[ALBSA-Info] Fwd: Canada's Ambassador Bissett's speech on the Serbia-Kosova war

[Mimoza Meholli]

>Dear Friends,
>Hope you will find the following speech by Ambassador Bissett helpful as an
>alternative voice in understanding the war in Yugoslavia/Kosova. Thanks for
>your continued work on behalf of peaceful relations and relationships in
>and with Kosova and Yugoslavia.
>Peace,
>David
>
>
>
>* * *
>
>
>Subject: A must read! Ambassador Bisset's address to SCFAIT
>today!
>
>NOTES FOR ADDRESS TO STANDING COMMITTEE
>FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE (in Canada)
>
>1: introduction
>
>I wish to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity of
>speaking this morning.
>
>It is some comfort to know that although I was not allowed to
>speak to anyone in the Canadian embassy in Belgrade during a
>recent visit there that I am free to speak to members of the
>Canadian parliament.
>
>I have been an out spoken critic of the NATO bombing of
>Yugoslavia. I believe it to have been a tragic mistake--- a historic
>miscalculation that will have far reaching implications.
>
>When NATO bombs fell on Yugoslavia in the spring and summer
>of last year they caused more than just death and destruction in
>that country. The bombs also struck at the heart of international
>law and delivered a serious blow to the framework of global
>security that since the end of the second world war has protected
>all of us from the horrors of a nuclear war.
>
>Kosovo broke the ground rules for NATO engagement and the
>aggressive military intervention by NATO into the affairs of a
>sovereign state for other than defensive purposes marked an
>ominous turning point in the aims and objectives of that
>organization. It is important that we understand this and seek
>clarification as to whether this was a "one-off" aberration or a
>signal of fundamental change in the nature and purposes of the
>organization.this is something the committee might well examine
>in the course of its work.
>
>2: an illegal war
>
>NATO's war in Kosovo was conducted without the approval of the
>United Nations security council. It was a violation of international
>law, the United Nations charter and its own article 1, which
>requires NATO to settle any international disputes by peaceful
>means and not to threaten or use force, "in any manner
>inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."
>
>Apologists for NATO including our own foreign and defence
>ministers try to avoid this issue by simply not mentioning it. There
>has been no attempt to explain why the United Nations security
>council was ignored. No effort to spell out under whose authority
>did NATO bomb Yugoslavia. The ministers and their officials
>continue to justify the air strikes on the grounds that the bombs
>were necessary to stop ethnic cleansing and atrocities, despite all
>the evidence that by far the bulk of the ethnic cleansing took place
>after the bombing not before it. It was the bombing that triggered
>off the worst of the ethnic cleansing.
>
>As for the atrocities it now seems that here again we were lied to
>about the extent of the crimes committed. United states secretary
>of defence Cohen told us that at least 100,000 Kosovars had
>perished. Tony Blair spoke of genocide being carried out in
>Kosovo. The media relished in these atrocity stories and printed
>
>every story told to them by Albanian, "eye witnesses." The myth
>that the war was to stop ethnic cleansing and atrocities continue to
>be perpetrated by department spokesmen and large parts of the
>media.
>
>No one wants to defend atrocities and the numbers game in such
>circumstances becomes sordid. Nevertheless numbers do become
>important if they are used to justify military action against a
>sovereign state. In the case of Kosovo it appears that about 2000
>people were killed there prior to the NATO bombing. Considering
>that a civil war had been underway since 1993 this is not a
>remarkable figure and compared with a great many other hot spots
>hardly enough to warrant a 79-day bombing campaign. It is also
>interesting to note that the un tribunal indictment of Milosovic of
>May 1999, cites only one incident of deaths before the bombing
>the infamous Racak incident, which itself is challenged by French
>journalists who were on the ground there and suspect a frame-up
>involving General Walker who sounded the alarm.
