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>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Subject: [Fwd: FATAL FLAWS UNDERLYING NATO'S INTERVENTION IN YUGOSLAVIA -
>      FormerCommander and Head of Mission, UN forces in Yugoslavia]
> The new world order looks scary indeed.
>
> > United Services Insitution of India, New Delhi, April 6, 1999
> >
> > THE FATAL FLAWS UNDERLYING NATO'S INTERVENTION IN YUGOSLAVIA
> >
> >         By Lt Gen Satish Nambiar (Retd.)
> >
> > (First Force Commander and Head of Mission of the United
> > Nations Forces deployed in the former Yugoslavia 03 Mar 92 to 02
> > Mar 93. Former Deputy Chief of Staff, Indian Army. Currently,
> > Director of the United Services Insitution of India.)
> >
> > My year long experience as the Force Commander and Head of
> > Mission of the United Nations Forces deployed in the former
> > Yugoslavia has given me an understanding of the fatal flaws of
> > US/NATO policies in the troubled region. It was obvious to most
> > people following events in the Balkans since the beginning of the
> > decade, and particularly after the fighting that resulted in the
> > emergence of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the
> > former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, that Kosovo was a
> > 'powder keg' waiting to explode. The West appears to have learnt
> > all the wrong lessons from the previous wars and applied it to
> > Kosovo.
> >
> > (1) Portraying the Serbs as evil and everybody else as good was not
> > only counterproductive but also dishonest. According to my
> > experience all sides were guilty but only the Serbs would admit that
> > they were no angels while the others would insist that they were.
> > With 28,000 forces under me and with constant contacts with
> > UNHCR and the International Red Cross officials, we did not
> > witness any genocide beyond killings and massacres on all sides that
> > are typical of such conflict conditions. I believe none of my
> > successors and their forces saw anything on the scale claimed by the
> > media.
> >
> > (2) It was obvious to me that if Slovenians, Croatians and Bosniaks
> > had the right to secede from Yugoslavia, then the Serbs of Croatia
> > and Bosnia had an equal right to secede. The experience of
> > partitions in Ireland and India has not be pleasant but in the
> > Yugoslavia case, the state had already been taken apart anyway. It
> > made little sense to me that if multi-ethnic Yugoslavia was not
> > tenable that multi-ethnic Bosnia could be made tenable. The former
> > internal boundaries of Yugoslavia which had no validity under
> > international law should have been redrawn when it was taken apart
> > by the West, just as it was in the case of Ireland in 1921 and Punjab
> > and Bengal in India in 1947. Failure to acknowledge this has led to
> > the problem of Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia.
> >
> > (3) It is ironic that the Dayton Agreement on Bosnia was not
> > fundamentally different from the Lisbon Plan drawn up by
> > Portuguese Foreign Minister Cuteliero and British representative
> > Lord Carrington to which all three sides had agreed before any
> > killings had taken place, or even the Vance-Owen Plan which
> > Karadzic was willing to sign. One of the main problems was that
> > there was an unwillingness on the part of the American
> > administration to concede that Serbs had legitimate grievances and
> > rights. I recall State Department official George Kenny turning up
> > like all other American officials, spewing condemnations of the
> > Serbs for aggression and genocide. I offered to give him an escort
> > and to go see for himself that none of what he proclaimed was true.
> > He accepted my offer and thereafter he made a radical turnaround.
> > Other Americans continued to see and hear what they wanted to
> > see and hear from one side, while ignoring the other side. Such
> > behaviour does not produce peace but more conflict.
> >
> > (4) I felt that Yugoslavia was a media-generated tragedy. The
> > Western media sees international crises in black and white,
> > sensationalizing incidents for public consumption. From what I can
> > see now, all Serbs have been driven out of Croatia and the Muslim-
> > Croat Federation, I believe almost 850,000 of them. And yet the
> > focus is on 500,000 Albanians (at last count) who have been driven
> > out of Kosovo. Western policies have led to an ethnically pure
> > Greater Croatia, and an ethnically pure Muslim statelet in Bosnia.
