unfailingly calls itself), I would much prefer to remain in “uncivilized” societies like India, where we at least continue to have some traditional values and genuine respect for human life and dignity. Where are the voices of sanity that we thought existed in France, Scandinavia, and Greece?

Instead of holding our breath for too long while seeking an answer to that question, let us try and examine the main issues raised by NATO’s actions. First, it is appropriate to touch on the humanitarian dimension, which, to say the least, is sad and depressing and becoming worse by the day. It is the [End Page 17] innocent who are being subjected to displacement, pain, and misery. Unfortunately, this is the tragic and inevitable outcome of all civil wars, insurgencies, rebel movements, and terrorist activities. History is replete with examples of such suffering, whether they be in the United States during its Civil War, in Spain as a result of the Basque movement, or in Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Angola, Cambodia, and so many other places. European civilian centers were bombed indiscriminately during World War II; Hiroshima and Nagasaki were decimated; and the people of Vietnam were victimized. The list is endless.

Personally, I have no doubt that, notwithstanding what one hears and sees on CNN, the BBC, and other Western agencies and in the daily briefings of the NATO authorities, the blame for the humanitarian crisis that has arisen cannot be placed at the door of the Yugoslavian authorities alone. In fact, if I am to go by my own experiences handling operations in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and FYROM, I would say that the reporting in the electronic media is largely unreliable, because they invariably broadcast establishment policy, information conveyed by the propaganda machinery of the belligerents, or stories designed to result in maximum viewership. Fair enough, they have to survive, but we do not have to treat what they portray as gospel.

Those of us who have had the opportunity to see such situations firsthand do not fool ourselves into really believing that there is true freedom of the media in the world’s greatest democracy, or in the lesser ones. Whether the people of Kosovo are fleeing their homes and hearths because of NATO bombs, Serbian authorities, the KLA, or all three can be debated by those who think such debate is necessary. To an objective analyst there can be no doubt that the ongoing human catastrophe has been provoked by NATO’s actions in the form of bombing and air strikes. While we sympathize with the unfortunate Albanians who are displaced, the world is as yet unaware of the sufferings of equally innocent Serbs, probably because they are less than human in the eyes of the dispensers of justice in the Western world.

The responsibility for the humanitarian crisis rests at NATO’s doors, and no amount of meaningless rhetoric can erase that truth. But the rest of the international community shares responsibility for its incapacity to raise its voice against such unilateral, one-sided armed action. [End Page 18]

All this brings one to the most serious aspect of the ethics of NATO’s actions. They run directly counter to the charter of the UN. Does the Western world care for what appears to be an increasingly impotent organization? The intervention is also against NATO’s own charter, which declared that the alliance can take military action only when one of its own members is attacked. (This is apparently being revised to allow NATO operations in other parts of the world; what will then happen to the rest of the world is not a pleasant thought.) NATO cannot take action under the umbrella of Chapter 8 of the UN Charter, because it is not a regional organization as envisaged by that provision but a military alliance. The attempts to coerce Yugoslavia by threats of bombing to sign on to what was drafted at Rambouillet are in violation of the Vienna Convention on the Law of International Treaties.

One hears of the total endorsement of the action by all NATO countries, but one has to be really naive to believe that U.S. arm-twisting is reserved only for countries like India. The other members of NATO, as also those governments that opposed the Russian resolution in the UN Security Council, know that they have no option other than to fall in line. It would also be interesting to analyze the modus operandi of the alliance in the execution of what it calls Operation Allied Force. As a military man, I cannot convince myself that the methods being adopted in the conduct of present operations are the preferred option of NATO’s military planners; I know they are a professional lot.

What is being undertaken under the garb of a military operation is the unprofessional enterprise of some politicians and diplomats, who quite obviously made a serious miscalculation in assessing the capacity of the Yugoslav leadership and its people to stand up to such outrageously unacceptable international behavior. The prime movers of this utterly futile operation have apparently drawn all the wrong lessons from what transpired during the conflict in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, particularly in bringing hostilities to a close in 1995.

The assumption that it was the NATO bombing of the Bosnian Serbs alone that forced them to the negotiating table is basically flawed. President Milosevic and the Bosnian Serbs went to Dayton and eventually signed the agreement not solely because of the aerial action then undertaken by [End Page 19] NATO forces, which in itself had a degree of justification in international norms, because the Bosnian Serbs had attacked a UN-declared safe area, Srebrenica. This was an attack on the will of the international community represented by UN forces, exaggerations of so-called atrocities and mass murders notwithstanding.

Having been part of the international system for so many years and having participated effectively in all the activities of the UN in the past, the Yugoslav political leadership was fully aware of the transgression of accepted international norms. It is another matter altogether that the international community represented by the Security Council was not sufficiently exercised by a similar breach of norms when the Croatian armed forces attacked UN protected areas in Croatia in January 1993 and again in 1995, when they put to flight the Serb population of the Krajina, estimated at approximately three hundred thousand.

Another reason for Serbian agreement at Dayton was that the Bosnian Serb leadership had by then become convinced that its main demand (voiced as early as November or December 1992, when I was still in command of the UN operations in the region), that it be recognized as a separate entity (the Republika Srbska) in control of Serb-majority areas in Bosnia-Herzegovina, was to be conceded. The Dayton agreement did in fact concede such an arrangement, rhetorical postures notwithstanding, and the arrangement continues to this day. It is another matter altogether that, had this request been conceded at the end of 1992, much loss of life and destruction of property could have been avoided.