>
>The Kosovo "war" reveals disturbing evidence of how lies and
>duplicity can mislead us into accepting things that we instinctively
>know to be wrong. Jamie Shea and other NATO apologists have
>lied to us about the bombing. The sad thing is that most of the
>Canadian media, and our political representatives have accepted
>without question what has been told to us by NATO and our own
>foreign affairs spokesmen.
>
>3: an unnecessary war
>
>Perhaps the most serious charge against the NATO bombing of
>Yugoslavia is that it was unnecessary. NATO chose bombing over
>diplomacy, violence over negotiation. NATO's leaders tried to
>convince us that dropping tons of bombs on Yugoslavia was
>serving humanitarian purposes
>
>A UN Security Council resolution of October 1998 accepted by
>Yugoslavia, authorized over 1300 monitors from the organization
>for security and cooperation in Europe [OSCE] to enter Kosovo
>and try to de-escalate the fighting. From the accounts of a number
>of these monitors their task was successful. While cease-fire
>violations continued on both sides the intensity of the armed
>struggle was considerably abated.
>
>The former Czech foreign minister, Jiri Dienstbier, and Canada's
>own Rollie Keith of Vancouver  -- both monitors for the OSCE on
>the ground in Kosovo -- have publicly stated that there were no
>international refugees over the last five months of the OSCE's
>presence in Kosovo and the number of internally displaced only
>amounted to a few thousands in the weeks leading up to the
>bombing.
>
>The OSCE mission demonstrated that diplomacy and negotiation
>might well have resolved the Kosovo problem without resorting to
>the use of force. It was the failure of the United states to accept
>any flexibility in its dealing with Belgrade in the weeks leading up
>to the war that spelled diplomatic failure.
>
>The adamant refusal of the USA to involve either the Russians or
>the United Nations in the negotiations. The refusal to allow any
>other intermediary to deal with Milosovic and finally the
>imposition of the Rambouillet ultimatum which was clearly
>designed to ensure that Yugoslavia had no choice but to refuse its
>
>insulting terms.
>
>It is now generally accepted by those who have seen the
>Rambouillet Agreement that no sovereign state could have agreed
>to its conditions. The insistence of allowing access to all of
>Yugoslavia by NATO forces and the demand that a referendum on
>autonomy be held within three years guaranteed a Serbian
>rejection.
>
>The Serbian Parliament did, however, on March 23, state a
>willingness to "examine the character and extent of an
>international presence in Kosovo immediately after the signing of
>an autonomy accord acceptable to all national communities in
>Kosovo, the local Serb minority included." The United States was
>not interested in pursuing this offer. NATO needed its war.
>NATO's formal commitment to resolve international disputes by
>peaceful means was thrown out the window.
>
>The Rambouillet document itself was not easily obtained from
>NATO sources. The chairman of the defence committee of the
>French National Assembly asked for a copy shortly after the
>bombing commenced but was not given a copy until a few days
>before the UN peace treaty was signed. I hope that members of
>this committee have a copy to look at and will be able to find out
>when and if Canada was informed of its conditions.
>
>4: NATO's campaign a total failure
>
>We have been asked to believe that the war in Kosovo was fought
>for human rights. Indeed the president of the Czech Republic
>received a standing ovation in this House of Commons when he
>stated that Kosovo was the first war fought for human values
>rather than territory. I suspect even President Havel would have
>second thoughts about that statement now that a large part of
>Yugoslav territory has in effect been handed over to the
>Albanians.
>
>The war allegedly to stop ethnic cleansing has not done so. Serbs,
>Gypsies, Jews, and Slav Muslims are being forced out of Kosovo
>under the eyes of 45,000 NATO troops. Murder and anarchy
>reigns supreme in Kosovo as the KLA and criminal elements have
>taken charge. The United Nations admits failure to control the
>situation and warns Serbs not to return.
>
>The war allegedly to restore stability to the Balkans has done the
>opposite. Yugoslavia's neighbors are in a state of turmoil.
>Montenegro is on the edge of civil war. Macedonia is now worried
>that Kosovo has shown the way for its own sizeable Albanian
>minority to demand self-determination. Albania has been
>encouraged to strive harder to fulfill its dream of greater Albania.
