Blog

15 Dec 1999 20:07:09 +1000 From: FoE Sydney – Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@foesyd.org.au> Dear All, A copy of this letter is to be given to Russian foreign minister Ivanov in the next 24 hours. It is adressed to Ivanov and Sergeyev rather than Yeltsin himself, as those individuals are more likely to be in control and may be more reasonable. It is now open to organisations signatures. (Individuals, please send your own faxes direct to US defence Secy Cohen and Sergeyev and Clinton on +1-703-695-1149 (Cohen) +7-095-205-4330 (Sergeyev) +1-202-456-2461 (Clinton)) It’s been revised in accordance with comments from a number of people and the text is now frozen unless someone picks up some absolutely egregious error. Please do sign both this and if you have not already done so, the large ‘Bill and Boris’ sign on which now has 460+ organisations signed on to it. That letters text can be found...

Senate Vote Leaves the World a More Dangerous Place By David Krieger* President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation TFF adviser In failing to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the US Senate played partisan politics with an issue of utmost importance to the security of the US and the world. In observing the debates in the Senate on this issue, I was once again left with the impression that our Senators do not fully understand and do not particularly care that the rest of the world pays attention to what they say and do. Much of the world looks to the United States for leadership, but there is little to be found these days in the highest offices of our government. In 1995 I attended the Review and Extension Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It was and remains clearly in the interests of...

Social Situation in Serbia and Its Influence on Political Situation in the Country Keywords at a round table in Backa Palanka, Serbia held on December 4th and 5th 1999 – “NGOs and politics – how to get to changes?” I have the unpleasant obligation to make you acquainted with the social situation of the citizens in Serbia, but it is not such a difficult task. Firstly, the data are accessible from International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent, Red Cross of Serbia, UNHCR, OCHA, UNESCO and NGOs from our country. By crossing of data bases, we got the relevant facts. Secondly, we know the real state because we live in Serbia and we feel that burden. The special problem is that the situation is becoming worse every day and that the known data has to be changed with the new one. It only shows the quick fall of standard...

Pay Tribute to Gandhi Who Died 50 Years Ago As we approach the end of the 20th century, arguably one of the most violent, mankind is faced with one definite option Nonviolence or Non-existence. The 20th Century produced its share of luminaries who left behind their indelible impression on the sands of time some who will be revered and some who will be hated. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, The Mahatma, was one of the foremost personalities of the century. Born in the later half of the 19th century, 2nd October 1869, he strode across the 20th Century with one philosophy of life, Nonviolence. During the most violent period of the century while the rest of the civilized world was indulging in a mad orgy of violence the Mahatma led two nonviolent movements and achieved success. The equal rights movement for Asian immigrants in South Africa and the movement for freedom in...

Reflections on Kosovo Richard Falk Only the most dedicated spinmaster at the White House would have the audacity to claim victory as the outcome of the NATO war, especially at this stage. Milosevic’s “surrender” may spare the country further devastation and enable an eventual restoration of normalcy for Kosovo, but it hardly vindicates the means used to reach such goals. If anything, it transmits the dreadful message that the United States and its main European allies are willing to bomb a small country ferociously and indefinitely so long as we don’t have to accept casualties on our side. Not since Vietnam has the West fallen so deeply into a black hole with regard to a major foreign policy initiative as it did in Kosovo. In Vietnam, however, once Washington had acknowledged its policy failure and withdrawn, the country was left geographically, ethnically and psychologically intact. Kosovo continues to offer a...

Kosovski "BORCI ZA OSLOBODJENJE" se finasiraju iz organizovanog kriminala NATO-ovo besomucno bombardovanje Beograda i Pristine svetski su mediji proglasili za humanitarnu i mirotvornu misiju iako ono ustvari uveliko prevazilazi razmere obicnog krsenja medjunarodnog prava. Dok demoniziraju Slobodana Milosevica opisujuci ga kao nemilosrdnog diktatora, Oslobodilacku vojsku Kosova (OVK) velicaju kao neki samosvesni nacionalisticki pokret koji se bori za prava manjinskih Albanaca. Medjutim, prava istina je da se OVK izdrzava uz pomoc organizovanog kriminala koji potajno podrzavaju i Sjedinjene Americke Drzave i njeni saveznici. Uklapajuci se potpuno u matrice postavljene jos u bosanskom ratu, svetsko javno mnenje se i dalje brizljivo dovodi u zabludu. Balkanska trgovina drogom vredna vise milijardi dolara odigrala je glavnu ulogu u "finansiranju sukoba" na Kosovu a sve to je bilo uskladjeno sa ekonomskim, strateskim i vojnim ciljevima Zapada. Ove aktivnosti su sasvim dovoljno obradile i dokumentovale policije mnogih evropskih zemalja, o tome su objavljene brojne studije, a...

