The following message reached me today from composer
and radio-artist Arsenije Jovanovic' (Rovinj, Croatia)

- rpd

_________
Bombing the Baby With the Bathwater

Veran Matic

Belgrade, March 30, 1999

The air strikes against Yugoslavia were supposed to stop the Milosevic
war machine.
The ultimate goal is ostensibly to support the people of Kosovo, as well
as those of Serbia, who are
equally victims of the Milosevic regime.

In fact the bombing has jeopardised the lives of 10.5 million people and
unleashed an
attack on the fledgling forces of democracy in Kosovo and Serbia. It has
undermined the work of
reformists in Montenegro and the Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina
and their efforts to promote
peace.

The bombing of Yugoslavia demonstrates the political impotence of US
President Bill Clinton and the Western alliance in averting a human
catastrophe in Kosovo. The protection of a population under threat is a
noble duty, but it requires a clear strategy and a coherent end game. As
the situation unfolds on the ground and in the air day by day, it is
becoming more apparent that there is no such strategy. Instead, NATO is
fulfilling the prophecy of its own doomsaying: each missile that hits
the ground  exacerbates the humanitarian disaster that NATO is supposed
to be preventing.

It's not easy to stop the war machine once its power has been unleashed.
But I urge the members of NATO to pause for a moment and consider the
consequences of what they  are doing. Analysts are already asking
whether the air strikes are still really about saving Kosovo Albanians.
Just how far are NATO members prepared to go? What comes next after the
"military" targets? What happens if the war spreads? All of these
terrifying questions must be answered, although I suspect that few will
want to live with the historical burden of having answered them.

The same questions crowded my mind as I sat in a Belgrade prison on the
first day of the NATO attack on my country. Whiling away the hours in
the cell I shared with a  murder suspect, I asked myself what the West's
aim was for "the morning after". The image of NATO taking its finger off
the trigger kept coming to mind. I've seen no indication so far that
there is a clear plan to follow up the Western military resolve.

My friends in the West keep asking me why there is no rebellion. Where
are the people who poured onto the streets every day for three months in
1996 to demand democracy and human rights? Zoran Zivkovic, the
opposition mayor of the city of Nis answered that  last week: "Twenty
minutes ago my city was bombed. The people who live here are the  same
people who voted for democracy in 1996, the same people who protested
for a  hundred days after the authorities tried to deny them their
victory in the elections. They  voted for the same democracy that exists
in Europe and the US. Today my city was  bombed by the democratic states
of the USA, Britain, France, Germany and
Canada! Is there any sense in this?"

Most of these people feel betrayed by the countries which were their
models. Only yesterday a missile landed in the yard of our correspondent
in Sombor. It didn't explode, fortunately, but many others have in many
other people's yards. These people are now compelled to take up arms and
join their sons who are already serving in the army. With the bombs
falling all around them nobody can persuade them - though some have
tried that this is only an attack on their government and not their
country.

It may seem cynical that I am writing this from the security of my
office in Belgrade - secure, that is, compared to Pristina, Djakovica,
Podujevo and other places in Kosovo. But I can't help asking one
question: How can F16s stop people in the street killing one another?
Only days before the NATO aggression began, Secretary-General Solana
suggested establishing a "Partnership for Democracy" in Serbia and the
other countries of the former Yugoslavia to promote stability throughout
the region. Then, in a rapid U-turn, he gave the order to attack
Yugoslavia.

With these attacks, it seems to me, the West has washed its hands of the
people, Albanians, Serbs and others, living in the region. Thus the sins
of the government have been visited on the people. Is this just? There
are many more factors in the choice of a nation's government than merely
the will of the voters on election day. If a stable, democratic rule is
to be established, and the rise of populists, demagogues and other
impostors avoided, the public must first of all be enlightened. In other
words there must be free media. NATO's bombs have blasted the
germinating seeds of democracy out of the soil of Kosovo, Serbia and
Montenegro and ensured that they will not sprout again for a very long
time. The pro-democratic forces in Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb
entity, have been jeopardised and with them the Dayton Peace Accords.
NATO's  intervention has also given the green light for a local war
against Montenegro's  pro-democracy president, Milo Djukanovic.

The free media in Serbia has for years opposed nationalism, hatred and
war. As a representative of those media, and as a man who has more than
once faced the consequences of my political beliefs, I call on President
Bill Clinton to put a stop to NATO's attack on my country. I call on him
to begin negotiations which aim at securing the right to a peaceful life
and democracy for all the people in Yugoslavia, regardless of their
ethnic background.

As a representative of the free media I know too well the need for
people on all sides of the conflict to have information. Those inside
the country  need to be aware of international debate as well as what is
happening throughout this country. The international public needs the
truth about what is happening here. But in place of an unfettered flow
of accurate information, all of us hear only war propaganda - Western
rhetoric included. Of course truth is always the first casualty in
wartime. Here and now, journalists are also being murdered.

Radio B92 is continuing its work as much as the circumstances of war
permit. It is continuing to broadcast news on the Internet at
http://www.b92.net, via satellite and   through a large number of radio
stations around the world which continue to carry its  programs out of
solidarity.

VERAN MATIC is editor-in-chief of Belgrade's banned Radio B92 and a
leading  peace activist. He has won many international awards for media
and democracy, the latest being last year's MTV Europe "Free Your Mind"
award. Early this year he was  named one of this year's hundred Global
Leaders for Tomorrow by the World  Economic Forum.

The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research
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Phone + 46 - 46 - 145909     Fax + 46 - 46 - 144512
http://www.transnational.org
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