>Serbia itself has been ruined economically -- embittered and
>disillusioned, it feels betrayed and alienated from the western
>democracies.
>
>The illegal and unnecessary war has alienated the other great
>nuclear powers, Russia and China. These countries are now
>convinced that the west cannot be trusted. NATO expansion
>eastward is seen as an aggressive and hostile threat and will be
>answered by an increase in the nuclear arsenal of both nations.
>After Kosovo who can with any conviction convince them that
>NATO is purely a defensive alliance dedicated to peace and to
>upholding the principles of the United Nations?
>
>More seriously the NATO bombing has destroyed NATO's
>credibility. NATO stood for more than just a powerful military
>
>organization. It stood for peace; the rule of law, and democratic
>institutions. The bombing of Yugoslavia threw all of that out the
>window.
>
>No longer can NATO stand on the moral high ground. Its action in
>Yugoslavia revealed it to be an aggressive military machine
>prepared to ignore international law and intervene with deadly
>force in the internal affairs of any state with whose actions or
>behaviour it does not agree.
>
>5:conclusions
>
>There are those who believe that the long-standing principle of
>state sovereignty can be over ruled when human rights violations
>are taking place in a country. Until Kosovo the ground rules for
>such intervention called for security council authority before such
>action could be taken. Apologists for NATO argue that it was
>unlikely security council authority could have been obtained
>because of the veto power of China or Russia. So it would appear
>rather than even try to get consent NATO took upon itself the
>powers of the security council. I am not sure we should all be
>comfortable with this development.
>
>undoubtedly there may be times when such intervention is
>justified and immediately Rwanda comes to mind, but
>intervention for humanitarian reasons is a dangerous concept.
>Who is to decide when to take such action and under whose
>authority? Hitler intervened in Czechoslovakia because he claimed
>the human rights of the Sudeten Germans were being violated.
>Those who advocate a change in the current rules for intervention
>are free to do so but until the rules change should we not all obey
>the ones that still have legitimacy?
>
>NATO made a serious mistake in Kosovo. Its bombing campaign
>was not only an unmitigated disaster but it changed fundamentally
>the very nature and purposes of the alliance. Does article 1 of the
>NATO treaty still stand? Does NATO still undertake to settle any
>international disputes in which it may become involved by
>peaceful means? Do the NATO countries still undertake to refrain
>in their international relations from the threat or use of force in
>any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations?
>
>Kosovo should serve as a warning call that Canadian democracy
>needs a shot in the arm to wake it up to the realities that foreign
>policy is important-important because as happened one day last
>march Canadians can wake up and find they are at war. Canadian
>pilots were bombing Serbia. Yet there was no declaration of war.
>The Canadian parliament was not consulted. The majority of the
>Canadian people had no idea where Kosovo was -let alone
>understand why our aircraft were bombing cities in a fellow nation
>state that had been a staunch ally during two world wars.
>
>It was not only Yugoslav sovereignty that was violated by
>NATO's illegal action. Canadian sovereignty was also abused.
>Canada had become involved in a war without any member of the
>Canadian parliament or the Canadian people being consulted.the
>ultimate expression of a nation's sovereignty is the right to declare
>war. NATO abrogated this right.
>
>If it essential that we give up some of our sovereignty as the price
>we pay for membership in global institutions such as NATO then
>
>it is mandatory that such institutions follow their own rules,
>respect the rule of law, and operate within the generally accepted
>framework of the United Nations Charter. This NATO did not do.
>It is for this reason I would suggest your committee must ask
>some tough questions about the nature of Canada's involvement in
>the Kosovo war.
>
>James Bissett
>
>PEACEWORKERS
>721 Shrader St.
>San Francisco, CA 94117 USA
>Phone and fax 415-751-0302
>email PEACEWORKERS at igc.apc.org
>*********************************************
>Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the
>world.  Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has...Margaret Mead
>**********************************************

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