> > Therefore, why not an ethnically pure Serbia? Failure to address
> > these double standards has led to the current one.
> >
> > As I watched the ugly tragedy unfold in the case of Kosovo while
> > visiting the US in early to mid March 1999, I could see the same
> > pattern emerging. In my experience with similar situations in India
> > in such places as Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, Nagaland, and
> > elsewhere, it is the essential strategy of those ethnic groups who
> > wish to secede to provoke the state authorities. Killings of
> > policemen is usually a standard operating procedure by terrorists
> > since that usually invites overwhelming state retaliation, just as I am
> > sure it does in the United States.
> >
> > I do not believe the Belgrade government had prior intention of
> > driving out all Albanians from Kosovo. It may have decided to
> > implement Washington's own "Krajina Plan" only if NATO
> > bombed, or these expulsions could be spontaneous acts of revenge
> > and retaliation by Serb forces in the field because of the bombing.
> > The OSCE Monitors were not doing too badly, and the Yugoslav
> > Government had, after all, indicated its willings to abide by nearly
> > all the provisions of the Rambouillet "Agreement" on aspects like
> > cease-fire, greater autonomy to the 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 stationing NATO
> > forces on the soil of Yugoslavia. This is precisely what India would
> > have done under the same circumstances. It was the West that
> > proceeded to escalate the situation into the current senseless
> > bombing campaign that smacks more of hurt egos, and revenge and
> > retaliation. NATO's massive bombing intended to terrorize Serbia
> > into submission appears no differrent from the morality of actions
> > of Serb forces in Kosovo. Ultimatums were issued to Yugoslavia
> > that unless the terms of an agreement drawn up at Rambouillet
> > were signed, NATO would undertake bombing. Ultimatums do not
> > constitute diplomacy. They are acts of war. The Albanians of
> > Kosovo who want independence, were coaxed and cajoled into
> > putting their signatures to a document motivated with the hope of
> > NATO bombing of Serbs and independence later. With this
> > signature, NATO assumed all the legal and moral authority to
> > undertake military operations against a country that had, at worst,
> > been harsh on its own people. On 24th 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 against a people who were at the
> > forefront of the fight against Nazi Germany and other fascist forces
> > during World War Two. I consider these current actions
> > unbecoming of great powers.
> >
> > It is appropriate to touch on the humanitarian dimension for it is the
> > innocent who are being subjected to displacement, pain and misery.
> > Unfortunately, this is the tragic and inevitable outcome of all such
> > situations of civil war, insurgencies, rebel movements, and terrorist
> > activity. History is replete with examples of such suffering; whether
> > it be the American Civil War, Northern Ireland, the Basque
> > movement in Spain, Chechnya, Angola, Cambodia, and so many
> > other cases; the indiscriminate bombing of civilian centres during
> > World War Two; Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Vietnam. The list is
> > endless. I feel that this tragedy could have been prevented if
> > NATO's ego and credibility had not been given the highest priority
> > instead of the genuine grievances of Serbs in addition to Albanians.
> >
> > Notwithstanding all that one hears and sees on CNN and 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 Yugoslav authorities alone. The
> > responsibility rests mainly at NATO's doors. In fact, if I am to go
> > by my own experience as the First Force Commander and Head of
> > Mission of the United Nations forces in the former Yugoslavia,
> > from March 1992 to March 1993, handling operations in Croatia,
> > Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia, I would say that reports put
> > out in the electronic media are largely responsible for provoking
> > this tragedy.
> >
> > Where does all this leave the international community which for the
> > record does not comprise of the US, the West and its newfound
> > Muslim allies ? The portents for the future, at least in the short
> > term, are bleak indeed. The United Nations has been made totally
> > redundant, ineffective, and impotent. The Western world, led by the
> > USA, 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 finally, secessionist
> > movements, which often start with terrorist activity, will get greater
> > encouragement. One can only hope that good sense will prevail,
> > hopefully sooner rather than later.
> >
> > Lt General Satish Nambiar
> > Director, USI, New Delhi
> > 6 April 1999