The War in Yugoslavia: A Reversible Tragedy By Richard E. Rubenstein* The essence of tragedy is blindness. The tragic figure believes that he is free. He thinks that his motives are unimpeachable, that his actions spontaneous, and that he can foresee the results of his behavior. But on all counts he is deceived. His activities really conform to a preordained pattern. His motives are hidden even from himself. And the consequences of this failure to perceive are not only bloody and chaotic, they embody the exact sort of bloody chaos that he was certain, in his hubris, he could avoid. Oedipus Rex, meet Bill Clinton. By taking sides in the violent struggle between Serbian unionists and Kosovar secessionists, the United States and its NATO allies have blinded themselves to patterns as old as fate, but far more avoidable. The Westerners claim to act purely out of humanitarian motives, in order...

The Future of the United Nations System: Potential for the Twenty-First Century All desiring to be challenged to think creatively about potential for coping with a growing array of global problems will find this volume to be stimulating reading. Penetrating analyses of past and present experience in a broad array of “laboratories” in the UN system are pointed toward illuminating future potential. Twenty-two scholars from all continents contribute twelve chapters thatencompass prevention of violence, creating economic and social structures that sustain human fulfillment, sharing and protecting the commons and peace education. The search for future potential, based on experience in these twelve "laboratories", leads to sixty-six recommendations for new institutions and programs on issues that include controlling weapons, humanitarian intervention, collaboration between UN peacekeepers and NGOs, human rights, economic policies, advancement of women, refugees, ecological security, communications, and peace education. These recommendations are brought together in a concluding chapter and...

By JANE PERLEZ The New York TimesJune 11, 1999 COLOGNE, Germany — Although the political future of Kosovo is left vague in the settlement that ended the war, American and NATO officials say they envision an international protectorate that will in theory be part of Yugoslavia but that may well, after a few years, become independent. As refugees return and society is rebuilt, a senior NATO official said Thursday, Kosovo will become virtually "walled off" from Yugoslavia. People living in Kosovo would not serve in the Yugoslav Army or pay taxes to Yugoslavia; a new police force and judiciary would have to be created without Serbian influence; the currency would probably be either the German mark or the American dollar, and trade would turn south and west toward Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro instead of north toward Serbia. None of these points are spelled out in the settlement that President Slobodan...

Capitalism is now by no means a fashionable word. Its reality is more wide and complex than bourgeoisie-proletariat relations, wage-labour and surplus value (Marx), and evidently more hardy than Lenin’s ‘decaying imperialism’. To name our global world system capitalistic (instead of the neoliberal euphemism ‘free market economy’) is to emphasise the tremendous concentration of power and control over all kinds of world resources by ‘the Big Three’: modern transnational corporations (TNCs), main banking groups (with the New York – London – Tokyo axis), and governmental elites of the core states (G – 7). This global oligarchy uses institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organization (WTO), North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and other US-controlled military unions as instruments of its ‘Realpolitik’. The deplorable destiny of opponent countries, (such as the USSR, Cuba, Panama, Serbia, North Korea and Iraq) and the financial difficulties (collapse?!) of non-instrumentalised international organisations...

Bombardovanje bebe prljavom vodom Beograd, 30. mart 1999. Namera vazdusnih udara protiv Jugoslavije je navodno bila da se zaustavi Miloseviceva ratna masina. Krajni je cilj naizgled bio da se pomogne narodu Kosova a tako i onima u Srbiji koji su takodje bili zrtve Milosevicevog rezima. Medjutim, bombardovanje je ugrozilo zivote ukupno 10,5 miliona ljudi i omogucilo nesputani napad na tek stasale demokratske snage kako na Kosovu tako i u Srbiji. Njime je potkopan rad reformista u Crnoj Gori i u srpskom entitetu u Bosni i Hercegovini i ugrozeni su njihovi napori da ostvare mir. Bombardovanjem Jugoslavije iskazana je sva politicka nemoc predsednika SAD, Bila Klintona, i zapadnih saveznika da sprece humanitarnu katastrofu na Kosovu. Zastititi populaciju kojoj se preti svakako jeste plemenita duznost, ali zahteva jasnu strategiju i unapred utvrdjenu viziju o zavrsetku. S razvojem situacije i na terenu i u vazduhu iz dana u dan postaje sve jasnije da...

Expansion of NATO, Conflicts in the Balkans and the Security of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia NATO enlargement – for what? The process of NATO enlargement has a great potential to influence significantly the security and sovereignty of Yugoslavia, and this trend will probably both continue and intensify in the future. The members of NATO and the Partnership for Peace program exercised a most significant influences upon the conflicts in Yugoslavia and in some of the neighboring countries; these conflicts, on the other hand, effect the security and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. However, it seems that to the extent to which NATO armament alone was not able to stop communism (without a parallel activity of the civic society) on the European continent, it is equally not capable (alone) of eliminating ethnic conflicts (that determine the sovereignty and security of not only Yugoslavia, but practically also of all other states in...