Another reason why the Dayton scenario could never be the model for actions relating to Kosovo is that the Bosnian Serb political and military leadership would have been well aware in 1995 that NATO aerial bombardment of their positions could be exploited on the ground by the significant numbers of troops available to the Bosnian Muslims and to the Croats, both of whom had by then been well trained and equipped by the Americans. There was no compulsion then for the introduction of U.S. and Western European ground troops; there were others to do the dirty work. Hence, the Western powers would have no inhibitions in pursuing the aerial attacks. In Kosovo, notwithstanding all the assistance that has been provided to the [End Page 20] KLA, it does not yet appear to be in a position to take on the Yugoslav armed forces effectively.

What are the possibilities that we can, in mid-May 1999, try to forecast? One possibility is that under the intensity of the aerial bombardment and destruction of the Yugoslav population and its national assets, President Milosevic capitulates and agrees to all the conditions set out by NATO. The second is that opposition to Milosevic succeeds in replacing him and his cohorts and the country agrees to the conditions set out by NATO. This would be a desirable response to the message that the United States and its Western allies have been conveying to the people of the world through the punishment inflicted on the Yugoslav population—that you will do well to select representatives who are acceptable to us politically and who are amenable to our dictates, otherwise you leave yourselves open to bombing and air strikes. This is an unlikely scenario, with an even more frightening prospect for the Yugoslav people and the Balkans, since the regime that replaces Milosevic could well be a radical one that plunges the region into even greater chaos.

A third possibility is that the American people shake off their self-induced stupor, awaken to the realities other than what CNN feeds them, and through their elected representatives force the U.S. administration to call a halt to the aerial bombardment and strikes. I discount the possibility that the United States would run out of missiles and bombs. A fourth possibility is that some saner elements in the NATO framework would feel compelled to respond to the dictates of their individual and collective consciences and would be able to stop the hitherto officially condoned genocide.

A fifth possibility is that the United States and the rest of NATO accept a face-saving arrangement worked out by the Russians; this is not altogether unlikely, given the sense of desperation creeping in after two months of aerial bombardment and strikes, and it is the most probable possibility in my view. What happens after a halt to the unilateral military action then becomes the paramount question.

Here a very brief look into the recent history of the region may be appropriate, so that events are placed in proper perspective. An aspect of significance is that FYROM has a significant Albanian population and that Kosovo, [End Page 21] Montenegro, and FYROM have common borders with Albania, from which country, among others, the KLA, the militant Albanian element seeking independence for Kosovo from Serbia, draws support.

Of relevance also is the history of conflict in the region, particularly since World War II. Memories of the atrocities committed by the various communities during that war era are still fresh in the minds of people of the region. The Serbs particularly are obsessed with what transpired during the war years, apparently because they suffered more than the others. This feeling affects all Serbs—those of Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The trauma of the fighting in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1991 to 1995 is even more significant. The animosity that the momentous events of this period generated between the Serbs and the Croats, both in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina; their common animosity toward the Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina; and the fighting from 1992 onward, in which many Albanian Muslims from Kosovo apparently participated, are things that will not be forgotten for a long while. Add to this explosive mix the animosities and sufferings induced by recent events in Yugoslavia in general, and Kosovo in particular, and one has a recipe for continuing disaster.

Any optimistic prognosis would therefore be subject to much skepticism. Nevertheless, it is useful to try and enumerate the solutions that could be looked at should there be a halt to NATO bombardment and air strikes. The solutions that can emerge, depending on which of the scenarios for the halt of NATO armed actions takes place, include the following:

Kosovo becomes an independent entity or nation;

Kosovo is partitioned, with those areas having religious and historical significance remaining with Serbia and the other part becoming an independent Albanian entity; and

Kosovo remains part of Serbia but with greater autonomy for the Albanian majority, duly monitored for some time at least under UN auspices.

It is almost inevitable, given the recent history of the region, that an independent Kosovo has very dangerous implications for the Balkans and Europe. The emergence of Kosovo as an independent entity would almost certainly lead sooner rather than later to a movement for a greater Albania, with consequent adverse fallout on FYROM and possibly some spillover [End Page 22] effects in due course on Greece and later on Bulgaria. Then Turkey might be drawn in to the conflict. Such a progression may well lead to a similar movement for a greater Serbia and perhaps to a greater Croatia to include Croat-majority areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The seeds for the growth of a degree of Islamic fundamentalism would then have been sown; there are some indications that such a trend is already taking root.

Partition of Kosovo probably appears the most practical solution under the circumstances but suffers from all the disadvantages of producing an independent entity with the added adverse connotation of probably not being to the liking of either the Kosovar Albanians or the Serbs. The third model, enhanced autonomy for Kosovo within Serbia with international monitoring, appears to have little possibility of acceptance by the KLA and a sizable section of the Albanian population.

But if the United States and the European powers are genuine about their protestations that they do not wish to be party to a further breakup of Yugoslavia, they must bring to bear the requisite pressure for a resolution of the crisis within this framework. The real danger is that, the West having taken sides so obviously in treating the Serbs as the villains of the piece and subjected them to attack, the KLA and its sympathizers will feel encouraged to provoke the Serbs at every opportunity. Given the persecution complex the Serbs are steeped in (probably not altogether without cause), they can be expected to respond heavy-handedly, thereby drawing the wrath of the United States and some others upon them again, to the satisfaction of the KLA.

Any UN force deployed to monitor such arrangements must therefore have the wherewithal and the composition to satisfy both belligerents. It must also have the capacity to deal sternly and impartially with any violations of agreements. Finally, where does all this leave the international community? The portents for the future, at least in the short term, are bleak indeed. The UN has been made redundant, ineffective, and impotent. The Western world, led by the United States, will lay down the moral values that the rest of the world must adhere to; it does not matter that they themselves do not adhere to the same values when it does not suit them. National sovereignty and territorial integrity have no sanctity. And tragically, secessionist movements, which often start with terrorist activity, will get greater encouragement. [End Page 23] One can only hope that good sense will prevail, hopefully sooner rather than later.