YUGOSLAVIA ESSAY

by Daniel Demeter
recipeforhate@yahoo.com

Over a month ago, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization started bombing the country of Yugoslavia. Why? Our media will tell you we were doing it for "humanitarianism". Humanitarianism, even though NATO has already killed as many civilians within Yugoslavia as had died in the country's civil war in Kosovo in the ten years before the bombing. How can a government (or group of governments, in this case) promote "humanitarianism" by killing more innocent people? And why does NATO only attempt to do so in Yugoslavia, when there are far worse violations of humanitarianism in Turkey, Sudan, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Indonesia, Rwanda, China, Russia, and many other countries? The NATO aggression in Yugoslavia is a violation of international law, and is extremely inhumane. The true history behind the conflict in Kosovo is very hidden from the average American during this time of war, and the Serbian people are made to look like the enemy, and their leader has been compared to Adolf Hitler. This is simply not the case, and unfortunately many are believing this propaganda.

This conflict has been going on since World War II. Before the war, Kosovo had a majority Serbian population. The Albanians were allied with the Nazis during World War II, and many Serbians were pushed out of Kosovo by the Albanians. Serbia was one of the few places in Europe that was never under complete control of the Nazis. After the war ended, Kosovo had a majority Albanian population, with a 25% Serbian minority. From the end of World War II to the beginning of the 90s, there were only small conflicts in Kosovo amongst the civilians. The main problems began with the separation of Yugoslavia. Five years ago, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia all claimed independence from Yugoslavia. War then broke out in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, over 200,000 people died, over one hundred times as many people as had died in Kosovo before the NATO bombing started. In Croatia, over 500,000 Serbians were forced out of their homes in Croatia to Serbia, and they still haven't been able to return, even though the later peace agreements said they would be allowed to. Where was NATO and it's "humanitarianism" then? Well, perhaps they didn't get involved because the Croatian Army which forced these 500,000 Serbian civilians from their homes was trained and armed by the United States. Some Albanians in Kosovo saw this as a chance for them to break away from Yugoslavia as well. Hence, the Kosovo Liberation Army was formed.

Over the last five years, the KLA has been expanding it's move for independence. In any country, they would have been viewed as terrorists, in fact, even the United States referred to them as a terrorist organization a couple years ago. They funded their military campaign by smuggling drugs through Kosovo into Western Europe. They were also funded by Islamic extremists. They killed Serbian civilians, they killed police officers, and they even killed many Albanian civilians who didn't agree with their cause. After a while, the Yugoslav government was forced to send down the army in an attempt to prevent the KLA from growing any larger. At one time the Yugoslav Army even agreed to pull out of Kosovo, and was attacked while doing so, so they remained. As in any civil war, many civilians were killed, many people were forced from their homes. The Yugoslav government had never sent orders for mass executions of civilians, but these did happen, on both sides of the conflict. One third of the civilians killed were Serbians killed by the KLA, even though they made up only one tenth of the population. The KLA has also been known to kill Albanians as well. During World War II, the Allies bombed the German city of Dresden, which had no strategic value whatsoever, and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. During the Vietnam War, the United States forces burned many villages to the ground, and killed many Vietnamese civilians suspected of helping the enemy. Civilians are never safe when there is war.

What brought about NATO bombing? And why was it directed towards Yugoslavia and not the KLA? It's quite simple, President Milosevic refused to sign a peace "agreement" which said that Kosovo could become independent after three years, and NATO "peacekeeping" troops would come into Yugoslavia to enforce this "agreement". This may seem like a reasonable request on NATO's part, but ask yourself if the United States would allow Chinese or Russian troops to maintain the peace if part of the U.S. rebelled. Our government simply wouldn't allow that. President Milosevic offered to allow Russian troops to maintain the peace, even United Nations and other non-NATO troops, but this wasn't good enough for NATO.

So, what has the bombing accomplished? Over a million people have fled from Kosovo, Serbians and Albanians both. The hatred between Serbian and Albanian people in Kosovo has escalated. Macedonia and Albania have been destabilized because of the refugees. Thousands of innocent people have been killed from our bombs. Hundreds of thousands of Serbians have lost their jobs because of factories which have been destroyed. We even managed to bomb the Chinese Embassy, a hospital, multiple television stations, a passenger train, and multiple civilian buses. International relations with China, Russia, and many other countries have been damaged. Milosevic has a higher approval rating than ever before, and the Yugoslav Army has more troops in Kosovo than ever before. Contrary to what NATO would like you to believe, President Milosevic was elected by the people of Yugoslavia, and he is not a communist dictator. In fact, he was very close to being thrown out of power before NATO started bombing.

Now what do we do? It's great to imagine all the things we could have done instead of bombing. For the amount of money being spent on this conflict, we could have given the citizens of Yugoslavia over $1,000 each. That is about the average annual income for the country. For that the citizens of Yugoslavia would have removed Milosevic from power. We could have spent that money to improve the situation in Yugoslavia, instead of turning this into a possible Balkan-wide conflict. Although I personally don't believe that NATO or the U.S. had any business getting involved in this isolated civil war in the first place, we could have done a lot of things with that money which would have made the situation better, but we made the conflict much, much worse. I believe it is time to get out of Yugoslavia and accept whatever Yugoslavia will agree to, which would probably mean a Russian peacekeeping force. Of course, NATO was formed to defeat the Soviet Union, so it will probably not agree to that. The fact of the matter is that NATO is too arrogant to admit defeat, and because of that Yugoslavia will continue to be destroyed until something (such as the United Nations) stops them or the entire population of Yugoslavia is dead.

In conclusion, this war is not about humanitarianism, it is about a group of nations which is trying to prove it's credibility and form a New World Order. It is about expansionism. It is about the United States government thinking it can police the entire world. It is about President Clinton wanting to be remembered for something other than Monica Lewinsky and being funded by the Chinese. This is a world of politics, and politicians aren't the ones dying in this war.

by Daniel Demeter
recipeforhate@yahoo.com