From: "Dave Coull" <d.y.coull-AT-dundee.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 12:07:51 GMT
Subject: Re: NATO doesn't want diplomacy



>I saw a news report that was talking about how russia and 
>serbia had drawn up a peace plan a few days ago. All of 
>the specifics weren't worked out but essentialy the plan 
>said that NATO has to end air raids _if_ serb forces pull 
>out of kosovo, except for a section of northern kosovo 
>that serbia wants to retain because "it has great 
>historical signifigince to serbia and serbs"

I reckon it has always been Milosevic's intention
to agree to a partition of Kosovo. Obviously
he would like to keep as much of it as possible, 
but I reckon he has always accepted that 
in the end there would be partition. While
he would like the partition of Kosovo to leave
as much of it in Serb hands as possible, 
it sounds like what he has now agreed
with the Russians is his absolute minimum
fall-back position. The bit of northern Kosovo 
which Serbia wants to keep includes the battlefield 
where Prince Lazar and his Serb troops were 
defeated by the Turks in the Fourteenth Century 
(which is holy ground so far as the Serbian Orthodox 
Church is concerned) and the most important 
church buildings and monastery of the Serbian 
Orthodox Church which are near that battlefield. 
That is their absolute minimum fall-back position. 
The Serbian Orthodox Church would no more
agree to give that up than Orthodox Jews would
agree to Israel giving up Jerusalem. Milosevic
  _can't_  agree to give  _that_  up. He would 
be lynched if he did. It may be hard to believe 
that an ancient battleground and a monastery
are what this terrible war and the ethnic cleansing
are about, but remember some of the things 
that have been done for religion in the past. 
These Orthodox Church sites are major 
elements of Serb nationalism.  We 
are dealing with the irrational here.

Of course from an anarchist point of view, 
we are not in favour of any borders. But
the reality is that, until such time as we
have a world-wide libertarian socialist
revolution, there  _will_  be borders.
The KLA certainly wants there to be 
a border, although they not only want 
all of Kosovo but bits of Serbia proper, 
bits of Montenegro, bits of Macedonia,
etc.  -  they don't disagree with the Serbs 
about partition, they just disagree about
  _where_   to draw the line. So since 
the end result is not (at least in the immediate 
future) going to be an anarchist world 
without borders, the Russian/Serb proposal 
at least has the merit that it could end the war.

>NATO really just wants to have control over the region, 
>because they want to strengthen themselves as 
>an organization and establish that they are not 
>to be messed with. 

Exactly. NATO action is not helping the Kosovars,
it is making their plight worse. But what is at stake
now is "the credibility of NATO".


Dave